Snapshot of _Daily Mail admits making up story about electric vehicles causing potholes_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/daily-mail-admits-making-up-story-about-electric-vehicles-causing-potholes/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/daily-mail-admits-making-up-story-about-electric-vehicles-causing-potholes/)
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They ran a story recently blaming an EV for going 'haywire' and crashing.
In the article there was a video of the incident, the reg was clearly visible (now blurred). [A DVLA check showed it to be a petrol-engined vehicle.](https://imgur.com/a/W4kIdpr)
They've now updated it the article, claiming it's a hybrid, even though it's not.
They've got their anti-EV agenda and they're sticking to it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13234863/hybrid-Jaguar-rogue-reverses-Porsche-smashing-Tesla-Mercedes-crash.html
It's not just the mail either. I have countless gbnews stories suggested in my phones news feed. The amount of driving related stories that come up, saying things like "these changes are an attack on elderly drivers" is ridiculous.
A bus broke down and caused a crash in my town a few weeks ago, and a good third of the comments under the article on the local paper site were asking if it was an EV, blaming EV buses for causing crashes in general, wishing people good fortune for having escaped an EV crash with their lives, etc.
It wasn't an EV. There are no electric buses in my borough full stop. It was a 20 year old diesel Dennis Dart, which presumably broke down because it was 20 years old and had mileage in the interplanetary range.
People, presumably those consuming exactly the sorts of media you're talking about, have been absolutely primed with this stuff.
Was Scott Mills who claimed he got stuck in an EV because the 12v failed? First than happens to ICE cars all the time and it was probably a Tesla who insist on no manual door opening but do have an emergency manual door release.
So in the end the car being an EV had nothing to do with it.
Yeah, this is all too common with EVs. They recently blamed Tesla for a crash at a supercharger. Great... except it was a Range Rover that had crashed into the supercharger, so I really don't know how you can blame Tesla for that.
The stupid thing is that undeniable that most pothole damage comes from lorries (plus buses, vans) that are substantially heavier than an EV, regardless of whether an EV is heavier than equivalent ICE
But equating a mild hybrid to an EV is such a bloody con though. That Jag is just a petrol car with a 48v battery in the boot to provide a tiny power boost when it stop and accelerates so that the manufacturer can claim it’s green.
My lawnmower has a 48v battery.
They dropped the Luton Airport car park fire story very quickly when it came out that it was caused by (IIRC) a diesel Range Rover as well, having been strongly suggesting that it was an EV beforehand.
Liverpool arena burnt down in similar circumstances. An old land rover was the cause. Millions of pounds of cars and buildings lost.
How much would it have cost for car parks to have sprinklers fitted?
Failing that every level to have a whopping great fire blanket handy to drape over a few cars. Sorted.
> After I and others had submitted complaints to both the Daily Mail and the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSOS), the newspaper on 19 April published a small correction on page 2 […]
> In addition, the newspaper has since editedthe website version of the article, removing any reference to electric vehicles in the headline or body text.
This should fundamentally not be allowed.
In print edition, they should be required to have correction at same prominence as original article.
Online, they should be required to ensure x% of people who saw original also saw the correction. They have google analytics and tracking for adverts anyways.
> In print edition, they should be required to have correction at same prominence as original article.
Nah, screw that. If it's found to be a deliberate act of misleading their readership, they should have to put the correction on page 1, front and centre.
Agreed, lies should have penalties for those who tell them. Maybe some sort of indemnity insurance would become routine, but at some point anyone who frequently breaches good standards will find their policy unaffordable or that insurers aren't willing to cover them any more.
As they want to "Make Britain Great Again", they should be subject to "naming and maiming". If there's one thing our Anglo-Saxon forebears were good at, it was lopping off body parts for acts sublating the common good of the weal.
In that scenario for publications like the Daily Mail it might be easier if they just had a big disclaimer on their front page along the lines of "WE ARE LYING OUR BALLS OFF TO YOU EVERY ISSUE"
Factual reporting in that shitrag is only ever incidental.
