14 ms·

Lithuania is paying people to trade in polluting cars for escooters and ebikes

175 points by reddotX 6y ago

mytailorisrich 6y ago
Standard "cash-for-clunckers" schemes are about subsidising the auto industry, they are about boosting sales. Now this one seems different but what is missing is an analysis on whether it is a good use of resources and actually positive for the environment to spend money on scrapping an existing car instead of continuing to use it for its useful lifetime and only then to replace it for a better car or mode of transport.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Does Lithuania have a car industry?
  - nimmen 6y ago
    Such small country does not have proper car industry, but there are some local electrical trolleybuses made(maybe few dozen a year), or some parts for automotive industry - like continental tire factory in Kaunas, some parts made for mercedes, etc, etc...
    - rmind 6y ago
      Perhaps you meant electric buses, e.g. https://www.dancerbus.com/ https://www.dancerbus.com/ ?
      - nercury 6y ago
        No, trolleybuses: https://kauno.diena.lt/sites/default/files/styles/940x000/public/sites/default/files/test/652__31051b.jpg?itok=NFf8N3iM https://kauno.diena.lt/sites/default/files/styles/940x000/pu...
  - mk3 6y ago
    We don't construct cars, but we have some companies here, Siemens has wiring factory, CIE Forge is manufacturing engine parts for VW concern, And some super specialized CNC workshops manufacturing parts for car industry too. But it's not a major contributing factor for economy.
- vanderZwan 6y ago
  > what is missing is an analysis on I highly doubt it that this is missing - it's just not mentioned in the article. Also, this argument sounds a bit like sunk cost fallacy to me: the car already exists, so whatever embodied energy it has is irrelevant. It is likely to stay on the road for decades if not encouraged to be removed. Meanwhile the embodied energy of an ebike or escooter is tiny by comparison, can in principle be powered by renewable energy, and the difference in energy footprint is so huge that I would be very surprised if it doesn't earn itself back long before the expected life-time of the car ends. On top of that there's reduction of traffic congestion and air pollution, and less pressure to create infrastructure (like parking space) for cars. All of which is the kind of externalized cost that isn't actually externalized if you're a government.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    You have a very high opinion of politicians and policy-making. Perhaps too high an opinion, I fear. It's not that uncommon for such policy decisions not to be fact-based because "of course it's better", so I'll keep my critical stance on governments' policies. > Also, this argument sounds a bit like sunk cost fallacy to me: the car already exists, so whatever embodied energy it has is irrelevant. No this is not the point. It costs energy and resources to scrap a car and to produce and distribute its replacement so this should be taken into account. Keeping a car longer reduces the need to produce more cars and to scrap existing cars. If I scrap my car every year than a car must be scrapped and a new car produced every year. If I keep my car for 20 years then this process occurs much less often, which is much more economical in terms of energy and resources. The cost of the subsidy could also be spent on something else that may or may not have an higher impact. I am just saying that this is the sort of decision that cannot be judged at face value, which seems to be what many people do ("great decision", "of course it's positive", etc), without digging quite deep into the numbers. And I must say that your comment goes in the same direction. So, maybe it is positive and useful, maybe not so much. They would need to show the numbers for anyone to make an informed opinion.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- jmull 6y ago
  My guess is the level of subsidy here is low enough that not too many cars with a lot of use left in them are being scrapped. That is, the cars being traded in were going to get scrapped soon in any case. The main effect of the subsidy is to move people to greener alternatives, rather than finding another car.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    > That is, the cars being traded in were going to get scrapped soon in any case. Would not that make this subsidy no more than a "windfall gain", then? I.e. it makes little to no difference and people are just happy to pocket the extra money. > The main effect of the subsidy is to move people to greener alternatives, rather than finding another car. An ebike/escooter is quite different from a car so I have my doubt that people will change their purchasing decisions base on a small-ish cash bonus: If I need a car I will still buy a car but if I was already thinking of buying an ebike/escooter than obviously I like the windfall as a bonus. Or maybe I'll buy an ebike with the subsidy cash in addition to buying a new car...
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      People have cars for all sorts of reasons. To the degree this program works, some good will have been done. And it is likely to sway some who had not considered the options yet. Especially with the subsidy. Sad the article doesn't report anything about changes in e-bike use etc. Just that people are applying for and taking taking the money. Of course they are.
      - mytailorisrich 6y ago
