The number of ICE cars I get stuck behind from time to time that just REEK is amazing. I’m in a decently well off area too.

Some putting off soot clouds, white smoke, nothing visible but clearly not doing complete combustion. Sometimes I wonder if half the cylinders are even working.

I’ve heard one car like that is the equivalent of a surprisingly large number of modern ICE cars is in good shape.

I love EVs. I’ve had one for 5 years now, and I’m glad they help. But I think the “are new EVs worse than new ICE” discussions so often miss a fact.

The pollution from ICE isn’t just from very modern well tuned vehicles, things vary wildly. But all EVs use the same power supply (assuming local grid only), so no individual vehicles put off 10x the pollution per kWh.

Even if we still make a mess I think centralization of the mess is better than distributing it - what I mean is that polluting cities where millions sleep, eat, drink and breathe will probably be worse, net effect, than containing energy pollution to select places.

Running EVs in densely populated regions is probably a lot better for the population on the whole even if the net pollution would stay the same, IMO.

Still no EV is even better, but we’ve created a world where transport is often required so, one step at a time I guess.

Even if the electricity source would burn similar fuel, just the fact that you don't pullote right in the middle of population centers makes a huge difference. In reality, it's not only that, but _also_ that they use cleaner methods of energy production.

The surprising part to me is that there are now enough EVs to make a measurable difference, since I kept thinking they are still relatively rare. The linked study has this piece of data:

    From 2019 to 2023, ZEVs increased from 2.0% (559943 of 28237734) to 5.1% (1460818 of 28498496).

We're still burning massive amounts of fossil fuels as waste products from refining oil to make plastics and chemical feedstocks. A huge amount of that is propane that just gets flared off.

We could have been running cars on that for decades, but getting people to make their dirty polluting inefficient old petrol cars run on fuel that emits carbon dioxide and water with no HC, CO, SOx, NOx, or particulates was nowhere near as profitable as selling them lots of debt to buy cleaner greener diesels.

And we're burning the fuel they'd run on anyway.

That's framing the topic completely out of the issue with global impacts of humanity on ecosystemic sustainability, including biodiversity.

Less commut and more collective transportation is going to be far more significant in term of global impact, whatever the engine type.

Is that true? EV have much higher emissions of micro plastics and pfas (or variations thereof) due to increased tier degradation. EVs are typically way heavier than similar ICE due to the batteries and combined with the higher torques, tires wear faster.

Even if the fossil fuel argument at the source was/is valid, it's infinitely more efficient to do it at the source than in a car. You can extract far more energy and do better to mitigate byproducts.

Even if you power a typical EV from 100% coal, it pencils out as about equivalent to a late model Prius. And any improvements in the energy mix take it further.

> Some people argue the source of electricty can be contested against because that involves fossil fuel burning again

FYI, if you want to search for this, it is called "The long tailpipe" theory (1) or "long tailpipe fallacy".

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tailpipe

And it is a fallacy for obvious reasons, including

a) electricity generation is more flexible, and rapidly shifting to solar and other non-polluting sources.

b) Moving pollution away from people is better. Cars are inherently around people, streets, residences etc.

c) One centralised plant with no weight restrictions is easier to control for emissions and efficiency than many thousands of mobile, weight-constrained power plants.

d) Wikipedia: "The extraction and refining of carbon based fuels and its distribution is in itself an energy intensive industry contributing to CO2 emissions."

> Some people argue the source of electricty can be contested against because that involves fossil fuel burning again

I would argue that this provides us the possibility of energy flexibility, which is a good thing given the current global geopolitical situation

I just hope "dumb" EV's become a thing soon. I cannot and will not own a smart car any more I want to own a smart TV or smart fridge or smart toaster.

> I hope ICE cars completely become a thing of the past in the next couple of decades to come.

for this to happen the EVs depreciation needs to drastically improve compared to ICE. I don't see this. On top of this EVs tend to push ideas from Software/Tech companies, such as recurring revenues (because the underlying technology lends itself to it better).

Personally I'm unsure that this will be accepted by all consumers as much as is needed. After all the automotive marketing has since Ford insisted that driving was about "freedom". So some pivot needs to happen in the messaging. Suppose decades is a lot of time to change it. Personally I think EVs are nonsense, and a better utopia would be making sure public transport is abundant, high-quality and free.

We are about 2-3x battery capacity to never look back at ICE vehicles ever again. That or 5 min to 80% charge times with current capacity.

