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Road damage - sammy1

EVs are indeed liable to cause up to twice as much stress to road surfaces than ICE cars according to research. The increase in the popularity of SUVs cannot be helping.

Electric cars 'cause TWICE as much road damage as petrol equivalents': Why Britain's pothole crisis could be worsened by the rise of EVs (msn.com)

I am currently on holiday in west Wales and a simple observation is that the quieter the roads the less damage I observe. I drove up the main A470 from Cardiff to Merthyr on my way and this road is a nightmare of road patches perhaps the worst road in Wales?. These roads are bound to be costing the motorist money with extra wear and tear on tyres and suspension and probably contribute to the odd accident by some trying to avoid the worse bits of tarmac.

Road damage - Adampr

Do you ever actually read this garbled nonsense or just the headline?

What the research actually says is, apparently, that heavier cars cause more damage to roads. The only relevance of how they're powered is that electric cars weigh more than their OCE equivalent, but an electric Mini (for example) is still going to weigh less than a diesel Landcruiser.

The article also states that electric cars weigh "roughly twice as much" as other models, which clarifies the quality of journalism involved here.

The Telegraph and the Mail, for whatever reason, have an anti-EV agenda. As with so much in life, and the same is true across the entire news media spectrum, their 'news' is almost entirely about pushing these agendas and ignoring any element of truth.

Road damage - Vroom78

It's true a lot of these so called Media outlets are usually paid by people to publish anti articles from anything from foreigners to brexit to as Adampr has eluded to an anti-EV agenda. It does seem there was a big difference the attention grabbing headline and some of the more other details of the article which is a shame when it comes to shoddy journalism.

Road damage - mcb100
‘ The Telegraph and the Mail, for whatever reason, have an anti-EV agenda.’

There are well publicised links (financial) between legacy fossil fuel producers and the government, and guess whose views are reflected in the Telegraph and Mail?
More anti-EV FUD.
Road damage - Terry W

It is generally accepted that road damage is proportional to the 4th power of the axle weight.

What does this mean:

  • an EV of 1.2 tonnes vs a ICE of 1. 0 tonnes produces, as the Telegraph suggests, just over twice the road wear/damage.
  • an HGV with (say) 3 axles weighing 20 tons produces ~30,000 times the road wear/damage compared to an ICE.

Basically road wear and damage by either EV or ICE is utterly trivial compared to that of an HGV. The Telegraph are simply accurately reporting an out of context and thus completely meaningless truth.

Road damage - Engineer Andy

It is generally accepted that road damage is proportional to the 4th power of the axle weight.

What does this mean:

  • an EV of 1.2 tonnes vs a ICE of 1. 0 tonnes produces, as the Telegraph suggests, just over twice the road wear/damage.
  • an HGV with (say) 3 axles weighing 20 tons produces ~30,000 times the road wear/damage compared to an ICE.

Basically road wear and damage by either EV or ICE is utterly trivial compared to that of an HGV. The Telegraph are simply accurately reporting an out of context and thus completely meaningless truth.

To be fair, they are pointing out that if a person changes from an ICE car to an equivalent EV, the EV will damage the road a good deal more. Like many things, a small incarese in force (due to weight in this case) can have a disproportionate effect on the wear something experiences (the road).

Your argument to compare them to an HGV is a red herring because someone buying a new ICE HGV would buy one with the same and maybe even a lower weight (due to improvements in efficiency), which would at best do the same damage to the road, but probably less.

The problem should be more cast as having more, heavier vehicles on the road, which is caused by having more people in the country and less products being produced locally / in the UK or regionally, plus the growth over the past few deacdes in out-of-town shopping and 'throw-away' goods that previously were physically and economically able to be repaired / maintained and locally.

Road damage - Terry W

Just looking at motorways using 2019 Department of Transport figures to avoid pandemic distortion. Ignore vans, motorcycles, coaches etc.

Cars travelled 50bn motorway miles in the UK, HGVs 8bn miles. Intuitively this is plausible - the ratio of cars to HGVs is ~6:1.

Using my figures above - if the damage caused by cars is 50bn, the damage caused by HGVs would be 264,000bn (8bn x 33,000).

In total HGVs cause ~5000 times more road damage than cars. Even if every ICE were replaced by an EV HGVs would still cause 2500 times more damage than cars.

You could change the numbers slightly - an HGV is a vehicle over 3500kg. I have assumed 20,000kg. They can weigh up to 44,000kg (more in a limited number of cases).

Just accept it - cars are trivial terms of road damage.

Road damage - Engineer Andy

Just looking at motorways using 2019 Department of Transport figures to avoid pandemic distortion. Ignore vans, motorcycles, coaches etc.