        > To the degree this program works, some good will have been done. You need to objectively define what "works" means. We need to compare the cost with the effect and with the likely course of events without the subsidy (the latter is often difficult to do especially when the 'natural' trend already goes in the same direction as what the policy tries to encourage, and in this case sales e-bikes and e-scooters are already booming). I may sound very critical. This is because I do think that many of these so-called "green initiatives" at the moment cost public money with no clearly quantified or quantifiable benefits at a time when public finances in most European countries are already pushed to the limit. > Just that people are applying for and taking taking the money. Of course they are. Indeed.
odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
Maybe other Lithuanians can chime in (I'm not from there, but my girlfriend is), this is something that may only work in countries with similar geographic profile (Netherlands for example). I remember the drive from Riga to Lithuania or travelling by train there, and I don't remember seeing a flatter place in my life (and I've been to most European + American countries). When her parents visited they were surprised with how much we go 'up and down' in just my city alone. I can see this working in some flatter areas of the country (same as I see bike adoption in those areas), but find the e-scooters at least too slow/battery hogs in this scenario (not sure about e-bikes though) In any case, this is a right move for them, but I think pegging this usage to some kind of license is also important.
- rev_d 6y ago
  I'm not too familiar with the local rules in Lithuania, but the EU has two different possible classifications for E-Bikes: * EU-Spec E-Bike: Up to 25kph, No license / special equipment is required * Speed Pedelec: Up to 45 kph, Requires licensing, insurance, and a special helmet. In the Netherlands, you can't drive these on bike paths / may have to mingle with cars. * US-Spec E-Bikes: Up to 32kph, unregulated / illegal In general, all three categories are capable of easily sustaining reasonably high 25 to 35kph speeds for 40 to 150km on a flat surface. If you're dealing with hills or wind resistance, you'll need the beefier motor & battery of a pedelec, or you'll need a slightly more specialised E-Bike, but there's no reason why you couldn't make it work by throwing a bit more bike at the problem. I've taken E-Bikes around some of the medium sized hills in San Francisco before, and apart from having to pedal slightly harder and my battery usage doubling, cycling on a hill wasn't that much different than cycling along Market Street.
  - lki876 6y ago
    > you can't drive these on bike paths But everyone does.
- jutaz 6y ago
  While this is a nice initiative on many levels (from reducing emissions to getting people on bikes/scooters etc.), but I can't see it working well for few reasons: - We have pretty harsh winters (well not the last one), so any biking/scooter'ing isn't really possible for at least 3 months, thus one still needs a car. - Only few (I'd say only 3 largest) cities have kind of an infrastructure for scooters/bikes and only for major travel paths - outer-most city rings aren't well suited for such traffic. - Local traffic culture (which goes both ways BTW) - car drivers aren't really well adjusted to bikes, and scooter/bike riders also have some not-so-great attitude on pedestrian walkways. TL;DR - this probably would work really well _somewhere_, just not sure Lithuania is the best candidate for something like this, even if I personally still appreciate this. Source: I'm Lithuanian and currently live there.
skocznymroczny 6y ago
Escooter/ebike is rarely a replacement for a car. Maybe if you use your car only to commute to work, but in these cases, especially if you live in a city, public transport is a good replacement as well. The main advantage of a car is freedom. You can go anywhere you want, any time you want. Need to buy groceries for the whole week and deliver them home, a car can do that. Your wife is pregnant and you need to deliver her to the hospital in the middle of the night, your car can do that. You want to go on a spontaneous trip somewhere, your car can do that.
- bliker 6y ago
  I think in many cases ebike can easily replace a second car in a family.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    Yes, we went down to one car and two e-bikes. It would have been a struggle without the bikes as we live in a semi-rural area with poor public transport.
    - Faaak 6y ago
      Same here. We live 18km from the city center. We have an electric car that we rarely use and two e-bikes (45km/hour kind) that we both use daily to go to work (300m elevation change). It's perfect !
      - algo_trader 6y ago
        How long do your batteries lasts which such a workload? I have a short 15 minute 3-km ebike daily commute. But after 1 year the battery is obviously weaker. And i never made it past 2 years before a battery swap. I charge daily. (I still kept my smallish car, which i now use much less)
        Faaak 6y ago
        My ebike has a 814Wh battery. It'll easily do to and from work twice. I've already done 7000km with it and no noticeable difference (<10% ?). But it's true that the battery degrades. I don't really "mind" in the sense that I treat it as a consumable and not a forever item.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
What is up with that janky photoshop cover image attempt though.
- vanderZwan 6y ago
  I double-checked if it was part of the government's marketing campaign (like an ironic meme or something), but nope: the unshopped photo is in the original article[0]. Also,this article adds zero value to the original, as far as I can see, unless we count giving us an easy target in that bad photoshop attempt. [0] https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1260026/lithuanians-splash-out-on-electric-scooters-in-cash-for-clunkers-programme https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1260026/lithuanians...
