Blame climate change – not EVs – for damaging roads as floods, fires worsen

A new round of anti-EV myth-making is doing the rounds – blaming electric vehicles for creating potholes and damaging roads. But according to new evidence presented to an Australian government inquiry, climate change is a bigger threat.

The Federal parliamentary inquiry on the impacts of severe weather on rural and regional roads met in Wangaratta this week where it heard from several regional and rural local governments about how they are struggling to keep up with the costs of maintaining roads, as floods and fires become increasingly severe and frequent.

A submission from the NSW government detailed how recent natural disasters have damaged 13,000 kms of road, costing the state $2.5 to 3 billion. The inquiry was told that the 2022 floods caused 128,000 potholes in NSW alone.

The vast majority of the 87 submissions mentioned climate change as a driving force behind the changing conditions on roads in rural and regional areas, although at least one submission from the RACQ claimed, seemingly without any references, that generally heavier electric vehicles could accelerate the deterioration of roads in the future.

A similar claim was also made in a recent UK Daily Telegraph article regarding potholes and the weight of electric vehicles.

However, Auke Hoekstra, who researches electric vehicles at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands, said on Twitter that very large vehicles like semi-trailers cause more damage to roads than smaller vehicles.

And he said the difference in weights of most EVs to conventional cars is negligible, and likely to decrease over time as electric vehicle battery weights continue to fall. They have already been cut in half over the last decade.

“By the time most cars and trucks (are) finally electric, they will be lighter than their combustion counterparts,” Hoekstra noted.

Currently, the most popular electric vehicles sold in Australia either weigh less or not significantly more than the most popular ICE vehicles. This is in part due to the increasing popularity of SUV or other larger cars, especially among the top combustion engine cars sold.

The electric version of the MG ZS, the 4^th highest selling car in Australia weighs about 25 perc ent more, at 1570 kilograms, than the combustion version of the same car, at 1255 kg.

But both cars still weigh much less than the Toyota Hilux, currently the highest selling car in Australia at 1997 kg in one model, and the Ford Ranger, the third highest selling at 3500 kg in one of its diesel models.

Meanwhile, the Tesla Model Y, the second highest selling car, weighs 1997 kg. It is possible that sales of larger EV SUVs and trucks may increase in the future as more of these cars become available in Australia, but as Hoekstra notes, this will likely be offset as battery weight continues to fall.

Meanwhile, as several submissions to the ongoing inquiry on the impacts of severe weather on Australian roads have noted, reducing Australia’s dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible will help minimise future severe damage to Australian roads.

This included a submission from Farmers for Climate Action which detailed how roads, train lines and bridges that were sometimes taking weeks and months to repair were placing food supply routes at risk.

The group, which represents 7000 Australian farmers, called for investment in alternatives including inland rail, which it said would not only help reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also reduce Australia’s increasing reliance on trucks for freight.