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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, publi

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.
      - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
        That seems particularly poor. I'm still doing regular 30 mile rides with plenty of reserve after 6,000 miles on my original 500 wH battery.
- ip26 6y ago
  This is what I think needs a bit more discussion & airtime. You're never going to eliminate cars entirely, don't try. But I think there's a good case that one car may be enough for many families when combined with ebikes, transit, & the rest.
  - akgerber 6y ago
    Many urban people are also perfectly well-served by the occasional rental/carshare.
  - reportingsjr 6y ago
    This is exactly the setup my significant other and I have. We even live in an urban area that is pretty bike hostile, car obsessed, hilly. We have one car that we share and the other bikes/walks when needed. There have only been two or three times over the course of about 7 years that having two cars would have been nice, but it obviously didn't make that big of a deal. It's definitely helped keep us healthier as well, particularly compared to our similar aged friend group (~30 years old). We've both gotten comments from our physicians in the last few years because of this too!
raxxorrax 6y ago
Don't know why you are downvoted, because individual transport is so established in our family and social structures that it is unrealistic to expect a scooter, bike or public transport to fully replace it. Yes, if I live in a coastal city in the US, maybe you wouldn't need a vehicle. But everyone else... If your trip to the doc is > 20km or > 15 miles you probably either take the car or have a lot of time on your hands. Same with family that needs your support from time to time. Transporting even just groceries can be a problem on a bike. Sure, I said the same thing when I was a student when the next supermarket was directly next to university and I could just go there every day.
- Shivetya 6y ago
  US? Hell, look at what happens when countries start to open up from oppressive governments. Cars show up everywhere. We can never over estimate the desire by any people to have the freedom to go where they want when they want. The issue with scooters is the same with motorcycles. First and foremost is safety but quickly arriving behind that is weather. Get below 70F and it can be cold even moving only 20 to 30 miles per hour then top it off with rain or worse? The second issue with scooters and motorcycles is that in some regions they are just too easy to make off with so in the case of scooters I could see a government just using the rental system where they are everywhere giving no value in stealing them.
  - ido 6y ago
    I agree people want cars, but people also want single-family detached homes & neither of these scale to big cities (where - corona notwithstanding - increasingly large portions of the population move to). IMO If you want to live in a big city you have to take a hit for the greater good and forgo some things you want. There is no (reasonable) way to have cities like Tokyo, Delhi or Shanghai if each family lives in a detached home & people commute to work daily by private automobile. And this is not even tackling having to alleviate climate change by reducing emissions.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Fnoord 6y ago
> Escooter/ebike is rarely a replacement for a car. Yeah, well, I guess you are not from a big city like Amsterdam. > Need to buy groceries for the whole week and deliver them home, a car can do that. I just order my groceries online and get them delivered. I could also use my cargo bike, normal bicycle, or walk to do groceries. Neither of these options is electric, but you can buy these electric. Last time I checked, each of these options give me enough 'freedom' so that I don't need a car. Sure, I can't go to the other side of the country with my car, but I don't want to either. If I am going on a spontaneous _long_distance_ trip I got two options: I go by public transport, or we rent a car. Cars are overrated; we got a lot more options nowadays so that the use of a car is diminished (though not completely). People in Amsterdam are living without a car and go by fine (they also need the money they'd otherwise spend on a car on rent ...).
- mmm_grayons 6y ago
  At least for us Americans, there's more to it than practical disadvantage, though we do have to travel much longer distances much more often here. If I say we love cars because they represent freedom, I'm not sure that gets it across. For a century they have been a tool that allows the American to go when he pleases when he pleases. Everyone remembers the day his dad tossed him the keys to the car and the freedom that brought. We appreciate them on a much deeper level than is easy to communicate, and for that reason they will not go away, nor should they.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    I can imagine the day dad tossed the keys to the car because in USA that is at age 16 while say drinking age is 21; so it comes first, as an earlier sign of recognition of becoming an adult. Its like a nod of responsibility. Here, you are allowed both when you are considered an adult (18). That's post high school. Students get to travel for free with public transport (either throughout the week or in the weekend, they have to pick either). How nice is that? Its great, unless you live in a rural area. Instead, kids here get proud when they get their first scooter (at age 16 when still at high school). What you say about car freedom for rural life, sure. I wasn't on about rural life though. I don't know how good the public transport is in American cities (it is very good in Amsterdam, but also perhaps even better in say Berlin). I'm curious about that (didn't get to use it when I was in USA). I would guess that someone who lives in New York City who doesn't own a car can rent one if they go to say Pennsylvania. But my guess would be, like in Amsterdam, they don't need one when they reside in New York City.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Benmcdonald__ 6y ago
Not for a family. For a single person it's a replacement
- ido 6y ago
  I'm a father of 2 young children in Berlin. We have no car (neither myself not my wife even have a driver's license) but we have a cargo-bike for taking the kids places & regular bicycles when we go alone (or when one person is riding the cargo bike and the other isn't). They are not even electric (although sometimes I wish they were) and this is very common for urban German families. If it is impractical in US cities it is only because they were built that way. When we have to go long distance we take trains (that often have an extra car for taking bikes with you).
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  You'll have an angry mob at your door if you even think about carrying a kid on anything with less than four wheels.
  - Nbox9 6y ago
    I see young children being carried by a trailer behind a bicycle often in the PNW region of the US.
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    What. I see kids on bikes/trailers on bikes in NYC all the time.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Count the wheels ;) I chose my words carefully. Seems like bike trailers have mostly replaced those kid seats that used to go on the backs of bikes.
      - ahoy 6y ago
        I see these all the time in the more affluent areas of brooklyn. Two wheels, kids on the back. https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/611178/files/23705435/yuba-bicycles-llc-2021-yuba-mundo-electric-shimano.jpg https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/611178/files/23705435/y...
TulliusCicero 6y ago
> Escooter/ebike is rarely a replacement for a car. True for most of the US, but that's by design. Our family of three gave up having a car when we moved from California to Munich, here our electric cargo bike is our 'car'. Works great. Plenty of other families without cars as well. That's not to say that a car wouldn't be very useful or more convenient for certain kinds of trips, of course (e.g. Ikea). But it doesn't feel like a necessity here the way it almost always felt like one in the US. And that's for a simple reason: Munich actually takes different forms of transport seriously, including street design, allocated land, and $$$ (well, €€€). I could go on and on about the differences. In the US, mandatory very low density zoning, as well as local transportation systems designed to be car-first (or car-only), are the reason driving is usually a basic necessity. But if you start upzoning and pouring serious resources into other modes of transport, they can work very well too. edit: I guess I should say, thinking of it as "a replacement for a car" is a very American mode of thinking, because it assumes that the car is a necessity in the first place. The aim should be a system where a car is a nice-to-have, not an integral component of every single person's life, a system where an ebike doesn't need to be a "replacement for a car", because you don't strictly need a car to live your life.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Depending on where you live a car may be a necessity. In suburban or rural US you won’t have a nice time. The more infrastructure you have to alleviate the need for personal cars the less you need a car or a car replacement.
- skocznymroczny 6y ago
  I am not American, I am Polish. And having a car here is pretty much a necessity unless you live in the center of a big city. Unfortunately, most research in this seems to focus on places like Amsterdam or Berlin, but it completely ignores the reality outside of city center of capital cities.
  - Schiendelman 6y ago
    The shift in where people live is increasingly toward cities, and away from places where one is dependent on a car. That trend needs to continue for us to continue to afford our infrastructure and survive as a species, so it's where we're going to focus.
thomasahle 6y ago
> Escooter/ebike is rarely a replacement for a car. That's a strange response to an article that's literally saying the opposite. Evidently the scheme is popular.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Giving free money to people is always popular. In this case the money is enough to effectively get a free e-bike or e-scooter, so of course people who can will use it. They may still buy a car as well, actually, since nothing prevent them from doing just that.
foxyv 6y ago
I've fit a weeks worth of groceries on my bike pretty easily. Between the rear rack, the panniers, and the trailer I can haul a lot of groceries. But you are right that it's a good idea to have at least one car in a family. Especially in the US. Although I would check first that it isn't cheaper to get a rental or a taxi when you need it. The only reason I still have my current car is because it's already paid for anyways and doesn't cost much to keep around.

