7 ms·

Electric scooters aren't as green as you may think

49 points by clairity 7y ago

melling 7y ago
There’s always someone who’s going to tell you how something is not as green as you may think. Maybe we should just forget about global warming for a little bit and try to remember how dirty the air is from gas vehicles. https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/09/21/las-dirty-air-violated-federal-smog-standards-for-almost-3-months/ https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/09/21/las-dirty-air-vio...
- clairity 7y ago
  ownership is one way to bypass half the emissions issue (of cars having to pick up and drop off rental scooters) as well as the associated shortened-life issue. i own one of the xiaomi scooters initially deployed by bird and mentioned in the article, and for little round-trip errands, it's hard to beat the convenience. you can ride literally door-to-door, without even looking for parking, since you can bring it right into most businesses (even bikes don't have that convenience in most cases).
  - zeckalpha 7y ago
    Curiously, that’s the opposite of what they say about cars
  - IshKebab 7y ago
    To be fair it's not hard to find somewhere to park a bike, even when cities don't invest in proper stands. You can just use lampposts and street signs.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  Fine but the scooters are mainly replacing journeys on foot and cycle not car...
- NohatCoder 7y ago
  I think this article is pretty fair. Some serious problems need to be solved for these scooters to be green, but it does seem like a very real possibility that they could be solved.
- bsder 7y ago
  > Maybe we should just forget about global warming for a little bit and try to remember how dirty the air is from gas vehicles. Scooters aren't displacing cars--it's bikes and walking that scooters are replacing. And, relative to those, scooters are a big loser. The interesting part is the fact that scooters look like a loser relative to buses and mopeds. In particular, losing relative to a moped is quite surprising. I would also point out that generally when I see scooters being picked up, the pickup truck being used is generally pretty old--meaning that it is contributing a not small amount to air pollution.
  - IshKebab 7y ago
    They are displacing cars. In the article it says that ⅓ of people who took one would otherwise have used a car.
algaeontoast 7y ago
Exactly - I love how people think these scooters are “clean” when piles of them are ferried around in gas guzzling cars every night (farther distances than the scooter should themselves cover “under electric propulsion”). I have an electric unicycle I absolutely love and recommend the use of personal electric transport to everyone. But scooter sharing is dumb and makes cities look trashy.
- ben_w 7y ago
  If they’re only rounded up once a night by a petrol car, but in the daytime they did four trips each, then they are still saving most of the energy cost of the short trips even before you account for the collection trip by the car being one trip for many vehicles. Also, they’re not always collected by cars. I was in Vienna recently, and saw someone collecting electric scooters by piling them onto another electric scooter.
  - kyruzic 7y ago
    The scooters are not replacing what a car would have been used for in the majority of cases. They're replacing walking or cycling. So no they are not saving energy.
    - ben_w 7y ago
      All the people I’ve asked who have used them or considered using them were replacing taxis. If they have a bike, or if the destination is close enough to walk, there’s no need to use something “that expensive”.
      - kyruzic 7y ago
        Cool anecdote.
        IshKebab 7y ago
        Right but the article also says that ⅓ of people who used then would have otherwise used a car. And I'd expect the actual number to be a bit higher because people like to appear healthy and green. So they are displacing cars.
esotericn 7y ago
Eh. We're currently at a stage in which we sort of have the tools to go carbon-neutral but aren't fully there yet. For example, producing an EV currently involves releasing a bunch of CO2. I can't name all of the reasons why but I imagine it'll be stuff like mining equipment being fossil powered, the trucks that transport the cars, the power that goes into refining stuff, etc. Eventually all of that can be made carbon neutral; the only processes I can see potentially being an issue would be if like, actually digging the soil released CO2. It would be literally impossible for the first EV to be made using only renewable energy by definition because it's the first. Location matters too. Sweden's electrical grid averages ~10-20g of CO2 per kWh because it's mostly nuclear/hydro. The UK is at about 300g. Trucks, vans, trains, etc should all be electrified as soon as possible. A last final burst of CO2 in order to create all of that, then we stop, perhaps sequester some, and off we go. One can hope.
- ant6n 7y ago
  One can hope that we can free ourselves from the individual car driver paradigm. We have the tools to go car-free, but aren't fully there yt.
  - VBprogrammer 7y ago
    Do you have children? The idea of going car free when you need to take 50kg of stuff with you everywhere is terrifying.
    - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
      What are you taking everywhere?
      - VBprogrammer 7y ago
        The car seat and isofix base together must be the best part of 20kg. Then there's prams, nappy changing bag. If we're staying overnight, travel cot and chair etc.
stewbrew 7y ago
Are there really people out there who believe that these things are "green"? It was well known before that the life expectancy those scooters is measured in months. It is also well known that electric vehicles with lithium batteries are "green" only if you use them for a very long time. IIRC for electric cars that would be something like four years of daily use -- mostly due to the pollution caused by the fabrication of the batteries. But of course, it isn't your city that gets polluted but some distant area where these things a built. If you want to be green, use a bike or some non-motorized scooter.
- notatoad 7y ago
  the xiaomi scooters that most companies started out with have a 280Wh battery. Teslas have an 60-80kWh battery. if you are saying it takes 4 years of daily use the make the manufacture of a 60kWh battery greener than driving, then it only takes ~80 days of use for a scooter battery.
  - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
    And the average scooter survives less than 80 days. Meanwhile most of the journeys on scooters where I live are replacing walking or cycling...
    - notatoad 7y ago
      Source? For either of those two claims
