Electric cars are not THE solution.
Is that true about the tires though? Electric car tires are designed to be substantially tougher because of the increase in weight, do they actually shed more material?
There’s no such thing as an “electric car tire.” They just use standard passenger vehicle tires rated for the appropriate weight class.
“Tougher” just means they handle more weight by holding higher air pressure, so they’ll have more layers of steel, kevlar, canvas, etc. The materials that makes contact with the road still wear the same.
There is in fact such a thing as an “electric car tire”.
Fundamentally you are correct that they are in essence just tires rated for the weight class, but there’s more to it than just that.
Electric car tires are usually made with a stiffer rubber than comparable combustion cars, this is mostly to handle the additional weight, but they also stagger the tread pattern, and some have foam inside them, both to improve the noise and acoustics of them. Something that wasn’t a problem when there were a noisy combustion engine running. But in an electric car you don’t have the engine noise, and therefore hear a lot more of the wheel noise.
None of this help with the particle emissions, but there is in fact such a thing as an electric car tire.
Engineering Explained has a great video if you are curious: https://youtu.be/8pM9o2Ifcro
You can’t really engineer away the need for friction, and if there’s friction there is going to be wear.
If EV tires were much better than normal tires with the same grip levels and somehow magically less wear, all tires would adopt that technology.
Not that I’m a materials scientist, but EV tires don’t seem much different than other “economy” tires, other than a higher load rating.
There is actually a lot of small details that make EV tires different than regular tires. Nothing that helps with particle emissions, though:
All the EVs I see sold around where I live (Norway) come with the same eco tires as ICE cars. The heavier ones like a Tesla Model X just comes with the same tires rated for higher load. (And the extra foam inside for sound dampening, but that’s an option for most tires) The Model X also happens to be delivered with the same tire they put on the very much not EV Ford Explorer.
You have answered your own question. They are built to be tougher, by using more material.
They still shed a proportional amount of material for the vehicle weight.
Not only that but if they get damaged due to trauma prior to end-of-life (such as a puncture of pothole damage) that is a lot more material that is going to landfill (or tyre “recycling” in countries that have it).