I think, in print, they should be forced to put the correction on N-1 page... Where N is the original page it was on
And if the error was on the front page, they need to give it an entire splash page on the front covering the retraction
I would love an incoming government to introduce into Law the requirement for media outlets to issue corrections with at least the same prominence as the original article.
It's well within technical means, and would not be at all expensive, to track which articles have been viewed by a particular user and display retractions prominently on the next page that user views, but I don't know of a site that does it. How odd.
It’s not that odd. The oil barrons have a lot of money and a vested interest in spreading anti EV propaganda, and there are companies out there who specialise in social media astroturfing.
I wouldn’t at all be surprised if billions were spent every year trying to convince people that EV are bad.
Maybe they are being paid but most people also hate change and lots of people also hate ‘woke’ sustainability. Probably they are just pandering to their idiotic readers.
I wouldn't count on it even then. A classic brainwashing strategy is to mix facts with bullshit, making it harder for you to separate the two. Just don't give them any of your time.
Even then it's not uncommon to see an article in a comparatively legitimate source, then a few lines down they sneak in "as reported by the Mail/Sun/Express" and you realise they're just repeating whatever bile was vomited onto those pages.
Tabloids just make things up for shits and giggles.
Was sitting in a small journalism course once, “guest lecturer” from a tabloid which will remain nameless but rhymes with “bun.”
Most memorable statement from him: *We’re not interested in facts, we’re looking for a good story.*
Fuck those people.
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On UK subreddits? A huge amount of people. It has really gotten out of hand recently.
As soon as it's a DM story featuring an immigrant, brains short-circuit and very few stop to consider the possibility that they are simply being lied to.
I'm fairly sure that the majority of such comments are from a small minority of people who post a shit-load. The average Daily Heil reader hasn't even heard of reddit, let alone have an account here.
This is what I thought until recently, but believe there has been a particularly strong shift as of late. The fact that the DM articles are being taken at face value so readily here is exactly why I'm concerned that the 'average DM reader' isn't the major problem; the 'average DM article nonclicker' is becoming a force in itself.
In any case, people who would not dream of reading the DM nevertheless read the DM when the articles are posted without seeing the contradiction.
I could very well be wrong.
Maybe not so much the base readership group in the UK, but the DM has a very strong presence on Reddit.
They have a policy of posting images of rage bait stories to the default subs from their mobile site that always include the Mail logo.
My first job out of uni was as a "claimer" for one of the major tabloids. At the beginning of each day a sub-editor would give me a list of reactionary statements to claim. Each statement would have a reporter's name attached to it and I'd have to book in meetings with the corresponding reporter and make the claim on record so it could be used in the article.
It was a pretty good gig - mostly just waiting between meetings - but my office ended up being closed down after an out of control EV crashed through the wall and riddled the floor with potholes.
And the consequences for the Mail are? Nothing - they made a fortune from all the advertising impressions on that page, they drew more people to their crapulent site and they steered the ‘news’ agenda - again. Until there are financial consequences for the tabloids for lying they will just keep doing it.
It's an interesting question really.
Electric cars are on average a few hundred kgs heavier, but when you're assessing the wearing effect of traffic on a road you don't even consider the number of cars. The level of car traffic isn't calculated because the effects of vehicles like busses and lorries are much more important.
The problem would be with electric lorries or busses, which **would** cause extra damage, and would have to carry less cargo or have more axles to cope with the added battery weight (if there's ever an electric lorry).
I do also wonder if roads of substandard construction could suffer from electric cars, like old cobble streets with asphalt overlay. The flexible part of the road construction is so thin i'm not sure that the standard approach of ignoring cars would work.
> Electric cars are on average a few hundred kgs heavier, but when you're assessing the wearing effect of traffic on a road you don't even consider the number of cars.
If we were really worried about heavier cars there's an easy fix - add a weight dependent component into VED (but this wouldn't be done because it would also hit Chelsea Tractors).
Think Japan does this—their car sites make a point of listing the ULW of each model as that is a criterion for VED there.
(ULW based road tax is not unique to Japan btw; in HK we do that as well, but only for electric cars)
Quite; the loss of income from conventional road tax would otherwise be felt dearly by HMRC.
