Are electric cars and trucks too heavy for America’s bridges and roads?

Electric vehicles are heavy — there’s no doubt about that. But will they actually devastate America’s highways and bridges?

“Little things that a lot of people don’t talk about — the weight of an [electric] truck is two-and-a-half times heavier,” than gas-powered trucks, former president Donald Trump said Thursday, repeating claims he previously made in June as part of a longer spiel full of incorrect information. “You would have to rebuild every bridge in this country” if everyone in the country drove an EV, he said.

Trump is right about one thing, America’s bridges are in desperate need of repair. But that’s not because of electric cars and trucks.

Of the more than 617,000 bridges across the U.S., almost 213,000 of them are in need of repair and preservation work, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’s (ASCE) 2021 report on the country’s infrastructure. More than 46,000 bridges were considered “structurally deficient” and, despite that, still accommodated 178 million vehicles — per day. And, 43% of the more than 4 million miles of public roads in the U.S. are in poor condition, according to the 2021 report.

Most older bridges were designed to last for around 50 years, according to Kancheepuram Gunalan, a former ASCE president, although more modern bridges are being designed with a 75-year service life. However, the federal, state, and local governments overseeing these bridges haven’t invested enough money into keeping these bridges safe and up to standards.

Electric vehicles are, generally speaking, heavier than their gas-powered counterparts, although by much less than Trump says. On average, they’re 30% heavier than gas-powered cars, primarily because of their batteries, which are considerably larger and heavier than conventional car batteries due to their need to store more energy.

For example, the curb weight of the base-level 2024 Hyundai Kona crossover is about 3,005 pounds, while its electric equivalent comes in at 3,571 pounds, or 19% heavier. Or take Ford Motor (F)’s F-150 Lightning electric truck, which weighs 6,015 pounds. The F-150 XL is about 4,391 pounds, or 37% less than the Lightning. The heaviest EV of 2024 is the GMC Hummer pickup truck at 9,063 pounds, according to Kelly Blue Book.

Although heavier vehicles will have some impact on the lifespan of roads and bridges, the effects will likely be minor overall, shaving one or two years off their shelf life. Federal weight limits allow vehicles that weigh as much as 80,000 pounds — including cargo — on the road and put as much as 20,000 pounds of weight on a single axle, a key factor in how much damage a road takes.

“The travel beat-up is from much heavier trucks, not your traditional sedans,” Gunalan said. “When we design roads, we design them for some of these heavy, 80,000 pound, 18-wheeler trucks [that] constantly pound on the highway.”

Plus, automakers are already working to make their cars lighter, without giving up too much driving range. While speaking at the Freedom of Mobility Forum in April, Stellantis (STLA) CEO Carlos Tavares in April said the industry must work to cut the weight of EV batteries in half over the next decade, citing environmental concerns and a need for efficiency improvements.

A safety problem

More serious concerns involve the safety issues inherent in the broader trend toward larger, heavier vehicles. The rise of SUVs is a factor here, as is the fixation on long-range batteries.

The average weight of vehicles on the road in the U.S. has grown to 4,300 pounds from 3,200 pounds over the past few decades. And for every additional 1,000 pounds in a vehicle, the possibility that a collision with a pedestrian causes a fatality grows by 47%, according to a 2011 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

About 40,990 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2023, according to preliminary data released by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administraiton (NHTSA). That’s a decline from 45,514 deaths in 2022 and 42,939 fatalities in 2021, which was the deadliest year for Americans on the road since 2005.

“I’m concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles,” National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said in a speech last year.

Researchers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln recently conducted a first-of-its-kind crash test of an electric pickup truck to better understand how road guardrails would fair against them. A 2022 Rivian (RIVN) R1T “tore through the barrier,” while a 2018 Tesla (TSLA) Model 3 sedan lifted the guardrail.

The university’s Midwest Roadside Safety Facility (MRSF) found that EVs that run off the road move at about the same rate and speed as gas-powered cars. That means an EV crashing into a roadside barrier could do so with between 20% and 50% more impact energy, according to their findings.

“There is some urgency to address this issue,” Cody Stolle, an assistant director for the MRSF, said in an interview with the university. “As the percentage of EVs on the road increases, the proportion of run-off-road crashes involving EVs will increase, as well.”