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As far as I could tell on a trip last year, China already leads, but not with electric cars. Instead, their masses are leading the way by huge adoption rates of

As far as I could tell on a trip last year, China already leads, but not with electric cars. Instead, their masses are leading the way by huge adoption rates of electric scooters/bikes. There are way more Chinese who are buying these than cars, and will be for the short-term future at least. It will be ironic if Tesla's Gigafactories end up spewing out more battery cells for scooters/bikes in the developing world than cars in the developed world. I was really surprised because I would have expected really old and refined ICE tech to be cheap enough to beat electric drive tech, but nearly every two-wheeler I saw was battery-driven. There is an interesting confluence of factors that seem to be attributed to the explosion of e-bike popularity in China [1]. Can someone who lives there comment upon what seemed to be a mass adoption trend to a tourist? Is this isolated only to the Tier 1-3 cities, or just the CBD's of the Tier 1-3 cities, or is this really widespread even into the small villages? Are the recharging costs lower than equivalent fuel costs of comparable scooters, even after accounting for battery replacement? [1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/perrot1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/perrot1/

Reason077 10y ago
It would be nice to see more adoption of electric motorbikes and scooters in western cities, too. Motorbikes and scooters are some of the noisiest and smelliest vehicles on urban streets, and in cities like London and Paris there are huge numbers of them used for commuting and food deliveries, over relatively short distances. Unfortunately, unlike in China, so far they don't seem to be catching on as fast as electric cars are!
lvturner 10y ago
No longer live there, but did for a couple of years - e-bikes there are dirt cheap, require no tax, no insurance and no licence and in Beijing at least, there is pretty decent cycling infrastructure that the e-bikes share. Car ownership is comparatively expensive and most foreign cars have (I think) a 50% tax markup on purchasing them, there is also (at least in Beijing, and I believe Shanghai) a lottery system for getting a license plate on your car. E-Bikes are basically the new bicycle, and are treated as such. However, I think they are starting to clamp down on them and treat them more like motorbikes, but the enforcement is still very lax (rumoured because it will enrage the residents of the cities who can't afford a car) When I was there, I owned one that cost around $300USD, took six lead acid batteries (could upgrade it to lithium-ion) had about a 100km range and an alleged top speed of 60km/h. Disk brakes, remote ignition and alarm. It wasn't super fast, but fast enough to cause trouble (as it's silent) and would certainly outperform 50-60cc mopeds/scooters. I can't comment on the villages, but I'd expect you would find less of them there, as the rules on vehicle ownership in generally are likely to be more lax as well. It's also absolutely not restricted to the CBDs, in the more suburban areas of the cities there are still plenty of them!

Reason077 10y ago

It would be nice to see more adoption of electric motorbikes and scooters in western cities, too. Motorbikes and scooters are some of the noisiest and smelliest vehicles on urban streets, and in cities like London and Paris there are huge numbers of them used for commuting and food deliveries, over relatively short distances. Unfortunately, unlike in China, so far they don't seem to be catching on as fast as electric cars are!

lvturner 10y ago

No longer live there, but did for a couple of years - e-bikes there are dirt cheap, require no tax, no insurance and no licence and in Beijing at least, there is pretty decent cycling infrastructure that the e-bikes share. Car ownership is comparatively expensive and most foreign cars have (I think) a 50% tax markup on purchasing them, there is also (at least in Beijing, and I believe Shanghai) a lottery system for getting a license plate on your car. E-Bikes are basically the new bicycle, and are treated as such. However, I think they are starting to clamp down on them and treat them more like motorbikes, but the enforcement is still very lax (rumoured because it will enrage the residents of the cities who can't afford a car) When I was there, I owned one that cost around $300USD, took six lead acid batteries (could upgrade it to lithium-ion) had about a 100km range and an alleged top speed of 60km/h. Disk brakes, remote ignition and alarm. It wasn't super fast, but fast enough to cause trouble (as it's silent) and would certainly outperform 50-60cc mopeds/scooters. I can't comment on the villages, but I'd expect you would find less of them there, as the rules on vehicle ownership in generally are likely to be more lax as well. It's also absolutely not restricted to the CBDs, in the more suburban areas of the cities there are still plenty of them!