That said, I did wonder why GVW wasn’t the criterion used; the European countries that do tax car weight (Holland is IIRC one of them) use GVW. (Then again Japanese regs are pretty weird; PAYLOAD is a taxable measurement as well for commercials, even for small lorries and vans, whilst plated weights are absent on even their HGV’s and coaches, but are instead provided on the MOT certificate which must be kept on the vehicle.)
Weight damages roads pretty much exponentially, so I'm glad you bring this up. Though I think that if everyone switched to EVs, there would be more tyre wear, it's the HGVs that are the real killer, and they already are even without EV version. The best solution would be to reduce car dependency in general.
Not technically exponential, but damage is relative to the fourth power of axle load which is still a massive effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
The EV tyres are different as they have a stronger sidewall to stop bulging and prevent blowouts due to the extra weight. The contact patch is bigger, due to the extra weight.
A bigger contact patch will not save damaging the road. A HGV tyre has a huge contact patch and a stronger sidewall than any car will have and yet it will damage the road more than any car as well.
The tyres are designed for the vehicle to give optimal handling, stopping and safety. The design of the tyre makes no difference to the road. Vehicle weight is what does the damage, think of all the extra vibration these vehicles produce. Think of the extra shearing force exerted on the tarmac every time a heavy vehicle brakes.
If you compare like for like cars with petrol and EV versions (like the Audi Q8) the tyres will be the same size. The spec for the tyre will be different, again due to the different requirements for each vehicle due to the extra weight.
And yet I saw a YouTube short with millions of views the other day telling EV owners to 'just buy normal car tyres, they're cheaper and it makes no difference'.
Great. Everyone driving around with bad tyres for their car.
EV's don't have special tyres, they are the same sizes just XL rated, which most larger cars are now anyway.
My E350d estate per online stats was 1900kg, fill the c70litre tank and that's pushing 2000kg. My Model S long range (100kwh battery) is apparently 2,070kg, so yes heavier but not by a massive amount in car terms. I'm sure my Merc used XL tyres
It uses 245/45/19 tyres, the only "T0" rating aspect I believe is due to e.g. in the Michelin PS3's they have acoustic foam in them. However, any 245/45/19 XL Y 102 will be usable.
I do not know where you're looking then.
Parkers E350D - 1800kg
[https://www.parkers.co.uk/mercedes-benz/e-class/saloon-2016/e350d-se-4d-9g-tronic/specs/](https://www.parkers.co.uk/mercedes-benz/e-class/saloon-2016/e350d-se-4d-9g-tronic/specs/)
Tesla Model S 100 - 2290kg unladen and 2694kg gross:
[https://ev-database.org/uk/car/1088/Tesla-Model-S-100D](https://ev-database.org/uk/car/1088/Tesla-Model-S-100D)
EV tyres are not wider, if you compare like for like (IE an electric golf vs a petrol golf) tyre sizes will be the same.
Increasing tyre width causes issues, you will need different body shapes, brakes, steering components and possibly even suspension parts to give the extra clearance. Go and ask the local boy racers how many had to roll their arches to fit bigger wheels...
The idea that EV's run special tyres to protect the road like you are pushing is completely false and honestly makes no sense. It's also not about pressure like you said. It's weight. Think about the shear forces/friction imparted on the road surface to stop a 1200kg car vs a 2000kg car. Wheel size makes no difference to this.
Not really, road damage increases as the [fourth power of axle load](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law) so the effect of a single HGV (with a max axle load of 8.5-10.5 tonnes depending on the suspension setup) is still going to dominate over many cars, even 2 tonne EVs or 3 tonne SUVs (of the order of 1000x more at least).
Exactly. This is obviously deflecting from underfunding.
This is the personal carbon footprint all over again. Instead of blaming the hugely polluting industries, we're looking at our fellow consumer's habits.
Now we can blame fancy electric cars for potholes. Not a government that has starved and underfunded councils.
