One of the biggest differences between running a gas-powered car and an electric car is that an electric car does not emit any local exhaust fumes or particulate matter. Because of this, most people have simply assumed that replacing gas-powered cars with electric cars would, in a given environment, improve air quality and subsequently improve the health of people living there.
That assumption, according to Phys.org, a science and research news site, hasn’t really ever been tested on a large scale, due to the limitations of testing equipment. That is, until now.
Thanks to satellite data from NASA, the Keck School of Medicine at USC has been able to create “the first real-world study showing statistically significant reductions in observed NO2 air pollution associated with the ongoing transition to light-duty electric vehicles over time.”
Improvements By The Numbers
The USC study, published by the school in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, looked at satellite data from 1,687 California neighborhoods—the study calls them “ZIP code tabulation areas,” or ZCTAs. It found that, on average, for every 200 zero-emission vehicles added to each neighborhood, that area saw a 1.1% decrease in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels.
USC was able to analyze these 1,687 areas from 2019 to 2023 using a satellite called Sentinel 5, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). It has a device onboard called the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI). This tool analyzes light reflected from the Earth’s surface to identify gases that lie in the atmosphere. It’s a pretty trick piece of gear, going by the ESA’s website:
What sets Tropomi apart is that it measures in the ultraviolet and visible (270–500 nm), near-infrared (675–775 nm) and shortwave infrared (2305–2385 nm) spectral bands. This means that a wide range of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, ozone, formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide can be imaged more accurately than ever before. With a resolution as high as 7 km × 3.5 km, it has the potential to detect air pollution over individual cities.
According to the study, the data is collected by the satellite once a day at roughly 1:30 p.m. local time and published for free by NASA, which is how USC got hold of it. The study links to the raw data on NASA’s site, which you can download and analyze for yourself if you feel inspired to learn about how much nitrogen dioxide might be hovering in your local township.
As Phys.org points out, this is not the first time USC has released a study looking at the effects of electric car adoption. It released a study linking EVs to less air pollution in 2023, but that study used limited data from ground-based monitors. Ground-based testing methods were used again, this time, but only to confirm the data from the satellite. From Phys.org:
To confirm that these results were reliable, the researchers conducted several additional analyses. They accounted for pandemic-related changes as a contributor to NO₂ decline, such as excluding the year 2020 and controlling for changing gas prices and work-from-home patterns. The researchers also confirmed that neighborhoods that added more gas-powered cars saw the expected rise in pollution. Finally, they replicated their results using updated data from ground-level monitors from 2012 to 2023.
Here’s Why It All Matters
As a reminder, nitrogen dioxide can be bad for human health. Take it from the people who wrote the study:
“This immediate impact on air pollution is really important because it also has an immediate impact on health. We know that traffic-related air pollution can harm respiratory and cardiovascular health over both the short and long term,” said Erika Garcia, Ph.D., MPH, assistant professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine and the study’s senior author.
[…]
“We’re not even fully there in terms of electrifying, but our research shows that California’s transition to electric vehicles is already making measurable differences in the air we breathe,” said the study’s lead author, Sandrah Eckel, Ph.D., associate professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine.
If you’d rather hear it from a source not associated with the study, take this excerpt from the EPA‘s website:
Breathing air with a high concentration of NO2 can irritate airways in the human respiratory system. Such exposures over short periods can aggravate respiratory diseases, particularly asthma, leading to respiratory symptoms (such as coughing, wheezing or difficulty breathing), hospital admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Longer exposures to elevated concentrations of NO2 may contribute to the development of asthma and potentially increase susceptibility to respiratory infections. People with asthma, as well as children and the elderly are generally at greater risk for the health effects of NO2.
