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by superqwert 2919 days ago
About half of pollutants come from brakes and tyres - http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JR...

Bringing in electric buses will not decrease these pollutants. They will also not remove enough of the other half of the pollutants. The change needs to be far wider and harsher.

3 comments

well, the regenerative braking will reduce brake dust a bit. Certainly not completely, but its a start.
Anecdotally, regenerative braking on an EV reduces brake pad wear by somewhere around 50-80%. It's rare to have to replace brake pads in an EV, or even to see them significantly worn.

On urban buses, which are constantly starting and stopping, I imagine it could be even more.

If EV companies were confident in their engineering, one could design a system with entirely electric braking.

No brake pads required. Simply dump the energy into the battery (or a big heater for the excess when the battery is full or too cold to charge)

Obviously, you can't have a failure in the electrical or control system or you can't brake anymore, so that part will have to be designed with much more redundancy than it is in todays vehicles.

how will they reduce braking dust? I thought they were primarily only going to use the brake power for energy.
> how will they reduce braking dust?

"In urban environments, brake wear can contribute up to 55 % by mass to total non-exhaust traffic-related PM10 emissions" [1]. (The "abrasion processes which result in direct particulate matter (PM) emission are tyre, brake, clutch and road surface wear, with other potential sources being engine wear, abrasion of wheel bearings and corrosion of other vehicle components, street furniture and crash barriers.")

When a vehicle regeneratively brakes, the brakes aren't engaged. Instead, the transmission connects to a generator, which resists the vehicle's motion as it converts kinetic energy into electricity.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4315878/

Braking dust comes from brake pads rubbing against brake disks. Electric vehicles slow down by running the motor in reverse and recharging the battery, therefore don't use the brake pads and brake disks as much, especially at higher speeds where the brake dust problem is the worst.
Using the engine for braking means the physical brake will not be used, so there will be no dust in that case.
Regenerative braking is using the electric motor as a generator for a time during braking. So you're not dealing with pads and rotors wearing down, at least not as much.
You need your braking pads less when you convert the kinetic energy in electricity.
Thanks for that, all
What do you mean "They will also not remove enough of the other half of the pollutants." Surely they will remove 100% of those, plus most of the brake dust.

It's true that there will be an increase in road / tyre dust due to the extra weight of batteries, but I'd be very surprised if this was as much as was saved elsewhere.

I think he's talking about all the other vehicles on the roads other than buses.
s/About half of pollutants/About half of PM10/