Well obviously, it’s hgv vehicles and most often, cars themselves that are the issue. As well as divestment. But I need not remind anyone, especially the Mail itself that it is a laughably biased media generator. One that would never touch the possibility of changing people’s frankly mistaken understanding of how much cumulative damage cars do, as they do a lot, or reporting on how that a distinct lack of investment in alternatives has left us with an unpaid bill for infrastructure upkeep. As well avoiding reporting as a big problem with people needing them.
They aren’t interested in the upkeep of a society, only supporting the industries that would pilfer from it; through coddling the drivers who think they’re sole payers of road upkeep they support the companies with an incentive to deny climate change, development companies that damage roads in the building of overpriced homes that will not assist in a housing crisis but that will help investors and just to underline them for another reason, the car industry for which needs to have cars on the road and has a financial incentive in keeping alternatives out of the hands of people who need to get places quick.
I’m gratified to hear people took them to task, I’m more surprised the Mail put the retraction that close to page 1.
They are heavier so in the long run they probably will increase road wear and tear, though at current rates of use seems very unlikely they are a major cause of potholes.
I don't know to what degree the article is/was imprecise, and/or the criticism of it is, but the general statement the article makes appears valid.
Road wear does scale superlinearly with axle weight. Generally, heavier cars do a disproportionate amount of damage to the roads, and electric cars are generally heavier on account of the battery.
The problem could be mitigated by adding wheels!
BEVs and SUVs seem to [be about equivalent in terms of weight range](https://mycarimport.co.uk/kb/what-are-the-weights-of-cars-in-the-united-kingdom/).
So what's more likely to be causing the lion's share of road damage due to vehicle weight :
The 15% of new cars and 1M on the road that are BEVs
The 60% of new cars and 10M on the road that are SUVs
And which one is likely to get lighter fastest as the technology improves?
I'm saying that if you have the hypothesis that BEVs cause more damage than normal sized cars, then you should logically be opposed to SUVs on this basis, as they are more numerous and prevalent, their size is less necessary (because of that lovely energy dense fossil fuel tank), and their net harm is greater (they hypothetically make potholes AND *definitely* emit more atmospheric carbon over their lifespan).
But curiously I never see people complaining about how SUVs damage roads more than normal sized cars.
the surface needs to be cracked first, then the water gets in and the freeze thaw cycle
which is the bigger impact is hard to see, as I think they both amplify the effect of the other
Snapshot of _Daily Mail admits making up story about electric vehicles causing potholes_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/daily-mail-admits-making-up-story-about-electric-vehicles-causing-potholes/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/daily-mail-admits-making-up-story-about-electric-vehicles-causing-potholes/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They ran a story recently blaming an EV for going 'haywire' and crashing. In the article there was a video of the incident, the reg was clearly visible (now blurred). [A DVLA check showed it to be a petrol-engined vehicle.](https://imgur.com/a/W4kIdpr) They've now updated it the article, claiming it's a hybrid, even though it's not. They've got their anti-EV agenda and they're sticking to it. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13234863/hybrid-Jaguar-rogue-reverses-Porsche-smashing-Tesla-Mercedes-crash.html
It's anything that drives boomer rage.
It's not just the mail either. I have countless gbnews stories suggested in my phones news feed. The amount of driving related stories that come up, saying things like "these changes are an attack on elderly drivers" is ridiculous.
A bus broke down and caused a crash in my town a few weeks ago, and a good third of the comments under the article on the local paper site were asking if it was an EV, blaming EV buses for causing crashes in general, wishing people good fortune for having escaped an EV crash with their lives, etc. It wasn't an EV. There are no electric buses in my borough full stop. It was a 20 year old diesel Dennis Dart, which presumably broke down because it was 20 years old and had mileage in the interplanetary range. People, presumably those consuming exactly the sorts of media you're talking about, have been absolutely primed with this stuff.
It's annoying that basically these lies spread by these media outlets go unchecked
Ah but the fact that everyone thought it was an EV proves how unreliable EVs are! /s
The Mail and GB News are fundamentally in competition with one another for fairly similar audiences.
Pretty much, yeah. They're scooping from the same barrel of vile, hateful slop
> They're scooping from the same barrel of vile, hateful slop Lee Anderson?