- eznzt 6y ago
  Makes it more likely for you to share the article.
gbuk2013 6y ago
I read somewhere that electric vehicles had some trouble operating in cold environments - something to do with a big loss in mileage. Has this problem been resolved in modern vehicles? Winters in those parts can be quite nippy.
- newsclues 6y ago
  Loss occurs but is reasonable. I think heaters are used.
- Acinyx 6y ago
  The batteries can be heated in cars with liquid thermal management systems which pretty much all new ones have (older Nissan leafs and others did not). This removes a lot of of the impact on range... except if you use use heat in the cabin. Due to them being so efficient, most electric cars can't use waste heat like internal combustion cars, which means they need a separate electrical heater which of course has an impact on range. This article: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cold-weather-saps-electric-car-batteries-2019-02-07 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cold-weather-saps-electric... > The automobile club tested the cars at 20 degrees and 95 degrees, comparing the range to when they were tested at 75 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a report on the study. > At 20 degrees, the average driving range fell by 12% when the car’s cabin heater was not used. When the heater was turned on, the range dropped by 41%, AAA said. > At 95 degrees, range dropped 4% without use of air conditioning, and fell by 17% when the cabin was cooled, the study found.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    There are no scooters with liquid cooling as far as I know. A temperature going below 0 means you can't use LFP batteries, a major cost saver. Or you will have to add a heating system, which will be a cost contributor given how cheap scooters are.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > I read somewhere that electric vehicles had some trouble operating in cold environments Isn't Tesla's biggest market share in Norway and Oslo?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
NullPrefix 6y ago
Old clunker needs to pass smog test to get the trade in $.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  That seems suboptimal if the goal is reducing pollution.
  - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
    If it doesn't pass, it can't be driven and won't be on the road anyway. If it does, it is less efficient than an escooter/ebike, so it is worth it. Either method gets cars off the road.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Unless Lithuania's enforcement is way, way stricter than ours, I think there are probably a fair number of non-smogged cars driving around illegally or with waivers. In MA, if I fail emissions testing and spend $735 (10+ year old car) on repairs, I can keep driving. ($835 for 6-9 years old, $935 for 0-5 years old.)
      - magahacka 6y ago
        The enforcement is a joke, diesel cars pass without catalytic comverter without any problems. For diesels they measure only the "smoke"(dumingumas) level at high RPM, so cars that are constantly spewing black smoke still barely pass. The amount of Audi 80 is decreasing and being replaced by golf mk4 as "bottom" tier cars.
      - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
        If Lithuania's is anything like Norway's, it is stricter than anything I remember hearing about in the US (I am from Indiana, where there are zero checks). They should be - I think the regulations here in Norway are the EU regulations. In Norway, they test more than just emissions. Brakes, emergency brakes, whether or not you have a safety triangle in your car and reflective vest - among other things. Our car didn't quite pass a couple years ago, and we were able to do some repairs. It was brake work that time. There was a deadline to get this done. This past summer, it didn't pass, but it was an engine problem that was making some blue smoke. We let the state take it and just put the money towards a different 20-year-old car. It is possible to keep the car, but the government requires you to turn in your plates. You won't get far in an unplated car.
blunte 6y ago
Too bad in the Netherlands we are hamstrung by an asinine law that considers a 2-wheel scooter (called a "step" here) to be the same as a 4-wheel cart that carries children (called a "stint"). This law was prompted by an accident where a person driving children in an electric cart crossed train tracks into the path of an oncoming train, and 4 children were killed. Electric 2-wheel scooters would be perfect for a lot of places in NL - places where there is already a shortage of bike parking, and places where if you park and lock your bike outside, it _will_ be stolen if it is halfway nice. At least with a folding scooter, you can take it inside with you easily. Plus you can take it onto a bus, which is not possible with a bike. Normally the Dutch are pretty thoughtful about their approach to laws, but this one just makes no sense.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Though it depends where you are, busses don't have the space to carry a lot of people with foldables. They'd need to be redesigned for such. I saw a Xiaomi foldable e-bike announced the other day for 1k USD, but then I saw this already exists. There's a lot of people driving around on 2-wheel e-bike (non foldable) as well these days. Today I even saw a kid on one going to school.
- lumberjack 6y ago
  E-bikes are the worst thing on Dutch cycling paths. I experienced them for two years. People speeding irresponsibility on these things going 40kph and practically inaudible. They just zoom past you and you're completely unaware of their presence until the last couple of meters. A big danger to cyclists, moped riders and pedestrians.
