However, the use of electric vehicles is advocated by the authorities to improve air quality.
This is THE solution advocated for combating air pollution, particularly in large cities: the use of electric vehicles. To the point that the government has set up a aide in order to finance the purchase of an electric vehicle, more expensive than a thermal vehicle, and which can reach 5,000 euros.
However, a Ademe report nuance the advantages of electricity on air quality. The study, published at the end of April, shows the limits of the use of electricity in the fight once morest air pollution. Although electric vehicles do not emit nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide or volatile organic compounds, unlike thermal vehicles, they do however emit a large quantity of fine particles.
The impact of tire friction on the road
Why ? Because these electric vehicles are heavier than thermal vehicles, due to the weight of the batteries. Because of this greater weight, the tires fitted on these vehicles are wider. When the vehicle is in motion, the road friction of these wider tires emits more fine particles than the narrower tires, due to larger contact area.
However, writes Ademe, “the emissions of particles outside the exhaust from the abrasion of the brakes, tires and roads become preponderant compared to the emissions from the exhaust of gasoline and diesel vehicles equipped with a particulate filter, to the point of representing more than half of the particles generated by road traffic in Europe”, according to the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission.
The pollution emitted outside the exhaust is predominant
A trend that will even increase in the future “if no regulations on brake or tire particle emissions are put in place”, continues Ademe. In detail, with regenerative braking, electric vehicles emit fewer particles from the braking system than vehicles with internal combustion engines (3% of fine particles outside the exhaust emitted by an electric vehicle come from braking and 25% in the case of a thermal vehicle).
Regarding emissions due to contact between the tires and the road, they represent 61% of fine particles excluding the exhaust for an electric vehicle, compared to 47% for a thermal vehicle. Finally, those from resuspension represent 36% of fine particles excluding exhaust for an electric vehicle, compared to 28% for a thermal vehicle.
A call not to bet everything on electricity
Observations that prompt Ademe to write that “recent studies do not show a significant difference in total particle emissions between long-range electric vehicles and new current thermal vehicles, which emit almost no more particles at ‘exhaust’, thanks to particulate filters.
On the strength of these observations, the Ademe invites us not to bet everything on electric vehicles to reduce air pollution, but to associate “other practices (…) such as the reduction of vehicles, the development of eco-driving and active modes…”.
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