Why does everyone immediately pivot to EVs on this subject, instead of (looks around) gargantuan SUVs and trucks everywhere, due to peculiarities of US policies regulating SUVs more leniently than cars on fuel efficiency?

EV's produce 38% less tire & brake dust than ICE vehicles.

https://electrek.co/2025/05/27/another-way-electric-cars-cle...

non-exhaust emissions on an ICE vehicle are roughly 1/3 brake dust, 1/3 tire dust and 1/3 road dust. EV's have almost no impact on road dust, 83% lest brake dust and 20% more tire dust.

Tire wear on EVs has more to do with the weight of your right foot than the curb weight of the vehicle.

The high torque of EVs results in frequent wheel slippage for those eager to pull away from traffic lights quickly. Just like with high BHP ICE vehincles, smooth and gentle acceleration/deceleration will result in long tire life.

I'm not sure, and I assume it will vary a lot by speed.

EVs do also have higher torque, so that may increase tire-based particles, but you're right that it avoids the brake pads for the most part.

Fewer cars in general is the win from congestion pricing, though.

A bit worse on tires because they are heavier (for comparable vehicle size, but obviously not if you compare a small EV with a ICE truck), and much better on brakes because of regenerative braking. Overall they are better.

With EV's this gets relatively worse because they are heavier. EV SUV worse than gas SUV.

I'd gonna guess "worse"

Brake dust is mostly some iron, carbon, silica. Not great to ingest but very much recyclable by the environment, unlike rubber.

And possibly much easier to greatly reduce (just build some shielding around the brake to catch most of the dust) than the tyre

And unfortunately there is some nasty stuff in tires

“Additional weight”? What additional weight? In comparison to America’s best-selling vehicle, the Ford F-150? Where was all this hand-wringing about weight and brake and tire dust ten years ago?

I guess those narratives aren’t going to support themselves.