One elephant in the room is the fact that electric vehicles can wear out tyres up to 50% faster than their conventional counterparts, due to being heavier.
There is a very long list of problems with cars that get worse with weight. Yet, people insist on driving land-blimps.
It increases every single consumable in the car. Fuel, brakes, tyres, filters, oil, fluids, bearings, driveshafts, suspension… everything. It also puts additional wear on the roads they drive on, with an exponential relationship.
It also makes them far more dangerous. Worse cornering and braking, and an exponentially greater impact force when they hit something.
If only there was a way to move goods across a country that used steel wheels and renewable energy
I’m guessing you mean an army of people in wheelchairs?
Even wheelchairs have tyres - so first things first, ban all wheelchairs.
You have seen the state of rail cargo in the US recently? How many more cases of East Palestine do you need?
That’s kinda their point. We have at least a partial solution, but the infrastructure is so under-maintained that it isn’t up to the task. If we update the infrastructure, it should be safer than using semis, and produce less pollution.
Is natural rubber a plastic?
Tires aren’t made exclusively of natural rubber, they contain synthetic polymers among other things.
Additionally, by vulcanizing the rubber, three-dimensional chemical bonds resembling those found in synthetic plastics are created to harden the material.
So the end product is not really “natural” or “rubber” anymore.
What’s the alternative? Basically all wheels use vulcanized treads.
The heavier the vehicle the more wear on the tires, and that works the other way around too. Bicycles are so lightweight that they don’t shed rubber much faster tennis shoes.
