July 12, 2021

Dodge CEO Spins Electrification of Vehicles As “Tearing Up Streets, Not Planet”

The vehicle manufacturing companies themselves are being legislatively squeezed into providing  electric vehicles, but the greenwash of still being able to swerve at speed and burn tires with electric vehicles versus fossil fuel vehicles is their salvo to stay afloat. It’s the same tough guy marketing and swagger, just with an electric vehicle that can still rev high and intimidate.

As Peter Holderith in The Drive states the Dodge Motor Company makes a 6.2 liter V8 that creates 800 horsepower, and a whole line of muscle cars. So their move into electrification is to make vehicles higher performance.

“The automaker famous for its powerful Hellcat V8s claims it will always offer a model powered by internal combustion. That being said, the company clearly sees the writing on the wall, and understands the performance electric vehicles can offer. As such, a fully electric muscle car will be available for sale by 2024, with other models also being electrified in order to offer higher performance.”

That’s it. That’s the spin. Going electric means your car goes faster, noisier, and makes more dust.

Take a look at the video below. All that fog is not produced  Hollywood effects in that video. It is actually tire dust, the tiny particles of rubber responsible for half of particulate emissions, and one of the biggest sources of microplastic pollutants in oceans after disposable plastic. In fact, a chemical that is part of car tire preservative contains a toxic chemical that is lethal to large fish.  By leaching into water sources this poison in microplastic  has killed salmon in the Pacific Northwest, and is most probably found on every heavily used road around the world.

I have already written about the fact that 55% of traffic pollution is from non-exhaust particles, and 20% of that is brake dust. The dust is caused by the friction of the brake rotor grinding on the brake pads when a vehicle is braked, and the dust becomes airborne. British research shows that the impact of this dust is just as severe as that of diesel particles. You can read Dr. Selley’s complete study here.

What this also means is that zero emission vehicles which have been vaunted as the environmental salvo to the internal combustion engines of  20th century vehicles really are not. They still contribute to  brake and tire dust pollution, as well as contributing to road deaths and traffic congestion.

This speaks to clear governmental policies encouraging walking, cycling and  public transit in cities as opposed to encouraging high performance  individual vehicles in high density areas that are subject to vehicular pollution.

Meanwhile in the video below the CEO of Dodge actually says “it is time to tear up the streets, but not the planet“, and is using electrification of Dodge vehicles as a promise of greater, faster, muscle cars.

How twentieth century.

Image: Dodge

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Comments

  1. Electric vehicle will also be noise than their ICE counter parts, at least for the same style. Above 30kph the tyre noise is louder than what ICE produces (with standard mufflers). The heavier a vehicle and the bigger the tyre the louder the vehicle.

    So all the people who envision a cleaner, quieter city with electric vehicles will be sorely disappointed.

  2. Sensible electric vehicles actually produce less brake dust as regenerative braking covers most of the braking. Driven sensibly a set of pads can last a very long time on an electric vehicle. Not saying EVs are the total solution. High performance vehicles are a very big problem though. Mostly men own these cars and far too many just don’t give a flip over the environment you or I or anyone else. They place their own pleasures above all else and generally are allergic to any concept of social responsibility. We have a pandemic of narcissism that is running rampant with no sign of slowing up any time soon. Hopefully we as a species can overcome it.

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