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A comment on Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics. Parent comment

Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by galangalalgol on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:49PM (#37728472)
As the tire wear varies with the square of the weight we are comparing:

100x(car weight + grocery weight)^2 Vs (Truck weight + 100x grocery weight)^2

I couldn't find an empty weight for a box truck that could carry that much but assuming 10klbs total, and that grocery weight is negligible to the car, it looks like thebtruck is slightly better. It doesn't seem like a clear win.

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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by dragontamer on Sunday October 01, 2023 @07:53PM (#37732242)
> (car weight + grocery weight)^2

That's ^4 actually. Friction / Normal Force / Damage to roads is to the Fourth power law.

Yeah, the 100x lighter cars might actually be better in practice. That's what makes this last-mile problem so problematic. We're already (possibly) at the local optimum.

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