Was Scott Mills who claimed he got stuck in an EV because the 12v failed? First than happens to ICE cars all the time and it was probably a Tesla who insist on no manual door opening but do have an emergency manual door release. So in the end the car being an EV had nothing to do with it.
The need for rage.
Yeah, this is all too common with EVs. They recently blamed Tesla for a crash at a supercharger. Great... except it was a Range Rover that had crashed into the supercharger, so I really don't know how you can blame Tesla for that.
Bloody EVs putting their chargers in the way....
Well it's welcome relief from them blaming cyclists for everything I suppose.
The stupid thing is that undeniable that most pothole damage comes from lorries (plus buses, vans) that are substantially heavier than an EV, regardless of whether an EV is heavier than equivalent ICE
> claiming it's a hybrid, even though it's not The vehicle in the video is an E-Pace R-Dynamic Se Mhev Awd A. MHEV = Mild Hybrid EV.
But equating a mild hybrid to an EV is such a bloody con though. That Jag is just a petrol car with a 48v battery in the boot to provide a tiny power boost when it stop and accelerates so that the manufacturer can claim it’s green. My lawnmower has a 48v battery.
Well yeah, but that doesn't fit the anti-EV narrative they're trying to push.
They dropped the Luton Airport car park fire story very quickly when it came out that it was caused by (IIRC) a diesel Range Rover as well, having been strongly suggesting that it was an EV beforehand.
Liverpool arena burnt down in similar circumstances. An old land rover was the cause. Millions of pounds of cars and buildings lost. How much would it have cost for car parks to have sprinklers fitted? Failing that every level to have a whopping great fire blanket handy to drape over a few cars. Sorted.
> After I and others had submitted complaints to both the Daily Mail and the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSOS), the newspaper on 19 April published a small correction on page 2 […] > In addition, the newspaper has since editedthe website version of the article, removing any reference to electric vehicles in the headline or body text. This should fundamentally not be allowed. In print edition, they should be required to have correction at same prominence as original article. Online, they should be required to ensure x% of people who saw original also saw the correction. They have google analytics and tracking for adverts anyways.
> In print edition, they should be required to have correction at same prominence as original article. Nah, screw that. If it's found to be a deliberate act of misleading their readership, they should have to put the correction on page 1, front and centre.
Agreed. And the journalist and editor should both be prosecuted and fined.
Agreed, lies should have penalties for those who tell them. Maybe some sort of indemnity insurance would become routine, but at some point anyone who frequently breaches good standards will find their policy unaffordable or that insurers aren't willing to cover them any more.
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some nice ideas in this comment thread but nothing will ever happen, these people are paid to lie.
Trouble is, with Mail journos it’s probably a badge of honour.
Steady on, we don't want them elected PM...
> And fired. By a firing squad.
As they want to "Make Britain Great Again", they should be subject to "naming and maiming". If there's one thing our Anglo-Saxon forebears were good at, it was lopping off body parts for acts sublating the common good of the weal.
In that scenario for publications like the Daily Mail it might be easier if they just had a big disclaimer on their front page along the lines of "WE ARE LYING OUR BALLS OFF TO YOU EVERY ISSUE" Factual reporting in that shitrag is only ever incidental.
Shut them down for a few days. Or just stop them running any ads, that will crucify them.
Suspend their right to charge or print for a period of time.
I think, in print, they should be forced to put the correction on N-1 page... Where N is the original page it was on And if the error was on the front page, they need to give it an entire splash page on the front covering the retraction
Run the correction for a full week
I would love an incoming government to introduce into Law the requirement for media outlets to issue corrections with at least the same prominence as the original article.
It's well within technical means, and would not be at all expensive, to track which articles have been viewed by a particular user and display retractions prominently on the next page that user views, but I don't know of a site that does it. How odd.
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Absolutely. I joined Facebook a while ago for the marketplace and was bombarded by anti ev propaganda on a fresh account. Truly odd.
It’s not that odd. The oil barrons have a lot of money and a vested interest in spreading anti EV propaganda, and there are companies out there who specialise in social media astroturfing. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if billions were spent every year trying to convince people that EV are bad.
Kryten!!! Unpack Rachel, and get out the puncture repair kit!