  - rocgf 6y ago
    There are two types of ebikes, and the law draws a distinction between them. There are pedlecs (25kmph) and s-pedlecs (45kmph). The s-pedlecs have a license plate and are illegal on most cycle lanes. The only place where they would be legally allowed next to regular bicycles/pedlecs would be outside the cities, on the "bike highways".
KerrickStaley 6y ago
Here in Taiwan, a company called Gogoro [1] manufactures electric scooters (the type you sit on, similar to a motorcycle). These electric scooters have become fairly popular, with electric scooters capturing 15% of new scooter sales (the majority of those are Gogoros but there are also other brands) [2]. The scooters go up to ~90 kph and can travel anywhere a gasoline scooter can. Gogoro scooters' core innovation is their swappable batteries: when you run out of juice, you pull up to a battery station, take the two batteries out of the scooter (each is about 9 kg and a little smaller than a loaf of bread), put them into the swap station, and take two new batteries and put them into the scooter. The whole process takes under a minute (video [3]). You get around 65 km of range on a pair of batteries, and there are around 1,800 stations in Taiwan [4], which works out to around 4.5 km between stations, but in practice they are very dense (5-10 blocks apart) in the cities and nonexistent in the mountainous central rural areas (map [5] or [6]). I think Taiwan has a lot of road smog, which especially affects scooter riders (who are the majority of road users), since a car has an air filter and a helmet doesn't. Gas scooters are definitely a big (possibly the biggest?) source of road smog. I'm glad that Gogoro is putting a dent into this problem. Personally, I purchased a used Gogoro 2 Plus about a month ago and am quite happy with it; it's quite a well-designed product with good attention to UX detail. It's good for running errands, getting around town, and getting to hikes/nature close to the city. However, riding a scooter is inherently less comfortable than driving a car because you're exposed to the elements, and it can't carry as much cargo (or people) as a car. My partner and I took a 400 km 2-day road trip on it, but it was exhausting and I don't plan to ever try traveling 200 km on it in a single day again (again, this is a general scooter thing, not specific to Gogoro as a brand). I'm working on getting a Taiwanese car license so I can rent a (gasoline) car for longer trips. Various local governments have given subsidies to encourage people to purchase electric scooters, similar to this Lithuanian example, although they could probably do more, as electric scooter sales have dipped 23% YoY in recent months [7]. I'd love to see Gogoro expand to more places, although I think the limiting factor is the battery station network; you need a relatively dense market like Taiwan for it to make sense. You also need a market where consumers are interested in driving scooters instead of cars. Gogoro has started expanding internationally, with Israel as their first foreign market [8], so maybe you'll see them for sale near you sometime soon :) (Not affiliated with Gogoro, just a person who hates smog and is excited about what Gogoro is doing). [1] https://www.gogoro.com/ https://www.gogoro.com/ [2] https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2020/03/13/2003732573 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2020/03/13/200... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_-PKSPbvpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_-PKSPbvpw [4] https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3988915 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3988915 [5] https://www.gogoro.com/tw/findus/ https://www.gogoro.com/tw/findus/ [6] https://mowd.tw/gostation/map/ https://mowd.tw/gostation/map/ [7] https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4024434 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4024434 [8] https://electrek.co/2019/12/11/gogoro-electric-scooters-global-expansion-israel/ https://electrek.co/2019/12/11/gogoro-electric-scooters-glob...
ihaveajob 6y ago
This is wonderful news. I can't wait for California to do something it. Instead of subsidizing wealthy suburban dwellers with discounts on their expensive new cars which still generate harmful pollution [1], we could subsidize multiple times as many e-bikes for lower income folks who could have a bigger impact on our roads and air quality. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48944561 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48944561
zip1234 6y ago
This is good. It makes no sense at all to do electric car incentives for thousands of dollars but not incentivize far cheaper and greener options like they've done in Canada and US.
aurizon 6y ago
They better make sure the same Trabant is not traded in 47 times...Handed over to a crusher - the crusher ticket is needed. Need to watch crushers for the same thing. Even though I love all Lithuanians!! (Labas) they spent over 50 years under a fully corrupt regime and have many ethnic Russians in residence, and to even survive, they had to exploit every advantage. Flea-markets were an art form of ways to buy/sell whatever you could find to deal in. I am sure the current free government will try to emplace fraud detection - just as sure am I that any possible loophole will be found.....perhaps a few Lithuanians will tell us how it is on these latter day front lines?
acd 6y ago
If we could get people to trade in dirty diesels for scooters, electric cars/hybrids and bio-gas powered cars that would be a big win for clean air in cities! Ie very good that Lithuania shows the way here.