This study seems to show what everyone already assumed: Driving cars that emit no local polluting gases makes the local air cleaner. It also brings up another point: You might not have to go all-in on pure EVs to make a material difference in air quality. It’s important to make the distinction here that USC didn’t just analyze the adoption of pure electric cars. When it collected data from the California DMV, it also counted plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as “zero-emissions cars” for this study, coinciding with California’s definition of the term.
Phys.org argues the 1.1% drop wasn’t just due to battery-electric cars, but a mix of buyers adopting EVs, plug-in hybrids, extended-range hybrids, and hydrogen-powered vehicles. But the study doesn’t actually determine how much of that decrease can be attributed to BEVs or plug-ins. It’s entirely possible that every plug-in hybrid driver included in this study drove purely on gas power, and the BEVs involved were efficient enough to make up the difference.
Either way, this study reveals what was already pretty obvious: If cars driving around don’t emit any local tailpipe emissions, then of course the air will be cleaner. Now, though, it’s both obvious and measurable.
Top graphic image: Toyota
Surely they mean that the levels drop with the decommissioning of ICE vehicles, not with the deployment of electrical vehicles?
We just need each zip code to buy 200,000 EV’s then pollution will be reduced by 110%.
Would the pollution roll around to 90% or would a paradox form destroying the earth?
200,000 EV’s would only cost a billion dollars let’s all pitch in.
It would be better if they stopped using airplanes.
And unnecessary ocean vessels.
This is great.
Let me tell you a study I do when I run most days: when gas or diesel cars go by me I can definitely tell that I’m breathing in their emissions. NOx sure, but also SPM. And when EVs go by I don’t.
I know tires and brakes are still bad. But this is so very obvious on just this extremely basic level. Significant and increasing portion of our power is solar and wind. Cars are not the cleanest transport answer. But electrifying them with grid power is really valuable.
It’s the worst in neighborhoods because so many of the cars passing just did a cold start and their catalysts aren’t up to temp. I definitely hold my breath when I see certain types of vehicles about to pass me and my dog always sneezes when it’s especially bad. Love to hear the sound of a hybrid approaching.
Yes!! Big plume of diesel smoke, etc. And same with the pups!
I recently moved and have a longer driveway, and when I cold start my vehicles and back down it I get a disturbing amount of exhaust smell in the cabin. And this is on modern vehicles with fully intact emissions systems.
Yea my wife’s Subaru is PZEV, but sweet Jesus those first few minutes before the catalyst warms up with the engine idling at 2k to get up to temp chokes you out quick!
My Fiesta is the worst because it’s so low to the ground that the air intake vents are at exhaust level with basically all modern trucks and driving behind most vehicles is nauseating without recirc on.
I did a road trip through California in 2024, and was impressed with how well I could see the Sierra Nevada from the valley. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than when I was a kid 30 years ago, when you couldn’t see them at all.
That Prius looks great in blue-silver. Is that real?
But, what about my Freedumbs!!!
I’m not here for a long time, I’m here for a good time. F your clean air…. Or some sorta shit they will say.
Interesting study, but science usually is, as opposed to forced dogma and presupposed notions. Ugh – ugly red NO2 blob over my DMV home.
During the initial days of the Covid lockdown, when all there was to do was to go for a walk, I’d walk up the hill by my house and marvel at how I could see mountains in the distance I’ve never seen before or since, and how I could feel the difference in the air I was breathing. I love cars, but I’d be lying to myself if I denied there is an environmental cost. In an ideal world, we’d all commute in EVs and save gas for enthusiasts.
I agree with a lot of that, except if someone’s commute is very long, in which case the inefficiancies of fast charging and the additional rolling resistance of a much heavier EV can make it potentially worse.
My personal winter beater can get driven 180+ miles in one day to visit family and since the EPA vastly overestimates range, and since the cold kills battery life, and since I drive on the freeway, it would require at least one charging stop since I can’t afford a long range EV as a winter beater.