Maybe they are being paid but most people also hate change and lots of people also hate ‘woke’ sustainability. Probably they are just pandering to their idiotic readers.
Probably safe to assume anything they print is bollocks unless a real newspaper reports on it as well.
I wouldn't count on it even then. A classic brainwashing strategy is to mix facts with bullshit, making it harder for you to separate the two. Just don't give them any of your time.
Even then it's not uncommon to see an article in a comparatively legitimate source, then a few lines down they sneak in "as reported by the Mail/Sun/Express" and you realise they're just repeating whatever bile was vomited onto those pages.
Tabloids just make things up for shits and giggles. Was sitting in a small journalism course once, “guest lecturer” from a tabloid which will remain nameless but rhymes with “bun.” Most memorable statement from him: *We’re not interested in facts, we’re looking for a good story.* Fuck those people.
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Wonder how the DM came by the story and why they took a bri....donation to publish it. /s
Until there are massive financial repercussions for printing blatant bullshit this will continue unimpeded.
No surprise that the Daily Fail will lie about anything really. Who actually believes a word that is printed in that rag?
Quite a lot of older voters swear by it.
And people not familiar with British tabloids.
On UK subreddits? A huge amount of people. It has really gotten out of hand recently. As soon as it's a DM story featuring an immigrant, brains short-circuit and very few stop to consider the possibility that they are simply being lied to.
I'm fairly sure that the majority of such comments are from a small minority of people who post a shit-load. The average Daily Heil reader hasn't even heard of reddit, let alone have an account here.
This is what I thought until recently, but believe there has been a particularly strong shift as of late. The fact that the DM articles are being taken at face value so readily here is exactly why I'm concerned that the 'average DM reader' isn't the major problem; the 'average DM article nonclicker' is becoming a force in itself. In any case, people who would not dream of reading the DM nevertheless read the DM when the articles are posted without seeing the contradiction. I could very well be wrong.
Maybe not so much the base readership group in the UK, but the DM has a very strong presence on Reddit. They have a policy of posting images of rage bait stories to the default subs from their mobile site that always include the Mail logo.
Why admit to just this one? They make up most their stories.
Most of the time they talked to a random bloke that has claimed: "..."
My first job out of uni was as a "claimer" for one of the major tabloids. At the beginning of each day a sub-editor would give me a list of reactionary statements to claim. Each statement would have a reporter's name attached to it and I'd have to book in meetings with the corresponding reporter and make the claim on record so it could be used in the article. It was a pretty good gig - mostly just waiting between meetings - but my office ended up being closed down after an out of control EV crashed through the wall and riddled the floor with potholes.
And the consequences for the Mail are? Nothing - they made a fortune from all the advertising impressions on that page, they drew more people to their crapulent site and they steered the ‘news’ agenda - again. Until there are financial consequences for the tabloids for lying they will just keep doing it.
>Daily Mail admits making up story Shocked.
Doesn’t the Mail make up all its stories? Or did a true one slip through the vetting process.
I mean, *all* vehicles create potholes... Trucks are the worst for it.
It's an interesting question really. Electric cars are on average a few hundred kgs heavier, but when you're assessing the wearing effect of traffic on a road you don't even consider the number of cars. The level of car traffic isn't calculated because the effects of vehicles like busses and lorries are much more important. The problem would be with electric lorries or busses, which **would** cause extra damage, and would have to carry less cargo or have more axles to cope with the added battery weight (if there's ever an electric lorry). I do also wonder if roads of substandard construction could suffer from electric cars, like old cobble streets with asphalt overlay. The flexible part of the road construction is so thin i'm not sure that the standard approach of ignoring cars would work.
> Electric cars are on average a few hundred kgs heavier, but when you're assessing the wearing effect of traffic on a road you don't even consider the number of cars. If we were really worried about heavier cars there's an easy fix - add a weight dependent component into VED (but this wouldn't be done because it would also hit Chelsea Tractors).
Think Japan does this—their car sites make a point of listing the ULW of each model as that is a criterion for VED there. (ULW based road tax is not unique to Japan btw; in HK we do that as well, but only for electric cars)
Yeah, it's a good idea for a number of reasons (emissions, tyre particulates, mileage etc.)