175 points by reddotX 6y ago

Standard "cash-for-clunckers" schemes are about subsidising the auto industry, they are about boosting sales. Now this one seems different but what is missing is an analysis on whether it is a good use of resources and actually positive for the environment to spend money on scrapping an existing car instead of continuing to use it for its useful lifetime and only then to replace it for a better car or mode of transport.

pjc50 6y ago
Does Lithuania have a car industry?
- nimmen 6y ago
  Such small country does not have proper car industry, but there are some local electrical trolleybuses made(maybe few dozen a year), or some parts for automotive industry - like continental tire factory in Kaunas, some parts made for mercedes, etc, etc...
  - rmind 6y ago
    Perhaps you meant electric buses, e.g. https://www.dancerbus.com/ https://www.dancerbus.com/ ?
    - nercury 6y ago
      No, trolleybuses: https://kauno.diena.lt/sites/default/files/styles/940x000/public/sites/default/files/test/652__31051b.jpg?itok=NFf8N3iM https://kauno.diena.lt/sites/default/files/styles/940x000/pu...
- mk3 6y ago
  We don't construct cars, but we have some companies here, Siemens has wiring factory, CIE Forge is manufacturing engine parts for VW concern, And some super specialized CNC workshops manufacturing parts for car industry too. But it's not a major contributing factor for economy.
vanderZwan 6y ago
> what is missing is an analysis on I highly doubt it that this is missing - it's just not mentioned in the article. Also, this argument sounds a bit like sunk cost fallacy to me: the car already exists, so whatever embodied energy it has is irrelevant. It is likely to stay on the road for decades if not encouraged to be removed. Meanwhile the embodied energy of an ebike or escooter is tiny by comparison, can in principle be powered by renewable energy, and the difference in energy footprint is so huge that I would be very surprised if it doesn't earn itself back long before the expected life-time of the car ends. On top of that there's reduction of traffic congestion and air pollution, and less pressure to create infrastructure (like parking space) for cars. All of which is the kind of externalized cost that isn't actually externalized if you're a government.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  You have a very high opinion of politicians and policy-making. Perhaps too high an opinion, I fear. It's not that uncommon for such policy decisions not to be fact-based because "of course it's better", so I'll keep my critical stance on governments' policies. > Also, this argument sounds a bit like sunk cost fallacy to me: the car already exists, so whatever embodied energy it has is irrelevant. No this is not the point. It costs energy and resources to scrap a car and to produce and distribute its replacement so this should be taken into account. Keeping a car longer reduces the need to produce more cars and to scrap existing cars. If I scrap my car every year than a car must be scrapped and a new car produced every year. If I keep my car for 20 years then this process occurs much less often, which is much more economical in terms of energy and resources. The cost of the subsidy could also be spent on something else that may or may not have an higher impact. I am just saying that this is the sort of decision that cannot be judged at face value, which seems to be what many people do ("great decision", "of course it's positive", etc), without digging quite deep into the numbers. And I must say that your comment goes in the same direction. So, maybe it is positive and useful, maybe not so much. They would need to show the numbers for anyone to make an informed opinion.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
jmull 6y ago
My guess is the level of subsidy here is low enough that not too many cars with a lot of use left in them are being scrapped. That is, the cars being traded in were going to get scrapped soon in any case. The main effect of the subsidy is to move people to greener alternatives, rather than finding another car.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  > That is, the cars being traded in were going to get scrapped soon in any case. Would not that make this subsidy no more than a "windfall gain", then? I.e. it makes little to no difference and people are just happy to pocket the extra money. > The main effect of the subsidy is to move people to greener alternatives, rather than finding another car. An ebike/escooter is quite different from a car so I have my doubt that people will change their purchasing decisions base on a small-ish cash bonus: If I need a car I will still buy a car but if I was already thinking of buying an ebike/escooter than obviously I like the windfall as a bonus. Or maybe I'll buy an ebike with the subsidy cash in addition to buying a new car...
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    People have cars for all sorts of reasons. To the degree this program works, some good will have been done. And it is likely to sway some who had not considered the options yet. Especially with the subsidy. Sad the article doesn't report anything about changes in e-bike use etc. Just that people are applying for and taking taking the money. Of course they are.
    - mytailorisrich 6y ago
      > To the degree this program works, some good will have been done. You need to objectively define what "works" means. We need to compare the cost with the effect and with the likely course of events without the subsidy (the latter is often difficult to do especially when the 'natural' trend already goes in the same direction as what the policy tries to encourage, and in this case sales e-bikes and e-scooters are already booming). I may sound very critical. This is because I do think that many of these so-called "green initiatives" at the moment cost public money with no clearly quantified or quantifiable benefits at a time when public finances in most European countries are already pushed to the limit. > Just that people are applying for and taking taking the money. Of course they are. Indeed.

