Sadiq Khan has accused the London Conservatives of not caring about children’s lungs in a bitter spat over Ulez expansion at City Hall.
In a heated Mayor’s Questions session, Mr Khan caused outrage when he suggested that the Conservative’s opposition to Ulez expansion was tantamount to not caring about children, while also claiming Tory members were “in the pockets” of vested interest groups.
When asked by Kurpesh Hirani, a Labour member, whether London’s children deserved to grow up with stunted lungs, Mr Khan said: “I’m quite clear with the language I use, Conservatives of the assembly obviously do not care about these children.”
The ULEZ allows EVs in without paying the charge. EVs are heavier than ICE. A major contributor to PMI pollution – the thing really being talked about here – is tyre wear. Heavier cars produce more PMI.
All of that preceding paragraph is wholly and entirely true.
It is said, by some – and this isn’t something I’ve checked nor do I have the information or skills to do so – that the net effect here is that more EVs means more PMI. The weight and tyre wear more than counters the reduction in diesel and or petrol fumes.
Would be interesting to know if that preceding paragraph is indeed wholly and entirely true.
If Conservatives cared about British children, London would still be British.
Khan is a twat. It shames me that we went to the same school.
Trying to dress naked money grabbing policies to penalise drivers as ‘caring’ about youngsters’ lungs is the sort of cuntish behaviour one would expect from someone elected under that evil scum Blair.
EVs have regenerative braking which means less wear (and hence less dust) from brake discs. That plus the absence of tailpipe emissions means EVs will pollute less on urban streets.
This is also fairly obvious: I’ve seen plenty of smelly diesel cars (especially on cold winter mornings); but never a smelly EV.
The weight issue is overstated too. The Kia Niro petrol weighs 1490kg, the electric weighs 16%, or 250kg, more.
As I have bored you with before, twenty or so years ago, TPTB decided encouraging diesel use to reduce CO2 was the way to go even though they had been warned that such a move would increase particulate pollution and therefore harm to ‘childrens’ (and everybody elses’) lungs’.
But hey, what are a few lives damaged / shortened when you’re saving the planet (or people – see the gene therapy trials currently underway).
Kahn’s done what all those of his ilk do. Recruited loads of his “relatives” to City Hall, who (this is totally untrue and a calumny I’ve just made up) pay him a reward for his granting them a huge salary…
250kg is easily a family of four plus their holiday luggage. I think I’ll stick with the diesels.
Most other third-world cities are full of polluting vehicles. Why should London be any different?
Andrew M, as with the rest of UK manufacturing CO2 / pollution, all of the crap that comes with producing electric vehicles has been off-shored. It’s still out there, just not in our ‘urban streets’…….
What Andrew M says – also the study most quoted on tyre wear is complete bollocks – you’d need tyres every month or so if it was true.
Looked at the presumed reference: https://emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions stating tyre wear testing gave 5.8 grams per kilometre. Average UK mileage is c10,000 km a year giving 58kg a year or about 8 tyres a year @ 7kg per tyre – bear in mind you replace on tread wear alone. Given tread wear to 1.6 mm form say 8 or 9 mm new requires replacement not total mass it would be say around 32 tyres per car per year
“As we were originally concerned that the mass loss levels would be too small to measure, we stacked the decks by choosing the cheapest tyres, ballasted the car heavily, chose a track with average surface quality and designed a test cycle with high speeds and much cornering.”
Basically they loaded up a pick up truck and power slided it around a race track it seem …
EVs actually report pretty low tyre wear due to the use of rolling breaking.
What does certainly happen is that cars churn up particles lying on the road but that doesn’t seem to be taken into account in the studies much.
Lifecycle assessments of EV suggest they are overall a 60%+ improvement and that gets better as the grid supply gets better.
London ir pollution? Do none of these idiots know about the 1950s? London air pollution, to all intents and purposes, has been solved.
All that means is that the politiscum and bureaucunts need to dream up ever more fine grained scares so they can
give our money to their matescontinue to “solve” the “problem”.I thought what the left wants is stunted children.
NYT Attacks ‘Heightism,’ Calls to Mate with Short People to Save Earth
Where is Randy Newman when you need him?
London air pollution, to all intents and purposes, has been solved.
That’s simply not true. It’s gone from extraordinarily bad to merely harmfully bad. But it’s still harmfully bad. Spend a day in a busy part of London and a day in open countryside and your lungs can feel the difference. Or less subjectively – look at the pollution stats. For things like particulates, it’s not a healthy place to be.
To Chris, et al.
Chris noted “cars churn up particles lying on the road.”
A recent German study found exactly that, and such particles are spewed far & wide of the vehicle and are more dangerous to citizens than any exhaust fumes. The particles include very tiny pieces of rubber, paint, & metals & maybe some others I don’t recall.
‘things like particulates’
Well yes Anon. When I was in London many, many years ago, I was fascinated to see that when I blew my nose, I’d see little black particles in the snot.
But perhaps it’s all different nowadays.
Anyone who is concerned about breathing in London’s polluted air should do what I do – never go anywhere within 150 miles of the place. Works for me!
@BoganBoy
If I’ve been in London for a couple of days, my snot does actually turn a different colour. Not so much individually identifiable particles, but it does go grey/black.
Dear Mr Worstall
Heathrow will be in the newly expanded ULEZ. How much do planes pay?
In next weeks news – “ultra low” will be re-defined to be even lower, etc etc etc …
DP