That’s complete nonsense. Even if we assume anyone actually has a commute long enough in mileage that they have to fast charge to complete it (keeping in mind that anything capable of fast charging has a range of 300+ miles these days), they’re such a miniscule fraction of the driving population that they’re not even a rounding error in terms of emissions. EVs are basically the ideal commuter vehicle – it’s a consistent, well-defined trip that can be done with zero tailpipe emissions.
I can get behind people having concerns about road tripping an EV, but commuting? No way.
Commute may be the wrong word, I should say that certain specific professions such as trucking, bus routes, concrete trucks, among other commercial jobs require continious duty making electric unviable.
As for my situation, I have done mild research on EVs and I have found that of the ones I can afford, including a Chevrolet BEV, Hyundai Kona Electric, and a Nissan Leaf, all of which I am disgusted with their styling, do not get over 300 miles of range. By that I mean non EPA inflated numbers, assuming for 0 to 20 degree weather (since it is a winter beater) and going 80 miles per hour. I estimated that you will likely get 60% of what the EPA says. As for it being a miniscule fraction of the driving population, I may be in that group, if so, I do not want to inconvienence myself with electric charging if I am paying more to get less, keeping in mind that I have already offset most of my emissions from my 4Runner by planting 50 trees.
Facts aside, I have many preferences when it comes to what vehicle I drive. To start, I like to feel the road, since all EVs have electric power steering, it greatly numbs the road feel, I like my Tacoma’s steering feel most, as it is hydraulic rack and pinion. I also like to service my vehicles myself. My Tacoma was involven in an accident by the previous owner, so I replaced the rear leaf springs, hangars, and shocks. I also replaced the bed side. After that I serviced the clutch, pilot bearing, and throwout bearing since it was a NY truck it had a lot of stop and go, so it was making noise. I did plugs, new rear studs since the accident bent the old ones, and I buffed out all of the old scratches. Another thing I like is it’s 2.7L 4 cylinder engine, it is insanely durable. While it makes no power, I love it’s charm, it is easy to work on since the engine bay is made for a V6 so you can actually see the ground when you are working on it, it is truely an amazing truck.
So bottom line is, I can see the merit of getting an EV, sounds like you are that type of person, but for me, and my situation, a manual 4wd Tacoma is the tool for the job, and no EV can replace it.
CA just moved the polution east of their border, as a large percentage of CA electricity comes from AZ.
Look at the map, it clearly shows the pollution hotspots. In Arizona, the pollution hotspot is Phoenix, not any of the power plants. But hey, you’re going to believe whatever satisfies your tiny worldview.
California is now a net producer of energy, with a ridiculously high percentage being renewable. How do we flag false information posts on the Autopian?
I used to click the smiley button. Just as I would laugh when someone told me this live. But unfortunately, that just makes the comment more popular.
… comes from Arizona and Nevada solar farms.”
plus Hoover Dam and the wind farms just south of it.
They’re gonna use up all the sunlight! There won’t be enough left for the rest of us!
Click on the grid operator you want to assess. Scroll down to the grid power by source.
For California Independent:
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/balancing_authority/CISO
For LA:
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/balancing_authority/LDWP
fun tool to play around with and see where it really comes from
That is partially true but wholly pessimistic. As you drive a fossil fuel car it will only pollute more every year as its internal parts wear down, power-plants emissions are easier to manage and as more renewable sources come online the grid only gets cleaner over time.
Even if this were an issue, electric cars are so much more energy-efficient and power plants are so much better emissions-wise, that this is still a huge net benefit. Less energy being used, generated by more efficient sources, that produce less pollution.
When I lived in CT it used to always bug me that we had to have emissions testing ‘until the clean air standard was met’, but looking at the map you can see the issue, constant southwest winds blowing up from NY and NJ meant CT’s air would NEVER be clean enough to meet standards, yet they pay the price for it in the old Constitution state every year.
Now living in NC I see that spot west of Charlotte is all us, and actually looks like the airport area, not sure what else would be there polluting that crazy.