odshoifsdhfs 6y ago

Maybe other Lithuanians can chime in (I'm not from there, but my girlfriend is), this is something that may only work in countries with similar geographic profile (Netherlands for example). I remember the drive from Riga to Lithuania or travelling by train there, and I don't remember seeing a flatter place in my life (and I've been to most European + American countries). When her parents visited they were surprised with how much we go 'up and down' in just my city alone. I can see this working in some flatter areas of the country (same as I see bike adoption in those areas), but find the e-scooters at least too slow/battery hogs in this scenario (not sure about e-bikes though) In any case, this is a right move for them, but I think pegging this usage to some kind of license is also important.

rev_d 6y ago
I'm not too familiar with the local rules in Lithuania, but the EU has two different possible classifications for E-Bikes: * EU-Spec E-Bike: Up to 25kph, No license / special equipment is required * Speed Pedelec: Up to 45 kph, Requires licensing, insurance, and a special helmet. In the Netherlands, you can't drive these on bike paths / may have to mingle with cars. * US-Spec E-Bikes: Up to 32kph, unregulated / illegal In general, all three categories are capable of easily sustaining reasonably high 25 to 35kph speeds for 40 to 150km on a flat surface. If you're dealing with hills or wind resistance, you'll need the beefier motor & battery of a pedelec, or you'll need a slightly more specialised E-Bike, but there's no reason why you couldn't make it work by throwing a bit more bike at the problem. I've taken E-Bikes around some of the medium sized hills in San Francisco before, and apart from having to pedal slightly harder and my battery usage doubling, cycling on a hill wasn't that much different than cycling along Market Street.
- lki876 6y ago
  > you can't drive these on bike paths But everyone does.
jutaz 6y ago
While this is a nice initiative on many levels (from reducing emissions to getting people on bikes/scooters etc.), but I can't see it working well for few reasons: - We have pretty harsh winters (well not the last one), so any biking/scooter'ing isn't really possible for at least 3 months, thus one still needs a car. - Only few (I'd say only 3 largest) cities have kind of an infrastructure for scooters/bikes and only for major travel paths - outer-most city rings aren't well suited for such traffic. - Local traffic culture (which goes both ways BTW) - car drivers aren't really well adjusted to bikes, and scooter/bike riders also have some not-so-great attitude on pedestrian walkways. TL;DR - this probably would work really well _somewhere_, just not sure Lithuania is the best candidate for something like this, even if I personally still appreciate this. Source: I'm Lithuanian and currently live there.

skocznymroczny 6y ago

Escooter/ebike is rarely a replacement for a car. Maybe if you use your car only to commute to work, but in these cases, especially if you live in a city, public transport is a good replacement as well. The main advantage of a car is freedom. You can go anywhere you want, any time you want. Need to buy groceries for the whole week and deliver them home, a car can do that. Your wife is pregnant and you need to deliver her to the hospital in the middle of the night, your car can do that. You want to go on a spontaneous trip somewhere, your car can do that.

bliker 6y ago
I think in many cases ebike can easily replace a second car in a family.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Yes, we went down to one car and two e-bikes. It would have been a struggle without the bikes as we live in a semi-rural area with poor public transport.
  - Faaak 6y ago
    Same here. We live 18km from the city center. We have an electric car that we rarely use and two e-bikes (45km/hour kind) that we both use daily to go to work (300m elevation change). It's perfect !
    - algo_trader 6y ago
      How long do your batteries lasts which such a workload? I have a short 15 minute 3-km ebike daily commute. But after 1 year the battery is obviously weaker. And i never made it past 2 years before a battery swap. I charge daily. (I still kept my smallish car, which i now use much less)
      - Faaak 6y ago
        My ebike has a 814Wh battery. It'll easily do to and from work twice. I've already done 7000km with it and no noticeable difference (<10% ?). But it's true that the battery degrades. I don't really "mind" in the sense that I treat it as a consumable and not a forever item.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

What is up with that janky photoshop cover image attempt though.

vanderZwan 6y ago
I double-checked if it was part of the government's marketing campaign (like an ironic meme or something), but nope: the unshopped photo is in the original article[0]. Also,this article adds zero value to the original, as far as I can see, unless we count giving us an easy target in that bad photoshop attempt. [0] https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1260026/lithuanians-splash-out-on-electric-scooters-in-cash-for-clunkers-programme https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1260026/lithuanians...
eznzt 6y ago
Makes it more likely for you to share the article.

