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In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

(e360.yale.edu)
472 points Brajeshwar | 2 comments | 10 Dec 25 15:25 UTC | HN request time: 1.918s | source
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lkbm ◴[10 Dec 25 15:34 UTC] No.46218856[source]▶
> Particulates issued from tailpipes can aggravate asthma and heart disease and increase the risk of lung cancer and heart attack. Globally, they are a leading risk factor for premature death.

Minor nitpick, but tailpipes aren't the primary source of emissions. The study is about PM2.5[0]. which will chiefly be tires and brake pads. Modern gasoline engines are relatively clean, outside of CO2, though diesel engines spit out a bunch of bad stuff.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s44407-025-00037-2

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bryanlarsen ◴[10 Dec 25 16:36 UTC] No.46219865[source]▶
It's true that brake dust is the primary PM2.5 emission from vehicles in an urban environment. However the PM2.5 component from tail pipes are still very significant, higher than the contribution from tires.

The order is:

1. brake dust 2. road dust 3. engine emissions 4. tire dust

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00456...

https://electrek.co/2025/05/27/another-way-electric-cars-cle...

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somewhereoutth ◴[10 Dec 25 16:58 UTC] No.46220172[source]▶
and would it be true to say that regenerative braking on electric cars reduces significantly this dust?
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thmsths ◴[10 Dec 25 17:09 UTC] No.46220338[source]▶
I recall a discussion on HN explaining that while true, this might be offset by the higher average weight of EVs, leading to more dust from the tires and the road. Again, no easy solution unfortunately, just trade offs.
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iambateman ◴[10 Dec 25 17:15 UTC] No.46220426[source]▶
If that were true of tires, you would expect an EV’s tires to get substantially less range before wearing out…which I don’t believe is the case.
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pif ◴[10 Dec 25 17:28 UTC] No.46220604[source]▶
It is actually the case!

That's why your choice of tires on online sites gets so smaller as soon as you tuck the "electric/hybrid vehicle" case!

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t_tsonev ◴[10 Dec 25 18:13 UTC] No.46221234[source]▶
Specialized EV tires are also optimized for drag and noise, wear is just a factor. Anecdotally speaking I'm at over 80k km on a set of EV tires with at least 20k more to go. The issue has more to do with driving style and engine power than any other factors.
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1. l1tany11 ◴[10 Dec 25 19:19 UTC] No.46222236[source]▶
100%. Tire technology is a real thing. Tires have advanced a ton in the last 10 years. But driving style is the biggest thing. Some people can only get 10k miles out of a set of tires, while others with the same car and tires get over 40k.

But they do care about tire wear a lot, they know the acceptable wear life for the class. A couple years ago I bought a set of Pirelli tires that were ~50% off because they were an older version; hoping I’d get some benefit. Unfortunately they had half the life and were a bit worse in every way than the newer tires I had before and after.

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2. bob1029 ◴[11 Dec 25 10:31 UTC] No.46229730[source]▶
Some tires are going to wear fast no matter what. I had some Pirelli PZero summer tires that I could never get more than 15k out of regardless of how I drove. The tire compound was very soft and sticky.

If you have something like really high performance tires, I recommend just using them. The grip is always there and you are always paying for it. As long as you aren't losing traction constantly, the difference is negligible in my experience.