Limiting EV torque off the line is probably one of the lowest-hanging emissions reduction fruits out there, given that (by estimates I've seen) tire wear for current EVs is in aggregate 20-50% faster than ICE vehicles.

The tire thing you've heard has been started by one article that misleadingly bundled tire and breakpad particles with all other emissions summed up by weight.

This was extremely misleading breakdown, because it discounted all of the ICE gases that are toxic, but weigh almost nothing, and lighter combustion particles that stay in the air, versus tire particles that are typically heavier and stay on the ground.

Of course worn tires aren't environmentally neutral, but that framing was used as a regressive "gotcha" in EVs vs ICE, without daring to mention any real solutions like reversing heavy macho-pickup-truck and SUV fashion created by a workaround for emissions regulation, or moving freight from trucks to rail.

Is it or is it not true that EVs shed tire rubber particles at a significantly higher rate than like-for-like ICE vehicles?

I said it was low-hanging fruit because it's my understanding that it is: since EVs (again, correct me if I'm wrong) generate more tire rubber particles because of their comparatively high torque output, it's literally a software fix (limiting torque) to cut those emissions to ICE levels or, potentially, even lower. The only reason not to do it is that many people view their personal vehicles as large, expensive toys, and they will be less fun toys if their acceleration performance is curtailed.

I don't see this as a "gotcha" for EV technology, because it has such a trivial solution, and it was not my intent to suggest that ICE cars are less (or more, for that matter) damaging to the environment. I'm honestly not sure why you would read my comment that way.

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As for the harm done by microplastics like tire rubber particles, it's my understanding that they don't simply stay on the ground, but rather that drainage carries them into the ground, waterways, and ultimately oceans, where they remain intact for some indefinite period and cause largely unquantified disruptions to local organisms and ecologies. It's not obvious to me that they won't ultimately be more of a problem than airborne pollutants, since they may be much more persistent and difficult to remove.

There's the perfect solution in an ideal world, and there's what actually works given people's actual behavior. For the latter, you have to consider that if you make EVs less compelling, more people might just stick with their ICE vehicles, which are worse overall when you take all pollutants into account.

After the EV transition is complete, though, that'd be a good time to start limiting torque. Unless most people are just riding self-driving taxis by then, which probably won't be doing fast acceleration anyway.

Alternatively: the time to limit torque is now, while consumers are still getting to know EVs and the other substantial benefits they present. Those other benefits ought to be enough to drive adoption, and the longer we indulge the most harmful excesses, the harder it will be to reverse them in the future when the trap has sprung.

I don't really think either of these arguments is obviously correct, so I lean toward the option that immediately limits harm. But I'm also under no illusion that anything other than short to medium term profits are driving automakers' decisions, so in practice we will surely get the worst of both worlds.

Handling is nice for freeway merges but it’s definitely not at high speed. Where I used to live in San Diego there were a couple of ramps where I’d see the SUV drivers wallowing around the curves, tires squealing, visibly struggling to stay in the lane, and it was just like “you do this every day, why?”

This. Who cares about top end speed when I can reliably pull ahead of any other vehicle on the road in my Model Y? I use that capability regularly. I'd literally never go 100+mph - that's a novelty.