gbuk2013 6y ago

I read somewhere that electric vehicles had some trouble operating in cold environments - something to do with a big loss in mileage. Has this problem been resolved in modern vehicles? Winters in those parts can be quite nippy.

newsclues 6y ago
Loss occurs but is reasonable. I think heaters are used.
Acinyx 6y ago
The batteries can be heated in cars with liquid thermal management systems which pretty much all new ones have (older Nissan leafs and others did not). This removes a lot of of the impact on range... except if you use use heat in the cabin. Due to them being so efficient, most electric cars can't use waste heat like internal combustion cars, which means they need a separate electrical heater which of course has an impact on range. This article: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cold-weather-saps-electric-car-batteries-2019-02-07 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cold-weather-saps-electric... > The automobile club tested the cars at 20 degrees and 95 degrees, comparing the range to when they were tested at 75 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a report on the study. > At 20 degrees, the average driving range fell by 12% when the car’s cabin heater was not used. When the heater was turned on, the range dropped by 41%, AAA said. > At 95 degrees, range dropped 4% without use of air conditioning, and fell by 17% when the cabin was cooled, the study found.
- baybal2 6y ago
  There are no scooters with liquid cooling as far as I know. A temperature going below 0 means you can't use LFP batteries, a major cost saver. Or you will have to add a heating system, which will be a cost contributor given how cheap scooters are.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> I read somewhere that electric vehicles had some trouble operating in cold environments Isn't Tesla's biggest market share in Norway and Oslo?

deleted 6y ago

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NullPrefix 6y ago

Old clunker needs to pass smog test to get the trade in $.

sokoloff 6y ago
That seems suboptimal if the goal is reducing pollution.
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  If it doesn't pass, it can't be driven and won't be on the road anyway. If it does, it is less efficient than an escooter/ebike, so it is worth it. Either method gets cars off the road.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Unless Lithuania's enforcement is way, way stricter than ours, I think there are probably a fair number of non-smogged cars driving around illegally or with waivers. In MA, if I fail emissions testing and spend $735 (10+ year old car) on repairs, I can keep driving. ($835 for 6-9 years old, $935 for 0-5 years old.)
    - magahacka 6y ago
      The enforcement is a joke, diesel cars pass without catalytic comverter without any problems. For diesels they measure only the "smoke"(dumingumas) level at high RPM, so cars that are constantly spewing black smoke still barely pass. The amount of Audi 80 is decreasing and being replaced by golf mk4 as "bottom" tier cars.
    - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
      If Lithuania's is anything like Norway's, it is stricter than anything I remember hearing about in the US (I am from Indiana, where there are zero checks). They should be - I think the regulations here in Norway are the EU regulations. In Norway, they test more than just emissions. Brakes, emergency brakes, whether or not you have a safety triangle in your car and reflective vest - among other things. Our car didn't quite pass a couple years ago, and we were able to do some repairs. It was brake work that time. There was a deadline to get this done. This past summer, it didn't pass, but it was an engine problem that was making some blue smoke. We let the state take it and just put the money towards a different 20-year-old car. It is possible to keep the car, but the government requires you to turn in your plates. You won't get far in an unplated car.

blunte 6y ago

Too bad in the Netherlands we are hamstrung by an asinine law that considers a 2-wheel scooter (called a "step" here) to be the same as a 4-wheel cart that carries children (called a "stint"). This law was prompted by an accident where a person driving children in an electric cart crossed train tracks into the path of an oncoming train, and 4 children were killed. Electric 2-wheel scooters would be perfect for a lot of places in NL - places where there is already a shortage of bike parking, and places where if you park and lock your bike outside, it _will_ be stolen if it is halfway nice. At least with a folding scooter, you can take it inside with you easily. Plus you can take it onto a bus, which is not possible with a bike. Normally the Dutch are pretty thoughtful about their approach to laws, but this one just makes no sense.

Fnoord 6y ago
Though it depends where you are, busses don't have the space to carry a lot of people with foldables. They'd need to be redesigned for such. I saw a Xiaomi foldable e-bike announced the other day for 1k USD, but then I saw this already exists. There's a lot of people driving around on 2-wheel e-bike (non foldable) as well these days. Today I even saw a kid on one going to school.
lumberjack 6y ago
E-bikes are the worst thing on Dutch cycling paths. I experienced them for two years. People speeding irresponsibility on these things going 40kph and practically inaudible. They just zoom past you and you're completely unaware of their presence until the last couple of meters. A big danger to cyclists, moped riders and pedestrians.
- rocgf 6y ago
  There are two types of ebikes, and the law draws a distinction between them. There are pedlecs (25kmph) and s-pedlecs (45kmph). The s-pedlecs have a license plate and are illegal on most cycle lanes. The only place where they would be legally allowed next to regular bicycles/pedlecs would be outside the cities, on the "bike highways".