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.
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      That seems particularly poor. I'm still doing regular 30 mile rides with plenty of reserve after 6,000 miles on my original 500 wH battery.
ip26 6y ago
This is what I think needs a bit more discussion & airtime. You're never going to eliminate cars entirely, don't try. But I think there's a good case that one car may be enough for many families when combined with ebikes, transit, & the rest.
- akgerber 6y ago
  Many urban people are also perfectly well-served by the occasional rental/carshare.
- reportingsjr 6y ago
  This is exactly the setup my significant other and I have. We even live in an urban area that is pretty bike hostile, car obsessed, hilly. We have one car that we share and the other bikes/walks when needed. There have only been two or three times over the course of about 7 years that having two cars would have been nice, but it obviously didn't make that big of a deal. It's definitely helped keep us healthier as well, particularly compared to our similar aged friend group (~30 years old). We've both gotten comments from our physicians in the last few years because of this too!

raxxorrax 6y ago

Don't know why you are downvoted, because individual transport is so established in our family and social structures that it is unrealistic to expect a scooter, bike or public transport to fully replace it. Yes, if I live in a coastal city in the US, maybe you wouldn't need a vehicle. But everyone else... If your trip to the doc is > 20km or > 15 miles you probably either take the car or have a lot of time on your hands. Same with family that needs your support from time to time. Transporting even just groceries can be a problem on a bike. Sure, I said the same thing when I was a student when the next supermarket was directly next to university and I could just go there every day.