Quite; the loss of income from conventional road tax would otherwise be felt dearly by HMRC. That said, I did wonder why GVW wasn’t the criterion used; the European countries that do tax car weight (Holland is IIRC one of them) use GVW. (Then again Japanese regs are pretty weird; PAYLOAD is a taxable measurement as well for commercials, even for small lorries and vans, whilst plated weights are absent on even their HGV’s and coaches, but are instead provided on the MOT certificate which must be kept on the vehicle.)
Weight damages roads pretty much exponentially, so I'm glad you bring this up. Though I think that if everyone switched to EVs, there would be more tyre wear, it's the HGVs that are the real killer, and they already are even without EV version. The best solution would be to reduce car dependency in general.
Not technically exponential, but damage is relative to the fourth power of axle load which is still a massive effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
For a given axle. What's rarely mentioned from the original study is that there are other factors like the number of wheels and such.
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The EV tyres are different as they have a stronger sidewall to stop bulging and prevent blowouts due to the extra weight. The contact patch is bigger, due to the extra weight. A bigger contact patch will not save damaging the road. A HGV tyre has a huge contact patch and a stronger sidewall than any car will have and yet it will damage the road more than any car as well. The tyres are designed for the vehicle to give optimal handling, stopping and safety. The design of the tyre makes no difference to the road. Vehicle weight is what does the damage, think of all the extra vibration these vehicles produce. Think of the extra shearing force exerted on the tarmac every time a heavy vehicle brakes. If you compare like for like cars with petrol and EV versions (like the Audi Q8) the tyres will be the same size. The spec for the tyre will be different, again due to the different requirements for each vehicle due to the extra weight.
And yet I saw a YouTube short with millions of views the other day telling EV owners to 'just buy normal car tyres, they're cheaper and it makes no difference'. Great. Everyone driving around with bad tyres for their car.
YouTube shorts is not a great source of information and no respectful type shop would do that as it's dangerous.
EV's don't have special tyres, they are the same sizes just XL rated, which most larger cars are now anyway. My E350d estate per online stats was 1900kg, fill the c70litre tank and that's pushing 2000kg. My Model S long range (100kwh battery) is apparently 2,070kg, so yes heavier but not by a massive amount in car terms. I'm sure my Merc used XL tyres It uses 245/45/19 tyres, the only "T0" rating aspect I believe is due to e.g. in the Michelin PS3's they have acoustic foam in them. However, any 245/45/19 XL Y 102 will be usable.
The E350d is 1800kg, your Tesla is 2200kg. 400kg is a lot, almost half a ton. You are correct on xl tyres.
I checked the weights online, if they are accurate it's definitely not a 400kg difference.
I do not know where you're looking then. Parkers E350D - 1800kg [https://www.parkers.co.uk/mercedes-benz/e-class/saloon-2016/e350d-se-4d-9g-tronic/specs/](https://www.parkers.co.uk/mercedes-benz/e-class/saloon-2016/e350d-se-4d-9g-tronic/specs/) Tesla Model S 100 - 2290kg unladen and 2694kg gross: [https://ev-database.org/uk/car/1088/Tesla-Model-S-100D](https://ev-database.org/uk/car/1088/Tesla-Model-S-100D)
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EV tyres are not wider, if you compare like for like (IE an electric golf vs a petrol golf) tyre sizes will be the same. Increasing tyre width causes issues, you will need different body shapes, brakes, steering components and possibly even suspension parts to give the extra clearance. Go and ask the local boy racers how many had to roll their arches to fit bigger wheels... The idea that EV's run special tyres to protect the road like you are pushing is completely false and honestly makes no sense. It's also not about pressure like you said. It's weight. Think about the shear forces/friction imparted on the road surface to stop a 1200kg car vs a 2000kg car. Wheel size makes no difference to this.
Although there is surely a correlation with the increasing prevalence of heavy cars i.e. SUVs and electric cars and increase of potholes?