Have you seen the number of cars driving up 95 through Connecticut? But, sure, blame it on NY and NJ. Always better to blame someone else.
CT is a drive-thru state, but due to the emissions testing most resident cars are fairly clean. I mean just look at the giant red blob centered on NJ, there’s no escaping that, wonder if some of that is the refineries there.
So CT people don’t drive anywhere but their own state? NJ is a drive-thru state, AND has all the effing refineries, and a major airport, AND, NYC pollution blows into the state. But sure, blame NJ.
CT has less than 4 million people, NYC and NJ both have over double that. Not NY, just NYC. And NJ has the Bayway Refinery cranking out over 200,000 barrels of oil per day. So yeah, I blame NJ and NYC.
I mean look at the map, NYC and NJ are giant red blobs, and CT is downwind of them, not to get too graphic but after 9/11 we could see the smoke trail from the twin towers past Hartford, that’s just how the wind blows.
I will blame it on NJ and NY. Go ahead and look at all the plates. Since they are from NY and NJ.
Have you seen the traffic that drives through NJ? The refineries producing fuel for your precious CT cars? Sure, go ahead and blame someone else. Always easier, and very American. You sure you don’t live in a red state?
Huh. Weird guy.
Huh, weird guy endlessly arguing that CT residents are responsible for their own tailpipe emissions.
I made 1 comment about blaming NY and NJ for increased pollution because of how many of them I see daily on our highways. But I am endlessly arguing? Again, you are very strange. But it’s ok. Have a good day friend.
Um, you keep replying, so, yes, you are endlessly arguing. Let’s face it, the southern corner of CT all work in NYC, so, if you’re going to blame NY and NJ, might as well blame all of southern CT. You’re not strange, just ignorant. Maybe a little weird. Mostly just ignorant.
Let me give you a smiley face. Maybe that will cheer you up. Replying isn’t arguing. There is a difference.
Question for the Braintrust: Just placed an order for a Ram 1500 Laramie crew cab 6’4″ bed with the 3.0L I6 and Air suspension (with an approximately 4-5 month max wait time)
My question is that with the 1500 REV coming out supposedly in Q2 of 2026 should I cancel my order and get a REV?
My main concerns are as follows:
1.) First model year problems.
2.) IF Ram does the right thing and allocates orders to the reservation holders first I’m unlikely to get my order fulfilled in 2026.
3.) I plan on running a bed cap, but due to the integrated “Ram Box” storage of the REV either I need to order a bed cap from Australia that is compatible with the “Ram Box”, buy a bed cap lift to allow me to use the “Ram Box”, or just never use it because a regular bed cap makes it unable to be used.
My current plan is to hold onto the order and IF they either haven’t started building the Truck by the time the order banks for the REV open up or if they say they cannot build my truck in 2026 for whatever reason then I’d reevaluate, and likely place an order for the REV.
1. The good thing about Stellantis is that you get first-year problems in every MY,so that’s not an issue
Keep the current order. They have a 10/100k warranty, which will allow you to hold out for the new truck when/if the bugs are worked out.
Yeah, after thinking on it it seems like the best plan, after a couple years I can trade it in for the REV if I really want one that bad and by that time they should have most of the problems sorted out.
Buy what you want – there is not “Kill Switch” for MY2027
The 2027 “Kill Switch” law was created by the HALT Drunk Driving Act. It passed in 2021 and required the NHTSA to write a regulation within 5 years that would direct automaker to install a system that:
“monitors a driver’s performance to identify impairment of a driver”“passively detects a blood alcohol level equal to and exceeding .08 blood alcohol content”Or, “detects impairment and prevents or limits vehicle operation”NHTSA is way behind on writing the regulation as has not even published a first draft yet so there is no way it will be implemented by MY2027
As in the past there are groups and individuals fear mongering and flat out lying about what this law requires and are saying it will give the government remote access to shut down cars.
