It is a study published in 2022, but which provokes numerous reactions almost two years after its publication. According to several articles and publications on social networks, it has been proven that electric cars pollute “1,850 times more” than their gasoline counterparts.
Among the most shared posts is an article titled “Electric cars pollute 1,850 times more than fuel-powered vehicles, study finds,” published March 8 on the conservative, anti-abortion Canadian site LifeSite.
The article explains in particular that the study in question “revealed that during a 1,000 mile trip, electric vehicles release 1,850 times more pollutants into the environment than gasoline vehicles, due to the heavier weight heavy that eats the tires.
In the same vein, an article from New York Post named “Electric Vehicles Emit More Toxic Emissions and Are Worse for the Environment Than Gasoline Cars, Study Finds,” based on the same study, has also been shared many times online.
FAKE OFF
The study does not conclude that electric cars “pollute 1,850 times more” than gasoline vehicles. And for good reason, it does not compare the emissions of the two types of vehicles. The purpose of this study is to compare particle emissions linked to exhaust with particle emissions linked to tire wear.
One of the conclusions is that in a “normal” driving situation, “the latter are in reality around 1,850 times higher than the former”.
The study in question, the results of which were published in May 2022 in an article called “Gain traction, lose tread. Pollution from tire wear is now 1,850 times worse than tailpipe emissions,” was carried out by Emissions Analytics, a UK-based company specializing in vehicle emissions testing. In fact, the study is not a scientific study in the sense that it was not published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Fine particles are not the only emissions
If the study compares the fine particles emitted by exhaust pipes, reduced by “the filtration efficiency of the latest particle filters”, to those of tires, which increase with the “mass and torque” of the vehicle, it Nevertheless, particles are not the only emissions from the exhaust pipes of gasoline vehicles. In fact, the study is not interested in CO2 emissions, for example.
This is particularly what the spokesperson for Emissions Analytics developed, contacted by the media Lead Stories: “It is false to infer that we are saying that nothing else comes out of the exhaust. There's a lot of CO2, and that's why electric vehicles are a very good way to reduce CO2 (but) they have a problem with particulate emissions from tires. »