UCLA team finds high levels of particulates in air near electric vehicle fast charging stations
newsroom.ucla.edu
The study was conducted across Los Angeles County.
  • At the charging stations, daily concentrations of dangerous air particles, known as PM2.5, ranged from 7.3 to 39.0 micrograms per cubic meter.
  • Urban sites without fast-charging stations had concentrations of PM2.5 ranging from only 3.6 to 12.4 micrograms per cubic meter.
  • The tiny particles likely come from particle resuspension around Direct Current Fast Charging power cabinets. Cooling fans designed to prevent the electronics from overheating can also stir up dust and particles from internal surfaces.
  • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    211·
    19 hours ago

    a) that doesn’t really sound like the fault of EVs or the charging stations themselves. Any sort of very moderate air current would cause the same problem.

    Excactly. The stations themselves don’t create particles but magnetic fields from the high voltage DC lines and cooling fans just pick them up from the ground and back to air. It’s quite misleading to claim this is “Fine particulate matter emissions from electric vehicle fast charging stations” as the stations just redistribute existing emissions.

    Obviously this is not a good thing, but the underlying cause is something else than these stations, I’d bet considerable amount of it comes from combustion engines. And as you said, simple filters should fix the problem and clean up the pollution from environment as well.