The last time this same rumor blew up was when NHTSA required that all gas cars with remote start turn off the engine after 20 minutes. This was in response people accidentally activating remote start while the vehicle was in their garage and died of CO poisoning. It did not apply to EVs as there is no exhaust gasses to kill people so the online fear mongering was this was for the future when the government would remotely disable all ICE vehicles
Yep, I misremembered. It’s technically law but the tech needed to implement it doesn’t exist so even though the NHTSA was mandated to come up with a rule in 2024 at the latest they’ve yet to do so.
I doubt the tech will be reliable when it is mandated, and even if it has a .01% false positive rate that’s 155K+ people per year, and add 155K+ every year after that.
Now let us extend that which works to the rest of the country. Of course, that would require Republicans to get the hell out of the way, and let progress run its course.
It’s not that simple. The oil industry spans across many sovereign nations, and they have enough money to pay off everyone, no matter who’s got the big desk in the White House. Yes, one party is stymieing progress more than the other, but the fact is, there’s enough money in the industry that these companies can buy off whoever they want, whenever they want.
No politician is going to attack the real sources of pollution: power generation, commercial aviation, oceanic shipping, and manufacturing. These companies are destroying our planet, not you and I burning gas to get back and forth to work.
Sure, our ICE cars do damage the environment, but forcing those major industries to clean up would more than offset everybody’s gasoline use.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t eventually switch to EVs. However, consumers shouldn’t be the ones to bear the burden of change when these big corporations are a much, much bigger problem that won’t be fixed by mass EV adoption.
Yet the oil companies are the largest investors in clean energy, in the US and overseas. Want to freak out? research the massive solar energy projects in Northern Africa. Guess who the investors are? Nothing less that those oil countries; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Emirates. They know what the future holds.
All of the industries you mentioned have ever tightening pollution regulations.
Pollution from ocean shipping has often been misrepresented with claims like “10 ships produce more pollution than all cars”. This claim was specifically talking about sulfur dioxide pollution as sulfur was removed from road diesel and gasoline years ago. However, the USA has required companies to use low sulfur fuel in US territorial waters for more than a decade and back in 2020 it was required internationally. The shipyard across the river from my office builds barges required to be used by ships when in harbor. They have essentially a large diesel aftertreatment system that sits on the barge and the exhaust from the ship’s generators are treated before being exhausted.
Hard pass. Thank you though!
The EPA is changing how it considers the costs and benefits of air pollution rules
JANUARY 13, 2026
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/13/nx-s1-5675307/epa-air-regulations-health-benefits
“For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has assigned a dollar value to the lives saved and the health problems avoided through many of its environmental regulations.
Now, that has changed. The EPA will no longer consider the economic cost of harm to human health from fine particles and ozone, two air pollutants that are known to affect human health. The change was written into a new rule recently published by the agency. It weakened air pollution rules on power plant turbines that burn fossil fuels, which are sources of air pollution of many types, including from fine particles, sometimes called soot.”
So much winning! /s
Clean air and water are totally overrated.
Clean air and water are so… woke!
Are we Great yet?
Yeah. This shouldn’t surprise anyone who isn’t lying to themselves.
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting one developing nation city, populated with unfiltered diesels, 2 stroke scooters and shitty little “peoples cars”.
The city was beautiful, but damn… Walking along some of the main thoroughfares made my eyes water, and the entire city had an acrid smell. I went for a bike ride at one point, and I was huffing and puffing.
Many folks reaaaaaally take the air quality improvements of modern emissions control devices for granted. I’m not surprised electric vehicles take that a step further. Anyone who has ever set a small cup of gasoline on fire can see how hard engine control and emissions systems are working to minimize the combustion pollutants.
Small gas engines emit a lot of pollution. I had to shower to get the unburned gas smell off me after snowblowing the driveway during the recent winter storm that came through. And that’s with a 8ish year old Predator 212 just tuned up. The old flathead Briggs powered blower was way worse. Auto emissions systems are something amazing.