The pollution and grime that cars produce comes from tires rubbing off, not exhaust. (The exhaust pollution is mostly invisible.)

Electric cars are heavier and produce more tire grime.

> No surprises.

What about all the resources and people used to develop the cars?

Both ICE and EV cars require a support infrastructure. As sales trends change, so the emphasis on support infrastructure changes, and that accelerates the trend.

For example EVs depend on charging, so we're seeing more public charge points, as well as more home chargers, work chargers and so on.

ICE depends on gas stations (which is the tip of the gasoline distribution industry.) It also depends on ICE mechanics. As demand for those services drop off, so they'll become harder to find. (To be clear, that's not happening soon, there are a LOT of ICE cars out there...)

But 50 years from now most of that ICE infrastructure will have disappeared.

Factories were one source, but in-home coal furnaces were a gigantic pollutant source in aggregate. I read articles about villagers banned from this who couldn't afford cleaner heat sources. Is that still the case?

Battery swapping is a dead technology, it is simply not economical. It is too expensive, much harder to scale and incompatible with cell-to-chassis designs. Industry barely managed to agree on a charging connector!

Meanwhile, battery longevity is essentially a solved problem. Manufacturers do have an incentive to improve it due to customer demand, and modern NMC chemistry, cooling and BMS have improved significantly to the point where they're expected to maintain 70-85% capacity after 10 years[1], far from worthless. At this point, components like the motor likely fail before the battery does.

Given the much lower failure rate of everything else in an EV, TCO is dramatically better than ICE cars even with degradation[3].

Manufacturers like Mercedes even guarantee 70% health after 8 years (a worst-case estimate).

There is a significant commercial incentive for aftermarket battery repair shops. EVClinic[2] is very successful and a glimpse into the future.

[1]: https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/

[2]: https://evclinic.eu/

[3]: https://evclinic.eu/2025/12/31/diesel-mythology-vs-ev-realit...

> it’s that manufacturers have zero incentive to solve it. Your car becoming worthless after a decade suits them down to the ground.

They've been aiming for the same or worse in regular cars for over a decade now.

That being said, there is an incentive for EVs: competition from China:

https://www.electrive.com/2026/01/19/byd-extends-battery-war...

Very much like when Japanese cars first got a foothold in the US.

It is a horrible setup that the manufacturers would much rather sell you a new car than a new battery.

We saw this play out with phones. We used to have easily swappable batteries. And since battery chemistry was (and hopefully still is and will continue) improving, by the time you actually swapped the battery there were ones around with a higher capacity than the battery the phone shipped with. And typically for little money.

Now everything is glued and messy to swap so the manufacturer can sell you a battery swap for much much more money than it used to cost.

I believe cars should have swappable somewhat standardized batteries. Even if not swappable by the user, it should not be a more than 1h job at the mechanic (ANY mechanic, not just the manufacturer).

Imagine picking a car and not caring about battery at all. You want a Tesla but BYD batteries are better - so get a Tesla without a Battery and put a BYD one it it. Or maybe Tesla has the best batteries right now, so you get that. And once you have to swap the battery, you again just pick the best manufacturer at the time - who might not even be a car manufacturer at all but rather someone specialized in batteries exclusively.

And since hopefully 10 years have passed since you bought the last battery, chemistry has improved so you pick from options that are all (hopefully a lot) better than the battery you had initially.

We could have some proper competition where manufacturers would have to compete on pricing and performance.

But car manufacturers don't care. They want as much of your money as they can get. And opening their cars to third party batteries and not keeping up as many walls as they can is the opposite of that.

So until forced by regulation every manufacturer will continue to put batteries in their cars that only they themselves will sell and put a slightly different one in every car. So guess what, even if you swap your battery in 10 years, they will sell you the same battery you can buy right now. Because the newer stuff is for new cars only and compatible with your car.

I get what you’re saying but I think it misses that battery longevity can be a competitive advantage for the companies with better technology.

The Nissan Leaf 15 years ago came with a 5-year/100,000km battery warranty, now Toyota are at 10-year/1,000,000km.

Battery degradation is largely overhyped and there is growing real world data to illustrate that in practice it's not a dealbreaker. Million mile batteries now exist.

Show me a million mile gas/diesel engine.

Also let's not forget that Toyota has a well funded corporate program rewarding employees to spread anti-EV propaganda.

It will take a regulator fix. Likely from the EU, who brought us USBC instead of plugpack hell.

