UMichigan study: EVs are cleaner than ICEs over average vehicle life
Mood
supportive
Sentiment
positive
Category
research
Key topics
Electric Vehicles
Environmental Impact
Sustainability
A University of Michigan study found that EVs are cleaner than ICEs over their average lifespan, sparking discussion on the broader environmental benefits and potential drawbacks of widespread EV adoption.
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Aug 28, 2025 at 4:50 AM EDT
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When I was in Shenzhen in 2024, I think around 80% of cars are EVs (maybe 90% now?). The difference in livability is so drastic compared to when I was there in 2019.
The air quality, heat, noise are all so much better that going to any city outside of China seems like going backwards in time. It makes a huge difference in Asian cities due to the density. The difference is probably less drastic in a city like San Francisco where the ocean breeze cleans the air more frequently and it's not hot. Maybe also not as drastic in highly sparse American neighborhoods.
(I'd also guess that China had pretty lax emissions regulations in prior decades, making their "before" considerably worse.)
Not just that, they can mandate large changes.
If you try to do that in a western country, you'll have fossil fuel lobbyists, car manufacturers and a whole range of other vested interests putting pressure on the country's government not to make that change.
So if they can't afford to switch from ICE to EV mandate, they still have options to get around. Though I think if a person had enough money to buy an ICE car, they should have enough to switch to an EV in China.
Democracies might be slow and misguided but in the long term, they are the best shot to correct previous mistakes.
But who knows. Chinese leadership was very smart in the past, maybe thell find a new way.
With good reason too: Chinese cities had terrible air quality 10 or 15 years ago.
I've been riding my bike to work along the same road for 15 years. I used to have to hold my breath along some sections of my ride. Now the air in the city is almost as fresh as in the countryside.
What _does_ matter is the huge reduction in the much more dangerous brake dust, as electric vehicles convert the kinetic energy back to the battery charge via generation instead of wasting it via friction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44666157
This comment says EVs generate 10-15% more tire dust which is a significant ocean pollutant.
Does anyone know the impact on human health?
In general tire dust generated seems related to tire compound (softer tires = more dust) and weight of vehicle. Although EVs are heavier, they also tend to use harder tires for more efficiency, so it would not surprise me if it’s a wash by equivalent tires to whatever is used in normal combustion cars.
Seems to me the focus for tire dust should be focused on the truly heavy vehicles: how much do 18 wheelers generate, given they’re typically weighing 10-40x what a regular car weighs.
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