Electric cars produce far less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

Re:Electric cars produce far less brake dust pollution than ... by ben-schaaf on Thursday July 24, 2025 @04:13AM (#44668275)

They also use the electric motor(s) for braking, but instead of going into a battery it goes into a bank of resistors.

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Re:Electric cars produce far less brake dust pollution than ... by ddeck on Thursday July 24, 2025 @04:23AM (#44668351)

I think you meant capacitors. Resistors would just dissipate the energy as heat.

edit: Thanks for the correction. They do indeed use resistors and just dump the energy as heat. Unfortunate.

Hopefully this will change as supercaps continue to improve. Maxwell tech's modules are already used in light rail, and looks like some work towards smaller locomotives in Switzerland here:

https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/20823697

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Re:Electric cars produce far less brake dust pollution than ... by ahartmetz on Thursday July 24, 2025 @04:39AM (#44668436)

Capacitors have pitiful energy storage capacity. Resistors is correct, unfortunately.

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Re:Electric cars produce far less brake dust pollution than ... by ben_w on Thursday July 24, 2025 @04:58AM (#44668565)

To add to the other comments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_braking

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Re:Electric cars produce far less brake dust pollution than ... by trained6446 on Thursday July 24, 2025 @04:37AM (#44668427)

Nope, resistors. The energy is dumped as heat.

Dynamic brake

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