I had to give up landscaping when I was a teenager due to the small engine emissions. As a homeowner, modern electric lawn equipment is awesome.
All of my gardening equipment, is battery powered.
Electric lawn equipment gives me range anxiety.
I can see replacing most tools with electric, but my leaf blower / mower / snow blower will probably remain gas powered for a while.
Range anxiety in an EV is one thing, you could end up stranded in the middle of nowhere. But range anxiety on lawn equipment…if it dies just finish mowing after charging the battery for a bit. Have a beer or something!
I have about 200 meters of extension cord and a socket in the shed. If you garden is even bigger, I expect you to invite me for caviar and champagne.
The key there is having more than one battery. My mower has two battery slots and came with two batteries but it only uses one at a time. If it looks like I won’t finish on the set I can take the spent battery out and put it on the charger while continuing to mow with the other. By the time the second one is done the first will have enough juice to finish.
Also, keep the mower blades sharp. The “range” drops dramatically when the blades get dull. Something I never really noticed on the gas mower but its definitely a thing on electric.
I beat the heck out of my mower. I use it to mow trails in the woods in addition to mowing. I sharpen / change blades monthly in-season, but they’re usually quite beat.
I also have a snowblower attached to the front so it doesn’t get much time off through the year.
When I use it, It’s usually running for hours. I’d probably need the battery equivalent of 3 gallons of gas to get by.
That might just be a bad use case for electric then – at least for the consumer-level equipment. They aren’t for everything. Just like with BEV autos there are just some uses that really don’t work well and you might be in that bracket.
I’m not opposed to battery. I have an electric car. I replaced my gas chainsaw with electric, and I’ll do the same for my weed trimmer when the gas one dies. I have an electric leaf blower, but it’s only really usable for clearing leaves off the deck. It doesn’t have the power or run time to do anything useful in the yard.
I just think I need a little more battery than presently available for leaf blowing, mowing or snow blowing.
Multiple batteries. My lawn takes about 2.5 hours to mow, which is about 2.5 batteries. A battery swap takes seconds plus whatever time it takes to retrieve it (though I can carry an additional one on top of the mower), which is a lot less time than refueling and in spring, drop in the battery, start, and go—I don’t need to rebuild carbs thanks to shitty ethanol fuel, fight a pull cord, deal with refilling gasoline during operation, or go to the station to fill one of those spill-inducing unvented “green” gas cans.
We have a leaf blower, but it’s easier to hire people to blow leaves as it’s much faster with three people pushing a wall of leaves.
We also have an electric hedge trimmer to trim along the sides of the 1/4 mile driveway. My patience usually runs out before the first battery.
As a snow blower, I can’t see electric replacing gas for anything less than a small space and fluffy snow you could probably do by hand pretty quickly, anyway.
It’s a riding mower and I am unwilling to flex on that. When we moved here from a town house closer to the city, I agreed to take care of the yard as long as I got a riding mower.
It’s definitely more than required for the lawn itself, but I put a 42″ snowblower on it for the winter and I have recklessly driven it straight into heavy brush to clear it. I have also established some nice trails in the woods with it.
I have no reason to think that an electric version would be less durable or less tolerant of flagrant misuse / borderline abuse, but I know a decent gas one can handle it and can be re-powered with a trip to Harbor Freight if needed.
OK, yeah, my comparison is with push mowers. I don’t know if there are ride-on electrics, but that would eat a lot of energy, so probably not. As it is, I use the powered wheels sparingly just in awkward corners or inclines where it’s more difficult to get behind to push (at this point, if I try to push something at slightly the wrong angle, I can feel it for the next day). I tried running with the wheels powered most of the time once and the battery probably only lasted a little more than half as long as normal.
They have some electric riding mowers, but I haven’t looked too closely at them. I think someone was making a hybrid one that was also a generator and a four wheeler ATV at one point.