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
robbrown451 7y ago
Most of the concerns are potentially lessened as they mature. The vandalism they refer to will certainly be reduced as people come to accept them. There can be charging stations around the city where riders can plug them into to get a discount or credits, reducing the need to collect them with a truck and drive them around. I imagine there are ways to mitigate people abusing them, such as making them easier to replace damaged parts or making them better able to detect when users are throwing them around and such.
exabrial 7y ago
I feel like the number of diesel powered ambulances I've seen dispatched to scooter induced accidents alone offsets their carbon footprint
kyruzic 7y ago
A bunch of brand new junk whether it's teslas, electric scooters/bikes, or anything else that's new and green is obviously bad for the environment. What's bad for the environment is excess consumption of anything. All these new green products only offer marginal improvements over their "non" green counterparts and never address making the manufactuering process green, which counts for the vast majority of the emissions of almost all goods. If you care about the environment cut back your consumption of new shit. Go fix that bike in your garage and ride that to work.
- drieddust 7y ago
  These scooters are quickly becoming a hazard on the streets. It's not designed for one person, I have seen couples riding, multiple teeagers, parents with kids riding them for joy without any protection for head or body. These idiots are putting themselves and others at risk and when the ride is over then just drop them at random places and move on. Hell I have seen some parked in the middle of side walk blocking the way. At night people and cyclists can slam into them. I am amazed why the hell it's not illegal and it not saving anything as these are fun rides.
- vkou 7y ago
  > All these new green products only offer marginal improvements over their "non" green counterparts and never address making the manufactuering process green, which counts for the vast majority of the emissions of almost all goods. Not for cars, not by a long shot. The vast majority of carbon emissions of a car are after it rolls off the assembly line.
  - kyruzic 7y ago
    Factually incorrect. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
    - viraptor 7y ago
      This is very much an estimate... and I can't just take things like this: > If we do this, and then divide by the total emissions of the auto industry by the total amount of money spent on new cars, we reach a footprint of 720kg CO2e per £1000 spent. as true by default. They don't show why would that relation be true either. For example, you can find options that cost you many thousands more and amount to a few extra chips and different software.
netjiro 7y ago
> biking (8 g) or walking (0 g) [per mile] This is simply wrong. It doesn't take into account the CO2 footprint of the person doing the biking or walking. Biking is more efficient than walking per km. Since anyone biking, running, walking would be eating more to cover the exercise this can have a significant footprint based on what their diet looks like. A running beef eater vs a running vegan looks very different. I used to bike 65km/d round trip to work. Wonderful for my mind and body, but I had to eat at least one extra meal every day for the periods I was active, around 200-300g total. Normally I would replenish with fried eggs and potatoes at a guesstimated 4x (CO2 equivalent mass ratio), which is (meh) reasonable? Giving around 13g/km footprint for biking (just from my food). Assuming I would be eating lamb or beef at somewhere around 30x impact, that extra meal would give a biking footprint around 92g/km just from my food! Correct my numbers or methods if you disagree. [edit]: Comparison to my (tiny) car at the time burning 4.5l/100km, (2.3kg CO2 / litre petrol), the car would be around 103g/km, which is not much higher than me on a bicycle if I kept a shitty diet !!
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  > It doesn't take into account the CO2 footprint of the person doing the biking or walking. This is carbon neutral because all the CO2 we exhale comes from atmospheric CO2 captured by plants (and then through the food chain up to us). Now, of course food production has a carbon footprint because of harvesting, transport, processing, etc. but it quickly gets hugely complex to measure. In any case, for the purpose of comparison they obviously restricted to the impact of the mean of transport. Your food or your carbon footprint in general does not change anything about that.
  - netjiro 7y ago
    I think you underestimate the fossile fuel expenditure from agriculture, transportation, wastage, etc. But it is true that if I walk into a forest and eat a wild grown apple, that CO2 is then from and in the normal carbon cycle and not any added fossile carbon. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935130/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935130/ [2] https://foodprint.org/issues/agriculture-energy-consumption/ https://foodprint.org/issues/agriculture-energy-consumption/ Perhaps it would be better if I clarified my statement as GHG-(CO2 equivalent)?
agumonkey 7y ago
Feels like Moving goal posts. Of course lithium batteries aren't CO neutral. Escooters are a great transitional device.
nesadi 7y ago
I'd say one important point is that, in many places, public transportation is inadequate, completely overfilled, or both. If people are expected to move from cars to public transportation, many places just don't have the infrastructure to accomodate that transition. I live in Cologne. While we do have public transportation that allows you to reach most places, it's already at a point where the city wouldn't be able to cope with eliminating cars. Car-sharing, escooters, etc., these could be considered necessary extensions to public transport and enable car-users to transition, even if these options aren't entirely as green as using trains or buses would be.
vivanchuk 7y ago
Walk.
rabeener 7y ago
That actual trip somebody’s taking on the scooter — that’s pretty green,” said Juan Matute, the deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies who was not involved with the study. “What’s not green is everything you don’t see.” This title is misleading and a perfect example of the backlash any new tech that challenges the status quo faces. A more accurate headline would be “Dockless e-scooters...” but instead the author has lumped together owner driven e-scooters, which have very little carbon impact, with rentable scooters, which by themselves don’t have a large carbon impact but the ecosystem around them does.