So you don't think the free market will force manufactures to compete on better batteries? I always thought the benefit of the free market was that it forced companies to compete on product quality... /s

It gets studied. EVs are often heavier, which is worse for tire wear, but use regenerative braking, which is better for brake dust.

Overall, EVs are likely a net win on the combination of these two things, and a big win on exhaust emissions, but it would be nice if we could shift to lighter and smaller vehicles and increase the mix of non-cars such as e-bikes and mass transit.

Source: https://www.eiturbanmobility.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/4...

>> Nobody studies this

Tire dust has been studied for decades and the most recent research I've seen suggests the issues are less concerning than previously estimated.

https://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/news/illusion-truth-surrounds-inacc...

Brake dust is significantly reduced by EVs:

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/do-electri...

EVs should do much better on brake dust thanks to regenerative braking, no?

I want the future to focus on things that actually solve the massive problems that come from mass use of automobiles: I want bike paths and trains. Yes, so boring compared to EVs I know! And so cheap! And no catchy names like "gigafactory" for making cities bikable, or turning parking lots into children's playgrounds.

> Nobody studies this

> Even playgrounds are filled with shredded tires, which borders on biohazard.

They don't study it, but you're worried about it? I'm curious to know why these things in particular (brake dust and rubber tires) are on the radar.

(And a quick search shows that people do study this.)

The best solution is to build walking or biking environments.

This was discussed before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43672779

(saving a click)

We need to start taxing vehicles based on the damage they are responsible for. The 4th Power Law is a principle in road engineering that states that the damage a vehicle causes to a road surface is proportional to the fourth power of its axle load. This means that even small increases in axle load can cause exponentially greater damage to the road.

A Prius causes about 50,000 times more damage than a bicycle.

A truck causes 16 billion times more damage than a bicycle.

A truck causes 31,000 times more damage than a Prius.

The solution is to tax trucks 31,000 times more than cars. Improve walking/biking/trains/public transportation. Private cars should be a luxury which is made a necessity with zoning laws.

There are three main sources of air pollution from cars:

1) Byproducts from combustion (like soot and nitrogen oxides). Only ICE produce these, EVs don't

2) Break abrasion. EVs tend to do better, because they can do most of their breaking through the motor and recuperate a part of the energy

2) Tire abrasion. EVs tend to do worse here, because they tend to be heavier.

So yes, EVs aren't a panacea, but overall on the topic of air pollution, they score much better than ICEs.

Recent research suggests the issues are much less concerning than previously estimated.

https://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/news/illusion-truth-surrounds-inacc...

I have another one: _I_ don't have to smell your gas and fumes when I bike behind you!

Most of the exhaust fumes your son smells near school is going to come from other people's cars though.

I did daily (old station wagon in the rear facing seat), as well as school buses. Kindof liked the smell in moderation as a kid.

Still in favor of EVs, just a curiosity that this is so negative for you.

How long are you running the car in your garage? A minute of idling isn't going to cause any problems.

People live in neighborhoods.

Even if the pollution is identical, moving it from where everyone lives and works over to more isolated areas where power plants are would still be a big benefit.

We know EVs are cleaner than that. And when the pollution is centralized in one power plant it’s also more economically feasible to apply filtration or particle capture isn’t it?

Even if all the electricity for EVs came from a centralized coal plant (it doesn't) it would be better than using combustion in individual vehicles. Centralized pollution in one area is better than attempting to mitigate diffuse pollution everywhere.

OK but we already know that EVs don't just move pollution around.

Or, y'know...get literally any other EV.

One that doesn't support a neo-Nazi trying to wreck America's economy and political system for his own gains.

I hear the Hyundai Ioniq is supposed to be pretty good.

Sorry but where in the US does electricity cost under 10c/kWh (assuming something like 80kWh for 500km)? And 100$ for 30-40l of petrol? That'd be over 10$ per gallon

What you're missing here is that oil production and processing has huge fixed costs. Producers can't just pump out infinite oil at zero cost. The economies of scale break down and fuels become more expensive as demand drops.

Cars do zero Carbon capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS). The potential is there to emit negligible CO2 when it's only energy-intensive large industry doing the fuel burning.

Having said that, the path being taken in some countries to remove ICE is simply pushing large swathes of the population out of the car market. I don't support that, although I'm sure there are many people who do.

Reduced demand for oil reduces the quantity of oil extracted and purduced. The price drops and hardwr to extract oil stops being produced

Which businesses will become viable that will consume oil at this scale?

If you park in the street, and there are public chargers in a 1-km radius around your apartment, you can probably make it by "topping-up" every two or three days on a public charger.

