Car Tires Produce Vastly More Particle Pollution than Exhausts, Tests Show
According to the Guardian, almost 2,000 times more particle pollution is produced by tire wear than is pumped out of the exhausts of modern cars.
“Tires are rapidly eclipsing the tailpipe as a major source of emissions from vehicles,” said Nick Molden, at Emissions Analytics, the leading independent emissions testing company that did the research.
The tests of tire wear were done on 14 different brands using a Mercedes C-Class driven normally on the road, with some tested over their full lifetime. High-precision scales measured the weight lost by the tires and a sampling system that collects particles behind the tires while driving assessed the mass, number and size of particles, down to 6nm. The real-world exhaust emissions were measured across four petrol SUVs, the most popular new cars today, using models from 2019 and 2020. Used tires produced 36 milligrams of particles each kilometre, 1,850 times higher than the 0.02 mg/km average from the exhausts. A very aggressive – though legal – driving style sent particle emissions soaring, to 5,760 mg/km.