49 points by clairity 7y ago

There’s always someone who’s going to tell you how something is not as green as you may think. Maybe we should just forget about global warming for a little bit and try to remember how dirty the air is from gas vehicles. https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/09/21/las-dirty-air-violated-federal-smog-standards-for-almost-3-months/ https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/09/21/las-dirty-air-vio...

clairity 7y ago
ownership is one way to bypass half the emissions issue (of cars having to pick up and drop off rental scooters) as well as the associated shortened-life issue. i own one of the xiaomi scooters initially deployed by bird and mentioned in the article, and for little round-trip errands, it's hard to beat the convenience. you can ride literally door-to-door, without even looking for parking, since you can bring it right into most businesses (even bikes don't have that convenience in most cases).
- zeckalpha 7y ago
  Curiously, that’s the opposite of what they say about cars
- IshKebab 7y ago
  To be fair it's not hard to find somewhere to park a bike, even when cities don't invest in proper stands. You can just use lampposts and street signs.
hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
Fine but the scooters are mainly replacing journeys on foot and cycle not car...
NohatCoder 7y ago
I think this article is pretty fair. Some serious problems need to be solved for these scooters to be green, but it does seem like a very real possibility that they could be solved.
bsder 7y ago
> Maybe we should just forget about global warming for a little bit and try to remember how dirty the air is from gas vehicles. Scooters aren't displacing cars--it's bikes and walking that scooters are replacing. And, relative to those, scooters are a big loser. The interesting part is the fact that scooters look like a loser relative to buses and mopeds. In particular, losing relative to a moped is quite surprising. I would also point out that generally when I see scooters being picked up, the pickup truck being used is generally pretty old--meaning that it is contributing a not small amount to air pollution.
- IshKebab 7y ago
  They are displacing cars. In the article it says that ⅓ of people who took one would otherwise have used a car.

algaeontoast 7y ago

Exactly - I love how people think these scooters are “clean” when piles of them are ferried around in gas guzzling cars every night (farther distances than the scooter should themselves cover “under electric propulsion”). I have an electric unicycle I absolutely love and recommend the use of personal electric transport to everyone. But scooter sharing is dumb and makes cities look trashy.