Cars travelled 50bn motorway miles in the UK, HGVs 8bn miles. Intuitively this is plausible - the ratio of cars to HGVs is ~6:1.

Using my figures above - if the damage caused by cars is 50bn, the damage caused by HGVs would be 264,000bn (8bn x 33,000).

In total HGVs cause ~5000 times more road damage than cars. Even if every ICE were replaced by an EV HGVs would still cause 2500 times more damage than cars.

You could change the numbers slightly - an HGV is a vehicle over 3500kg. I have assumed 20,000kg. They can weigh up to 44,000kg (more in a limited number of cases).

Just accept it - cars are trivial terms of road damage.

They difference is that the overhwlming majority of HGV journeys are essential - a good number of car journeys aren't, not helped by how society has developed over the last few decades.

Many people use their car for trips you can easily walk it - often because they are lazy, unfit / overweight (who's fault is that?) and they can (still, even today) easily afford it. Plus those 'woofs' who have nothing better to do with their time and money wo go around at high speed and dangerously.

There ARE savings to be made from the high number (even if in the minority) of needless car journeys and in cars that seemingly get bigger and heavier year by year.

It would also help if the population wasn't swelling by 0.5M per year net.

Road damage - Andrew-T

Do you ever actually read this garbled nonsense or just the headline?

What the research actually says is, apparently, that heavier cars cause more damage to roads.

I can't answer the first question, but I think Sammy's eye lights on an 'issue' which he thinks is suitable for starting yet another thread.

On the second point - who would have thought it ? Seems pretty intuitive to me.

Road damage - Adampr

Do you ever actually read this garbled nonsense or just the headline?

What the research actually says is, apparently, that heavier cars cause more damage to roads.

I can't answer the first question, but I think Sammy's eye lights on an 'issue' which he thinks is suitable for starting yet another thread.

On the second point - who would have thought it ? Seems pretty intuitive to me.

I can't find the University of Leeds research that is being talked about. It seems, from what I can discern from the Telegraph article, that all it actually says is that, from a sample of 15, EVs weigh more than their ICE equivalent - i.e. an electric Mini is heavier than a petrol mini.

The consequences of this have apparently been worked out by the Telegraph's 'analysis'. The details of that analysis are rather scanty, but I think they just multiplied the proportionate difference in weight by four.

All this winds me up because there is a genuine discussion to be had about the relative benefits, or otherwise, of EVs but it is prevented by nonsense being pumped out in the media every day.

Road damage - sammy1

I cannot understand why things I put on here suddenly revert back to me personally when all I do is put them on here to help discussion. It seems quite reasonable to me that a heavier car is ultimately going to cause more road damage than a lighter one. My latest observation of the larger EVs is that most seem to be sitting on 20inch or larger wheels which cannot help weight either. The article comes from MSN the more observant would have noticed and I favour no particular press. I think this a more interesting topic than say wiper blades which I suppose is easy to understand

Road damage - Adampr

I cannot understand why things I put on here suddenly revert back to me personally when all I do is put them on here to help discussion. It seems quite reasonable to me that a heavier car is ultimately going to cause more road damage than a lighter one. My latest observation of the larger EVs is that most seem to be sitting on 20inch or larger wheels which cannot help weight either. The article comes from MSN the more observant would have noticed and I favour no particular press. I think this a more interesting topic than say wiper blades which I suppose is easy to understand

It reverts back to you because you're the person who stated the opinion in the first place.

The article you have linked to is from the Mail and is largely a copy of one in the Telegraph.

Road damage - sammy1

I cannot understand why things I put on here suddenly revert back to me personally when all I do is put them on here to help discussion. It seems quite reasonable to me that a heavier car is ultimately going to cause more road damage than a lighter one. My latest observation of the larger EVs is that most seem to be sitting on 20inch or larger wheels which cannot help weight either. The article comes from MSN the more observant would have noticed and I favour no particular press. I think this a more interesting topic than say wiper blades which I suppose is easy to understand

It reverts back to you because you're the person who stated the opinion in the first place.

The article you have linked to is from the Mail and is largely a copy of one in the Telegraph.

Could somebody please help as I feel I am wasting my time on this sad place!

Road damage - Andrew-T

<< Could somebody please help as I feel I am wasting my time on this sad place! >>

I've been wondering about that, off and on .... :-)

Road damage - FP

Any "sadness" here is partly the result of constantly being confronted with news stories or similar whose theme is the awfulness of some aspect of life, motoring or otherwise.

We are served up with a series of tabloid-type "shock-horror" stories designed to provoke a knee-jerk reaction.

We can always just ignore them, I suppose...

Road damage - sammy1

Any "sadness" here is partly the result of constantly being confronted with news stories or similar whose theme is the awfulness of some aspect of life, motoring or otherwise.