KerrickStaley 6y ago

Here in Taiwan, a company called Gogoro [1] manufactures electric scooters (the type you sit on, similar to a motorcycle). These electric scooters have become fairly popular, with electric scooters capturing 15% of new scooter sales (the majority of those are Gogoros but there are also other brands) [2]. The scooters go up to ~90 kph and can travel anywhere a gasoline scooter can. Gogoro scooters' core innovation is their swappable batteries: when you run out of juice, you pull up to a battery station, take the two batteries out of the scooter (each is about 9 kg and a little smaller than a loaf of bread), put them into the swap station, and take two new batteries and put them into the scooter. The whole process takes under a minute (video [3]). You get around 65 km of range on a pair of batteries, and there are around 1,800 stations in Taiwan [4], which works out to around 4.5 km between stations, but in practice they are very dense (5-10 blocks apart) in the cities and nonexistent in the mountainous central rural areas (map [5] or [6]). I think Taiwan has a lot of road smog, which especially affects scooter riders (who are the majority of road users), since a car has an air filter and a helmet doesn't. Gas scooters are definitely a big (possibly the biggest?) source of road smog. I'm glad that Gogoro is putting a dent into this problem. Personally, I purchased a used Gogoro 2 Plus about a month ago and am quite happy with it; it's quite a well-designed product with good attention to UX detail. It's good for running errands, getting around town, and getting to hikes/nature close to the city. However, riding a scooter is inherently less comfortable than driving a car because you're exposed to the elements, and it can't carry as much cargo (or people) as a car. My partner and I took a 400 km 2-day road trip on it, but it was exhausting and I don't plan to ever try traveling 200 km on it in a single day again (again, this is a general scooter thing, not specific to Gogoro as a brand). I'm working on getting a Taiwanese car license so I can rent a (gasoline) car for longer trips. Various local governments have given subsidies to encourage people to purchase electric scooters, similar to this Lithuanian example, although they could probably do more, as electric scooter sales have dipped 23% YoY in recent months [7]. I'd love to see Gogoro expand to more places, although I think the limiting factor is the battery station network; you need a relatively dense market like Taiwan for it to make sense. You also need a market where consumers are interested in driving scooters instead of cars. Gogoro has started expanding internationally, with Israel as their first foreign market [8], so maybe you'll see them for sale near you sometime soon :) (Not affiliated with Gogoro, just a person who hates smog and is excited about what Gogoro is doing). [1] https://www.gogoro.com/ https://www.gogoro.com/ [2] https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2020/03/13/2003732573 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2020/03/13/200... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_-PKSPbvpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_-PKSPbvpw [4] https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3988915 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3988915 [5] https://www.gogoro.com/tw/findus/ https://www.gogoro.com/tw/findus/ [6] https://mowd.tw/gostation/map/ https://mowd.tw/gostation/map/ [7] https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4024434 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4024434 [8] https://electrek.co/2019/12/11/gogoro-electric-scooters-global-expansion-israel/ https://electrek.co/2019/12/11/gogoro-electric-scooters-glob...

ihaveajob 6y ago

This is wonderful news. I can't wait for California to do something it. Instead of subsidizing wealthy suburban dwellers with discounts on their expensive new cars which still generate harmful pollution [1], we could subsidize multiple times as many e-bikes for lower income folks who could have a bigger impact on our roads and air quality. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48944561 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48944561

zip1234 6y ago

This is good. It makes no sense at all to do electric car incentives for thousands of dollars but not incentivize far cheaper and greener options like they've done in Canada and US.

aurizon 6y ago

They better make sure the same Trabant is not traded in 47 times...Handed over to a crusher - the crusher ticket is needed. Need to watch crushers for the same thing. Even though I love all Lithuanians!! (Labas) they spent over 50 years under a fully corrupt regime and have many ethnic Russians in residence, and to even survive, they had to exploit every advantage. Flea-markets were an art form of ways to buy/sell whatever you could find to deal in. I am sure the current free government will try to emplace fraud detection - just as sure am I that any possible loophole will be found.....perhaps a few Lithuanians will tell us how it is on these latter day front lines?

acd 6y ago

If we could get people to trade in dirty diesels for scooters, electric cars/hybrids and bio-gas powered cars that would be a big win for clean air in cities! Ie very good that Lithuania shows the way here.