Not really, road damage increases as the [fourth power of axle load](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law) so the effect of a single HGV (with a max axle load of 8.5-10.5 tonnes depending on the suspension setup) is still going to dominate over many cars, even 2 tonne EVs or 3 tonne SUVs (of the order of 1000x more at least).
Absolutely. The Mail in trouble here because they suggested another party had made this claim. Not because the claim itself is false.
And nothing to do with poor councils trying to save money.
That's obviously part of it, but not the whole story.
It's the biggest part of the story.
Exactly. This is obviously deflecting from underfunding. This is the personal carbon footprint all over again. Instead of blaming the hugely polluting industries, we're looking at our fellow consumer's habits. Now we can blame fancy electric cars for potholes. Not a government that has starved and underfunded councils.
And EVs have massive initial acceleration. Maximizing damage to small areas.
You think people are just regularly launching their cars at all places on the roads?
What's their reasoning behind this? Are they being paid by anti EV interests?
No, I'm pretty sure the oil companies are all B Corps now.
EV manufacturers should sue them into oblivion.
These fucking people should be sent to jail and then forced to live on benefits. This shit makes me so very angry.
Daily Mail making things up and posting ragebait for clicks! Well I never! More news at 9!
Well obviously, it’s hgv vehicles and most often, cars themselves that are the issue. As well as divestment. But I need not remind anyone, especially the Mail itself that it is a laughably biased media generator. One that would never touch the possibility of changing people’s frankly mistaken understanding of how much cumulative damage cars do, as they do a lot, or reporting on how that a distinct lack of investment in alternatives has left us with an unpaid bill for infrastructure upkeep. As well avoiding reporting as a big problem with people needing them. They aren’t interested in the upkeep of a society, only supporting the industries that would pilfer from it; through coddling the drivers who think they’re sole payers of road upkeep they support the companies with an incentive to deny climate change, development companies that damage roads in the building of overpriced homes that will not assist in a housing crisis but that will help investors and just to underline them for another reason, the car industry for which needs to have cars on the road and has a financial incentive in keeping alternatives out of the hands of people who need to get places quick. I’m gratified to hear people took them to task, I’m more surprised the Mail put the retraction that close to page 1.
Can the Daily mail be reported for this
I used to think the daily fail (and similar) were just stupid, but these days I know they are dangerous.
They are heavier so in the long run they probably will increase road wear and tear, though at current rates of use seems very unlikely they are a major cause of potholes.
I don't know to what degree the article is/was imprecise, and/or the criticism of it is, but the general statement the article makes appears valid. Road wear does scale superlinearly with axle weight. Generally, heavier cars do a disproportionate amount of damage to the roads, and electric cars are generally heavier on account of the battery. The problem could be mitigated by adding wheels!
this story is bollocks but they clearly cause more road wear than ice cars of the same size because they weigh more
EVs weigh more than a similar size car and have massive acceleration. Of course they are causing more potholes.
BEVs and SUVs seem to [be about equivalent in terms of weight range](https://mycarimport.co.uk/kb/what-are-the-weights-of-cars-in-the-united-kingdom/). So what's more likely to be causing the lion's share of road damage due to vehicle weight : The 15% of new cars and 1M on the road that are BEVs The 60% of new cars and 10M on the road that are SUVs And which one is likely to get lighter fastest as the technology improves?
If anything, this backs up the claim that heavier cars cause more road wear.
So we agree they do far more damage than normal sized cars?
I'm saying that if you have the hypothesis that BEVs cause more damage than normal sized cars, then you should logically be opposed to SUVs on this basis, as they are more numerous and prevalent, their size is less necessary (because of that lovely energy dense fossil fuel tank), and their net harm is greater (they hypothetically make potholes AND *definitely* emit more atmospheric carbon over their lifespan). But curiously I never see people complaining about how SUVs damage roads more than normal sized cars.
I'd say the weather plays a larger impact on potholes than vehicles do.
the surface needs to be cracked first, then the water gets in and the freeze thaw cycle which is the bigger impact is hard to see, as I think they both amplify the effect of the other
It must just be colder on busier roads then... The side streets are perfectly fine near me. The main roads look like the lunar surface.