We are served up with a series of tabloid-type "shock-horror" stories designed to provoke a knee-jerk reaction.

We can always just ignore them, I suppose...

I am free to post on here what I will as my status is no more or less than anyone else on here.

Why don't the people who are poking fun have a go at the MOD who's just posted an equally interesting article from the DM on Fiat colours.

Yes please ignore them. What pray of interest have you and a few others started a tread of any interest if at all. All you and some others serve to do is knock down just about anything that is posted. I think I will join the flat Earth society now that is something you could knock me on!

Road damage - Adampr

Any "sadness" here is partly the result of constantly being confronted with news stories or similar whose theme is the awfulness of some aspect of life, motoring or otherwise.

We are served up with a series of tabloid-type "shock-horror" stories designed to provoke a knee-jerk reaction.

We can always just ignore them, I suppose...

I am free to post on here what I will as my status is no more or less than anyone else on here.

Why don't the people who are poking fun have a go at the MOD who's just posted an equally interesting article from the DM on Fiat colours.

Yes please ignore them. What pray of interest have you and a few others started a tread of any interest if at all. All you and some others serve to do is knock down just about anything that is posted. I think I will join the flat Earth society now that is something you could knock me on!

Surely you understand the concept of free speech and that, whilst you can post what you want (within the rules of the forum), people can also reply.

If the post on paint colours was (a) not true and (b) repeated on an almost daily basis, I'm sure it would get the same reception.

Road damage - Maxime.

The article you have linked to is from the Mail and is largely a copy of one in the Telegraph.

Could somebody please help as I feel I am wasting my time on this sad place!

I can't think of anyone else who posts so much apparent stuff that is mostly inane.

But it is what it is..

Road damage - _

Sammy.

The A470 has been vile for 30 years.

Road damage - sammy1

Sammy.

The A470 has been vile for 30 years.

Depends what you mean by vile presumably the road surface and not the route. One past Merthyr you are in are in the heart of the Brecon Beacons and beyond one of the most beautiful places in the UK. Not the quicker or shortest way to west Wales but certainly the most scenic

Road damage - Andrew-T

Depends what you mean by vile presumably the road surface and not the route. One past Merthyr you are in are in the heart of the Brecon Beacons and beyond one of the most beautiful places in the UK. Not the quicker or shortest way to west Wales but certainly the most scenic.

Bannau Brycheiniog now - remember ? :-) And starting from Cardiff I wouldn't see it as a route to what I would consider as 'west Wales' - but let that pass.

Road damage - sammy1

Depends what you mean by vile presumably the road surface and not the route. One past Merthyr you are in are in the heart of the Brecon Beacons and beyond one of the most beautiful places in the UK. Not the quicker or shortest way to west Wales but certainly the most scenic.

Bannau Brycheiniog now - remember ? :-) And starting from Cardiff I wouldn't see it as a route to what I would consider as 'west Wales' - but let that pass.

I really don't know why you thought you had to comment on this All this comment does is to make a fool of yourself You are an expert now on the routes to west Wales are you. My destination is 10 miles more and far prettier than Port Talbot

Would you care to justify it. Very sarcastic re the beacons even beat the spell checker and I suppose you got that off the top of your head. You could get a job in the Welsh Assembly or the Senedd Cymru because all they spout is a load of flannel

Road damage - Andrew-T

<< I really don't know why you thought you had to comment on this All this comment does is to make a fool of yourself You are an expert now on the routes to west Wales are you. My destination is 10 miles more and far prettier than Port Talbot. >>

Not worth a response really, but you may not know that I grew up in Cardiff, lived there for 17 years and was there earlier this year. At least I try to make my meaning clear with occasional emojis, which you might adopt. The Welsh authorities made a big noise renaming the Bannau recently, so I see no harm in mentioning that - to see if you might bristle :-)

And my journey meant that I traversed the Bannau, arriving down the maligned A470 from Merthyr. Didn't seem too potholed to me, tho rather messy at the major road works around there.

Edited by Andrew-T on 27/06/2023 at 23:19

Road damage - sammy1

I am being slow or what? what are you and a few others going on about emojis? I cannot see any represented on here. Have I got a piece of kit that cannot see them?

Your original criticism was about my chosen route to west Wales which was no business of yours and you just assumed I wanted the quickest and I explained in my original that I wanted the scenic. As usual you have just chosen to quote above only the part that suited you.

As to the Welsh renaming I and at least 2 million English speaking people living in Wales are sick of the Welsh language and the money being wasted on duplicating every written word. And I have no objection to those who love and want to use their native tongue.

Road damage - Adampr

As to the Welsh renaming I and at least 2 million English speaking people living in Wales are sick of the Welsh language and the money being wasted on duplicating every written word. And I have no objection to those who love and want to use their native tongue.