There will be more / better options at some point.
Like Proust’s madeleine, smelling filthy diesel fumes brings me back to visiting Europe in the ’90s.
It’s actually this pattern than has me a little skeptical of this study. Not THAT skeptical, because of course there should be an effect that’s measurable if you measure carefully enough, but the sniff test already produced those very different results in US & developing nation’s cities before the Model S was released, and it was because US emissions laws already resulted in a 99.9%+ reduction in pollutants relative to those 2 strokes and old “people’s cars”.
The overwhelming majority of PM and NOx pollution has been coming from heavy diesel trucks for a very long time now. I would want to dive into the methodology if I wasn’t at work and slacking off on my own methodologies right now. I have a suspicion that many of these benefits will disappear if you control for local adoption of electrified buses, mail trucks etc, and emission controls on stationary emitters.
I wonder what’s going on with Miami.
They seem to have a much lower level of pollution compared to similarly-sized metro areas like Atlanta, Philly, DC/Baltimore, etc.
Hurricanes it is the hurricanes /s (maybe not /s though)
I’m thinking it’s a combination of proximity to large bodies of water/ prevailing wind and the lack of any real industrial scale manufacturing.
That and no combustion-based building heating systems.
There’s a limited time window to collecting data on the Miami-Dade area, before it goes under from climate change induced sea level rise. Ocean surfaces don’t emit many pollutants.
Daily rain. That’s my guess.
As others have already said, geography and weather presumably limit Miami’s air pollution. Most of the Miami metro area is around 10 miles wide with the ocean on one side and the everglades (i.e. a completely unpopulated wilderness) on the other. Unlike most cities where density slowly decreases over a period of several miles, civilization ends abruptly on either side of the Miami metro area.
If nothing else, the distribution of population over a long, narrow area (100+ miles north to south and ~10-15 miles east to west) makes the population distribution of Miami very different from almost all other US cities. I presume the unusual distribution of population changes pollution patterns considerably.
I love how the green color stops right at the borders of Indiana and Ohio. And Lake Erie for some reason. The rural areas of all the other states are largely blue, but not those two. Then there’s New Jersey…
When I lived in Indiana the two counties in the northwest corner and Marion county (where Indianapolis is) were subject to fairly strict emissions testing. The rest of the state was not. It was repeatedly explained to me that it was because those areas had high NO2 levels and absolutely nothing to do with the fact that those areas tended to vote liberal. All this may have changed since then, it’s been a while.
I live in Indianapolis. No emissions testing or any kind of car testing. I wish we had annual brake and head light inspections though!
I lived in Northwest Indiana and it was 15 years ago so maybe I’m misremembering or someone told me Indy was included and it wasn’t true. I suppose it’s also possible things have changed and they stopped doing it. I very definitely had to take a Dodge Dakota through the testing site three times before I could get my plates renewed though.
I anecdotally noticed this when I went to Budapest last year. The air was noticeably cleaner and smelled way less of diesel exhaust than on our last visit in 2017. The local transit authority has been aggressively switching to electric buses and there were a lot of passenger EVs on the street. The difference in air quality was really apparent.
I spent some time in London and Madrid in the late 90s and the Daily Black Booger Syndrome was a very real thing (to be super pedantic, that’s more about diesel particulates, but same idea with localized pollution vs the separate CO2 discussion)
Both places in the past 3 years? Unrecognizably clean air, at least compared to where they were before.
See also Shanghai (and presumably other large Chinese cities) where many of the two stroke scooters have been replaced by electric. Ground level air quality is massively improved, and the streets are also noticeably quieter.
Funny thing about the NO2 discussion — which has been important all along — is that it’s pretty broadly accepted as objectively bad, and always has been. Particulates, as well. There’s not really any room for denial like there is for AGW because we’re not talking about hundreds or thousands of years of status quo and then trying to attribute the change to something human-caused. It’s right there, immediately measurable by emissions equipment. And now in the aggregate, too.