ben_w 7y ago
If they’re only rounded up once a night by a petrol car, but in the daytime they did four trips each, then they are still saving most of the energy cost of the short trips even before you account for the collection trip by the car being one trip for many vehicles. Also, they’re not always collected by cars. I was in Vienna recently, and saw someone collecting electric scooters by piling them onto another electric scooter.
- kyruzic 7y ago
  The scooters are not replacing what a car would have been used for in the majority of cases. They're replacing walking or cycling. So no they are not saving energy.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    All the people I’ve asked who have used them or considered using them were replacing taxis. If they have a bike, or if the destination is close enough to walk, there’s no need to use something “that expensive”.
    - kyruzic 7y ago
      Cool anecdote.
      - IshKebab 7y ago
        Right but the article also says that ⅓ of people who used then would have otherwise used a car. And I'd expect the actual number to be a bit higher because people like to appear healthy and green. So they are displacing cars.

esotericn 7y ago

Eh. We're currently at a stage in which we sort of have the tools to go carbon-neutral but aren't fully there yet. For example, producing an EV currently involves releasing a bunch of CO2. I can't name all of the reasons why but I imagine it'll be stuff like mining equipment being fossil powered, the trucks that transport the cars, the power that goes into refining stuff, etc. Eventually all of that can be made carbon neutral; the only processes I can see potentially being an issue would be if like, actually digging the soil released CO2. It would be literally impossible for the first EV to be made using only renewable energy by definition because it's the first. Location matters too. Sweden's electrical grid averages ~10-20g of CO2 per kWh because it's mostly nuclear/hydro. The UK is at about 300g. Trucks, vans, trains, etc should all be electrified as soon as possible. A last final burst of CO2 in order to create all of that, then we stop, perhaps sequester some, and off we go. One can hope.

ant6n 7y ago
One can hope that we can free ourselves from the individual car driver paradigm. We have the tools to go car-free, but aren't fully there yt.
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
  Do you have children? The idea of going car free when you need to take 50kg of stuff with you everywhere is terrifying.
  - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
    What are you taking everywhere?
    - VBprogrammer 7y ago
      The car seat and isofix base together must be the best part of 20kg. Then there's prams, nappy changing bag. If we're staying overnight, travel cot and chair etc.

stewbrew 7y ago

Are there really people out there who believe that these things are "green"? It was well known before that the life expectancy those scooters is measured in months. It is also well known that electric vehicles with lithium batteries are "green" only if you use them for a very long time. IIRC for electric cars that would be something like four years of daily use -- mostly due to the pollution caused by the fabrication of the batteries. But of course, it isn't your city that gets polluted but some distant area where these things a built. If you want to be green, use a bike or some non-motorized scooter.

notatoad 7y ago
the xiaomi scooters that most companies started out with have a 280Wh battery. Teslas have an 60-80kWh battery. if you are saying it takes 4 years of daily use the make the manufacture of a 60kWh battery greener than driving, then it only takes ~80 days of use for a scooter battery.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  And the average scooter survives less than 80 days. Meanwhile most of the journeys on scooters where I live are replacing walking or cycling...
  - notatoad 7y ago
    Source? For either of those two claims
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

robbrown451 7y ago

Most of the concerns are potentially lessened as they mature. The vandalism they refer to will certainly be reduced as people come to accept them. There can be charging stations around the city where riders can plug them into to get a discount or credits, reducing the need to collect them with a truck and drive them around. I imagine there are ways to mitigate people abusing them, such as making them easier to replace damaged parts or making them better able to detect when users are throwing them around and such.

exabrial 7y ago

I feel like the number of diesel powered ambulances I've seen dispatched to scooter induced accidents alone offsets their carbon footprint

kyruzic 7y ago

A bunch of brand new junk whether it's teslas, electric scooters/bikes, or anything else that's new and green is obviously bad for the environment. What's bad for the environment is excess consumption of anything. All these new green products only offer marginal improvements over their "non" green counterparts and never address making the manufactuering process green, which counts for the vast majority of the emissions of almost all goods. If you care about the environment cut back your consumption of new shit. Go fix that bike in your garage and ride that to work.