Make your mind up! Do you object to Welsh people.speaking Welsh or not?

Road damage - John F

Electric cars 'cause TWICE as much road damage as petrol equivalents': Why Britain's pothole crisis could be worsened by the rise of EVs (msn.com)

Nonsense. Even the heaviest Tesla (Model X) only weighs about 25% more than my Audi A8, and the ubiqitous Nissan Leaf weighs considerably less. It seems to me that the barn-door-obvious reason for our crumbling roads is the exponential increase in heavily loaded vans delivering anything from a new car (Cinch), several orders for umpteen kilos of food (Ocado, Tesco etc) to whatever consumer item you care to think of (Amaxon, UPS etc). Some of these heavy vans seem to have highly pressured tyres no wider than those on many cars, resulting in a destructive hammering effect on and after any road irregularity. Clearly VED should be about ten times what it is for these high mileage dawn to dusk highway destroyers. As a cyclist on country roads you can see the effect their nearside wheels have on the edges when they pass each other. The tarmac strip just gets narrower and narrower as the inadequate patching of the edges breaks down after only a few weeks. I could go on.......

Road damage - madf

There are 900,000 EVs on UK roads.

And about 34 million Non EVs.

For any headline to suggest 900k cars can do more damage than the 34 million is bonkers.

But we can rely on people to think so..

The DT and the Mail - once great papers - make useful toilet paper in emergencies. For news? They are what we use toilet paper for.

Both think that modern science is irrelevant and wrong which given they are written by people with non science degrees is typical.

The DT was wrong on WMD, On Patterson whom they supported , on Boris whom they support and on Climate Change - which is demonstrably real. Their track record means they can safely be ignored.

Road damage - Andrew-T

Both think that modern science is irrelevant and wrong which given they are written by people with non science degrees is typical.

That sounds excessively jaundiced (biased?) to me. We all know that papers print (or publish on the web) material that sells papers to their followers - which sometimes compromises the accuracy of the content.

Road damage - badbusdriver

The extra weight of an EV over an ICE equivalent expressed as a percentage decreases the bigger the car gets. According to this website, the most basic 75bhp Corsa weighs 980kg and a Corsa E weighs 1530g, more or less 56% heavier (quite a lot).

The lightest version of the Porsche Cayenne is 1985kg, whereas the lightest version of the Tesla Model X (more or less the same size) is 2352kg, or just under 19% heavier.

(Incidentally, the lightest version of the (solely ICE) Land Rover Discovery 3/4 (still a very common sight on our roads) was 2476kg)

But the argument of heavier cars doing more damage to the road surface needs to also take the tyre size into account. I have a customer with a Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon, a very large and heavy (circa 2300kg at least) SUV. But it sits on balloon like 265/70 tyres, so I suspect it would do less damage to the road surface than a 1500kg car sitting on 205/55's.

Road damage - Xileno

Can we stick to discussing the value of the research article or related spin-off issues that some have raised and no sniping.

Thanks

Mod

Road damage - paul 1963

But the argument of heavier cars doing more damage to the road surface needs to also take the tyre size into account. I have a customer with a Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon, a very large and heavy (circa 2300kg at least) SUV. But it sits on balloon like 265/70 tyres, so I suspect it would do less damage to the road surface than a 1500kg car sitting on 205/55's.

Spot on and well said BBD.... Sammy, I appreciate your posts but please mate we get it that you don't like EV's.

Road damage - sammy1

"""Sammy, I appreciate your posts but please mate we get it that you don't like EV's."""

Thanks for a bit of support, Hard to think I have been posting on here for some 10 years and know little about life and what is going on in the world of motors.

It is just not true that I do not like EVs. There is lots to like and dislike. There must be something about EVs that is not hitting the right note with a lot of punters. Only today it is reported that Germany is cutting production in some of its EV plants as clearly uptake is not as they have foreseen and are again calling for support to the industry. The rush to zero carbon is just that an almighty hurry without considering lots of other impacts to numerous parts of the environment. To criticise anything in todays world is taboo to some.

Road damage - alan1302

Germany is cutting production in some of its EV plants as clearly uptake is not as they have foreseen

Which makes?

Road damage - Terry W

VW are apparently cutting production of some EVs temporarily - possibly a few weeks until the annual summer shut down.

The extrapolate this to the entire EV car industry is bonkers. The cut may be due to:

  • original demand estimates being unreasonably high
  • competitor cars being better received or better value
  • critical component supply shortages
  • increased interest rates damping down demand

For the UK May 2023 sales were up 16% over 2022. BEV sales were up 58% and represent 17% of new car registrations.

Probably a bit premature to write off EVs!!

Road damage - alan1302

Ta for the info - thought Sammy may have his info slightly wrong.