Unless you spend upwards of 40% of your battery daily, you'll be good.

If you own a parking spot in your apartment complex, and depending on your jurisdiction, you can install your own charger.

That used to be true; it no longer is. In the EU, some of the cheapest cars on the marker in 2026 are now electric. There are a few nice options in the 15K-20K Euro segment. These are the opposite of luxury cars. There are a quite a few new more joining the half dozen or so that were for sale last year. The trend here is that EVs are becoming the cheapest option.

A few cars from Stellantis that are available in ICE and EV variants are now actually cheaper in the EV variant. This reflects the reality that batteries are now cheap and EVs don't have a lot of moving parts. So, they should be easier and cheaper to assemble. That's a trend that is spreading across all price segments in the next few years. Driven by component and cheap battery availability.

Used EVs are widely available now as well. You can get some amazing deals on cars that mostly still have their drive trains + batteries under warranty. Lots of cars coming out of lease programs are sold on second hand. EVs have been very popular for car leasing for the last 6-7 years now. These are mostly still the relatively expensive models from a few years ago.

The cheap EVs that are now on the market will inevitably start penetrating the second hand market in larger and larger numbers. Cheap ICE cars are disappearing rapidly from the market as models are being discontinued by manufacturers and as the market shares for ICE vehicles keep on shrinking. That means they'll also start getting more scarce in the second hand market in a few years. You'll still be able to get your Ford Fiesta. But it will be a model from before it was discontinued a few years ago. Or the new electric model that they are rumored to launch soonish.

In the US, that is. In China, several EV models sell for under $10k, with some, like the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, starting as low as $4k [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV

To me, Bangkok feels very much like a developing country.

If you go to Chinese cities, the EV adoption has incredible positive effects to the vibe, though. Shanghai’s French concession is so quiet and peaceful now that most cars are EVs.

Western countries will never match the new East Asian cities. All cities decay as the residents begin to oppose change. All residents begin to oppose change as they age and become wealthier. So whatever you become before the population gets rich is what you will remain.

There will be no new fast subway in San Francisco and there will be no maglev in NYC. There will be no autonomous buses in Sydney and London will be entirely devoid of skyways.

This is the nature of growth. One grows then dies as one fossilizes. The next one grows past but no one will ever reinvent themselves.

This is why death is crucial to improvement.

Kind of funny anecdote, as a bit of a car enthusiast.

I drive a Polestar 2, and someone asked if it was my favorite car I've owned. And I said, no that's a Mazda 3 hatchback... 6-speed manual. Lovely vehicle to drive. Economical, but luxurious for the price. Very practical, too.

But... if you asked me if I'd go from the Polestar 2 back to the Mazda 3? I'd say no. I'll keep the electric. Of course it's not a fair comparison... one had an MSRP of $27k and the other $67k. One has 186HP and the other 476HP (and all-wheel drive).

One had a lot of routine maintenance of the engine, while the other has needed wiper blades and tires. And one requires standing outside in 10° F days like today pumping gas, while the other one is charging in my garage (and warms up the cabin from the press of a button on my phone.)

The Mazda 3 was more of a driver's car, and if I had bought either new, it would be a very different equation. (I bought the 3 w/ 8K miles on it for $20k; I bought the Polestar w/ 20K miles on it for $29K.) The Mazda 3 has a vastly better interface - better auto-dimming headlights, tons of buttons for climate, stereo, etc.

But the Polestar 2 is the one I would rather be driving... for now. (I just hope more "driver's car" electric options come to our shores.)

I'd call the that country that adopted EV's first and gasoline second... extinct after WW2. If nothing because the country wouldn't be able to launch an airforce to counter the bombers hitting your power plants. If not that then there's the constant contention of having to pull power lines forward and leaving them vulnerable to artillery fire while the petrol tank hit and run with impunity.

Plus now you have problems moving tonnes of food, water, ammunition on BEV vehicles that no longer have reliable charging access. Being unable to supply your military is more or less a death knell for any fighting force.

Even setting aviation aside, a lot of the reason why gas engines were adopted was because agriculture was among the first to do so, they were less finicky then ox and horses. Rural areas didn't have access to electricity like cities did at the time though; It was a lot easier to have a tin of whatever liquid fuel (gasoline was a byproduct of kerosone production at the time).

I think the problem with this hypothetical is that technology was the main constraint back in 1900, not marketing.

Battery technology was significantly much worse. Lithium batteries were only discovered in the ‘70s.