I guess you haven’t heard the coal rollers claim that rolling coal is better for public health because their carbon particles are large and fall right to the ground and that DPFs are actually worse for public health because they burn large carbon particles into small ones that stick in people’s lungs (which isn’t true but since when has truth been the goal)
Lede image shows a Prius, not an EV.
Since they include PHEVs in the formal definition, I assume the Car Formerly Known as Prius Prime still counts.
Could be a Prius Prime, since PHEVs count as zero emissions for their study.
Data published by NASA?
I guess their funding’s on the chopping block again.
and USC is about to lose funding too
Why? Just rebrand it to the University of Shale & Coal for a few years until this all blows over.
It’ll be a “vo-tech school.” With a rowing team, of course.
ESA satellite, not a NASA or NOAA property satellite. There’s still a way around the stupidification.
If you’re sure about that, please tell the Smithsonian how. They could use the help.
Of course, as soon as the oil & gas industry saw that NASA was freely distributing these data, the administration shuts down NASA and sends the satellite to it’s death.
The good part is that the satellite they used was from the European Space Agency, so the data will still be available as long as it can be requested.
You mean that data has entered the US without authorization?
ICE Euro Trip coming right up!
The satellite is in space, so we should probably send all of ICE out there to get it, all of them.
Elon can drive them up there!
Great. Now we’ll have another new agency: Space ICE.
I don’t care if Marvin the Martian was actually born here, he’s the worst of the worst and he needs to go to Venus along with Matt Damon.
This makes me very angry, very angry indeed.
Dammit, there’s an Ice Pirates joke in here somewhere, but as fitting as the government’s gutting of the EPA and their clean water initiatives in comparison to the bad guys in that movie, ICE wouldn’t be the heroes, so I can’t find it.
Somewhat like Caligula sending the Roman Guard to the sea to fight Poseidon.
Is there a go fund me site for “rocket ship to send all of ICE into (deep) space”? If so I’d like to contribute…
That’s a lot of people applying for their first passports all at once. Better check if mine needs to be renewed before Kyle, Chad, Derek, and Tyler get in line.
As this is a car site, not a science and technology site, you probably don’t know. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has already had all aspects of its budget that deals with climate cut. That includes future satellites for monitoring. Thankfully, we have European satellites to fall back on.
Yay science!
Can’t wait to see how this is denounced by the people who denounce things.
I think they already cut the funding for future studies, so they don’t have to denounce more things
Look, bro, you can’t prove it was from cars. Cyclic nature of the atmosphere, you know? And even if it was from cars, who’s to say the data is any good? And even if the data is good, who says it’s bad for our health? I’ve made it nearly to 40 without any issues and I’m near a red spot on the map.
Fittingly, this reads exactly like the examples of narcissistic gaslighting they use to warn people in bad relationships.
So is it not fair to question data and methodology in scientific research now? If scientific study and the details of its creation cannot be questioned, then it isn’t science.
I agree that those who instantly argue with all EV research are likely idiots. But so are those who instantly believe there is no room for any argument.
ALL scientific research should be questioned. Repeatedly.
Questioning and denouncing are entirely different things.
I actually agree with you completely. But there are ever so many in our current Western cultures who view them one and the same. Regardless, your correction is accurate.
If the study came out the other way it would be even more interesting because the results would be counter-intuitive.
Sure the air is is cleaner but an ev won’t let me drive 1000miles a day while towing a boat and camper and only slowing down to pee in my Mountain Dew bottles and fill my tank in under five minutes.
Plus how are people supposed to know I’m a man if I can’t roll coal at every school crossing?
Do you operate an emergency 24 hour coast to coast trombone repair service?
Well, the current administration wants to deorbit the satellites used to study the levels of CO2 and plant growth. No reason not to add the satellites used for this to that list.