drieddust 7y ago
These scooters are quickly becoming a hazard on the streets. It's not designed for one person, I have seen couples riding, multiple teeagers, parents with kids riding them for joy without any protection for head or body. These idiots are putting themselves and others at risk and when the ride is over then just drop them at random places and move on. Hell I have seen some parked in the middle of side walk blocking the way. At night people and cyclists can slam into them. I am amazed why the hell it's not illegal and it not saving anything as these are fun rides.
vkou 7y ago
> All these new green products only offer marginal improvements over their "non" green counterparts and never address making the manufactuering process green, which counts for the vast majority of the emissions of almost all goods. Not for cars, not by a long shot. The vast majority of carbon emissions of a car are after it rolls off the assembly line.
- kyruzic 7y ago
  Factually incorrect. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
  - viraptor 7y ago
    This is very much an estimate... and I can't just take things like this: > If we do this, and then divide by the total emissions of the auto industry by the total amount of money spent on new cars, we reach a footprint of 720kg CO2e per £1000 spent. as true by default. They don't show why would that relation be true either. For example, you can find options that cost you many thousands more and amount to a few extra chips and different software.

netjiro 7y ago

> biking (8 g) or walking (0 g) [per mile] This is simply wrong. It doesn't take into account the CO2 footprint of the person doing the biking or walking. Biking is more efficient than walking per km. Since anyone biking, running, walking would be eating more to cover the exercise this can have a significant footprint based on what their diet looks like. A running beef eater vs a running vegan looks very different. I used to bike 65km/d round trip to work. Wonderful for my mind and body, but I had to eat at least one extra meal every day for the periods I was active, around 200-300g total. Normally I would replenish with fried eggs and potatoes at a guesstimated 4x (CO2 equivalent mass ratio), which is (meh) reasonable? Giving around 13g/km footprint for biking (just from my food). Assuming I would be eating lamb or beef at somewhere around 30x impact, that extra meal would give a biking footprint around 92g/km just from my food! Correct my numbers or methods if you disagree. [edit]: Comparison to my (tiny) car at the time burning 4.5l/100km, (2.3kg CO2 / litre petrol), the car would be around 103g/km, which is not much higher than me on a bicycle if I kept a shitty diet !!

mytailorisrich 7y ago
> It doesn't take into account the CO2 footprint of the person doing the biking or walking. This is carbon neutral because all the CO2 we exhale comes from atmospheric CO2 captured by plants (and then through the food chain up to us). Now, of course food production has a carbon footprint because of harvesting, transport, processing, etc. but it quickly gets hugely complex to measure. In any case, for the purpose of comparison they obviously restricted to the impact of the mean of transport. Your food or your carbon footprint in general does not change anything about that.
- netjiro 7y ago
  I think you underestimate the fossile fuel expenditure from agriculture, transportation, wastage, etc. But it is true that if I walk into a forest and eat a wild grown apple, that CO2 is then from and in the normal carbon cycle and not any added fossile carbon. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935130/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935130/ [2] https://foodprint.org/issues/agriculture-energy-consumption/ https://foodprint.org/issues/agriculture-energy-consumption/ Perhaps it would be better if I clarified my statement as GHG-(CO2 equivalent)?

agumonkey 7y ago

Feels like Moving goal posts. Of course lithium batteries aren't CO neutral. Escooters are a great transitional device.

nesadi 7y ago

I'd say one important point is that, in many places, public transportation is inadequate, completely overfilled, or both. If people are expected to move from cars to public transportation, many places just don't have the infrastructure to accomodate that transition. I live in Cologne. While we do have public transportation that allows you to reach most places, it's already at a point where the city wouldn't be able to cope with eliminating cars. Car-sharing, escooters, etc., these could be considered necessary extensions to public transport and enable car-users to transition, even if these options aren't entirely as green as using trains or buses would be.

vivanchuk 7y ago

Walk.

rabeener 7y ago

That actual trip somebody’s taking on the scooter — that’s pretty green,” said Juan Matute, the deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies who was not involved with the study. “What’s not green is everything you don’t see.” This title is misleading and a perfect example of the backlash any new tech that challenges the status quo faces. A more accurate headline would be “Dockless e-scooters...” but instead the author has lumped together owner driven e-scooters, which have very little carbon impact, with rentable scooters, which by themselves don’t have a large carbon impact but the ecosystem around them does.