Gas engines were far more polluting but way less complex in 1910.

> Baker Electric type of stuff

In the 1920s, a lot of auto startups had a unique idea. Then they got crushed by Henry Ford's and GM's production lines. And then the depression.

The Model T was a farm car. 50% of the population lived in rural areas, and they didn't have electricity. There was a market for an urban electric short-range car, it just didn't hit the economy of scale at the right time. But not because it was a bad idea.

> Who would actually decide to switch from a modern EV to gasoline on purpose of their own choice?

I travel monthly through rural parts of the US where EVs really don't make sense. I get the most people on HN live in suburbs/cities, but there's a lot of stuff that happens in the rural parts of the country that absolutely demands ICE vehicles. Yes the population of people out there is much smaller, but if you've ever spent serious times in these parts of the country you'd realize petroleum runs everything.

Even in a world where electric vehicles came first this would still be the case.

Assuming LHR is London Heathrow then ICE cars are not banned there. I drove and parked in short stay parking just a few weeks ago.

What's the reasoning for banning the cars specifically at an airport? Don't the airplanes burn way more fuel?

Ev trucks have already reached 50%+ sales in China this year so diesel truck will be gone soon but unlikely to be Tesla trucks though.

yeah, its an interesting analogy with smokers and the smell and pollution they spread. they dont seem to notice it themselves, but the non smokers around them and up to 100 meters away all notice them.

> Tesla's EV trucks need to deal the same hard kick to diesel trucks that they did to cars

That won't happen until they design a normal truck. The Lightning sold more than the CT and it still ended up getting canceled(ish). It isn't going to be Tesla that does it, it will probably be someone else, and the driving factor is battery capacity. We've got a ways to go yet. It would help to have 400+ kWh batteries and megawatt chargers.

How isolated is that compared to air pollution?

Maybe if they used their brakes all the time, but they don't. (Regen braking uses no brakes). That's why EVs, while heaver, require fewer brake pad replacements than ICE cars.

1 pedal braking means evs often dont need new brake pads for 150K miles

One problem they are experiencing is rust and glazing on the pads from disuse.

They are heavier than the equivalent sized ICE so have more tire wear, but dont have to be that large in an absolute sense. Most are large luxury cars.

I'm no EV expert, but I almost never use my EV's brakes — it mostly brakes using regenerative braking.

And gasoline just magically appears at the gas station? Wars over oil are being fought for decades and nothing similar has happened over Lithium yet?

The lithium mining is surely not causing anywhere near as much pollution as fossil fuel burning. If you think it's actually significant, please show relevant studies and/or analysis.

Only poorly designed EV's are significantly heavier.

A Tesla 3 and a BMW 3 are about the same weight.

> For the analysis, the researchers divided California into 1,692 neighborhoods, using a geographic unit similar to zip codes. They obtained publicly available data from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles on the number of ZEVs registered in each neighborhood. ZEVs include full-battery electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell cars, but not heavier duty vehicles like delivery trucks and semi trucks.

> Next, the research team obtained data from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), a high-resolution satellite sensor that provides daily, global measurements of NO₂ and other pollutants. They used this data to calculate annual average NO₂ levels in each California neighborhood from 2019 to 2023.

> Over the study period, a typical neighborhood gained 272 ZEVs, with most neighborhoods adding between 18 and 839. For every 200 new ZEVs registered, NO₂ levels dropped 1.1%, a measurable improvement in air quality.

Seems pretty clear to me that that's controlled for.

Tires yes, but EVs tend to have regenerative braking which will reduce brake particulates significantly.

Recent research suggests the issue is much less concerning than previously estimated.

https://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/news/illusion-truth-surrounds-inacc...

The study is about NOx levels which have nothing to do with tires or brakes.

> Oil not used in ICE cars is just used someplace else.

That's simply not true. Oil used someplace else would have been used someplace else either way.

There is a supply/demand effect where reduced oil demand would lower its price and therefore arrest the loss of oil demand from cars by other consumers of oil, but the net effect would still be that less oil is burned and used.

> There's certainly a lot to be said for humans needing to take better care of the planet. Co2 just gets a little too much attention for my taste.

GHG are a matter of life or death for hundreds of millions living in poverty in coastal areas or living from their own agriculture.

Of course you live in a 1st world country and it likely won't kill you, just cost you tons of money

It's not about "take better care of the planet", whatever you think that means

> notice is that there's always been oscillations

There's always been oscilations, true, but the rate o change and trend on those oscilations is the real issue.