Shivetya 6y ago
US? Hell, look at what happens when countries start to open up from oppressive governments. Cars show up everywhere. We can never over estimate the desire by any people to have the freedom to go where they want when they want. The issue with scooters is the same with motorcycles. First and foremost is safety but quickly arriving behind that is weather. Get below 70F and it can be cold even moving only 20 to 30 miles per hour then top it off with rain or worse? The second issue with scooters and motorcycles is that in some regions they are just too easy to make off with so in the case of scooters I could see a government just using the rental system where they are everywhere giving no value in stealing them.
- ido 6y ago
  I agree people want cars, but people also want single-family detached homes & neither of these scale to big cities (where - corona notwithstanding - increasingly large portions of the population move to). IMO If you want to live in a big city you have to take a hit for the greater good and forgo some things you want. There is no (reasonable) way to have cities like Tokyo, Delhi or Shanghai if each family lives in a detached home & people commute to work daily by private automobile. And this is not even tackling having to alleviate climate change by reducing emissions.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago

Fnoord 6y ago

> Escooter/ebike is rarely a replacement for a car. Yeah, well, I guess you are not from a big city like Amsterdam. > Need to buy groceries for the whole week and deliver them home, a car can do that. I just order my groceries online and get them delivered. I could also use my cargo bike, normal bicycle, or walk to do groceries. Neither of these options is electric, but you can buy these electric. Last time I checked, each of these options give me enough 'freedom' so that I don't need a car. Sure, I can't go to the other side of the country with my car, but I don't want to either. If I am going on a spontaneous _long_distance_ trip I got two options: I go by public transport, or we rent a car. Cars are overrated; we got a lot more options nowadays so that the use of a car is diminished (though not completely). People in Amsterdam are living without a car and go by fine (they also need the money they'd otherwise spend on a car on rent ...).

mmm_grayons 6y ago
At least for us Americans, there's more to it than practical disadvantage, though we do have to travel much longer distances much more often here. If I say we love cars because they represent freedom, I'm not sure that gets it across. For a century they have been a tool that allows the American to go when he pleases when he pleases. Everyone remembers the day his dad tossed him the keys to the car and the freedom that brought. We appreciate them on a much deeper level than is easy to communicate, and for that reason they will not go away, nor should they.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  I can imagine the day dad tossed the keys to the car because in USA that is at age 16 while say drinking age is 21; so it comes first, as an earlier sign of recognition of becoming an adult. Its like a nod of responsibility. Here, you are allowed both when you are considered an adult (18). That's post high school. Students get to travel for free with public transport (either throughout the week or in the weekend, they have to pick either). How nice is that? Its great, unless you live in a rural area. Instead, kids here get proud when they get their first scooter (at age 16 when still at high school). What you say about car freedom for rural life, sure. I wasn't on about rural life though. I don't know how good the public transport is in American cities (it is very good in Amsterdam, but also perhaps even better in say Berlin). I'm curious about that (didn't get to use it when I was in USA). I would guess that someone who lives in New York City who doesn't own a car can rent one if they go to say Pennsylvania. But my guess would be, like in Amsterdam, they don't need one when they reside in New York City.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Benmcdonald__ 6y ago

Not for a family. For a single person it's a replacement

ido 6y ago
I'm a father of 2 young children in Berlin. We have no car (neither myself not my wife even have a driver's license) but we have a cargo-bike for taking the kids places & regular bicycles when we go alone (or when one person is riding the cargo bike and the other isn't). They are not even electric (although sometimes I wish they were) and this is very common for urban German families. If it is impractical in US cities it is only because they were built that way. When we have to go long distance we take trains (that often have an extra car for taking bikes with you).
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
You'll have an angry mob at your door if you even think about carrying a kid on anything with less than four wheels.
- Nbox9 6y ago
  I see young children being carried by a trailer behind a bicycle often in the PNW region of the US.
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  What. I see kids on bikes/trailers on bikes in NYC all the time.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Count the wheels ;) I chose my words carefully. Seems like bike trailers have mostly replaced those kid seats that used to go on the backs of bikes.
    - ahoy 6y ago
      I see these all the time in the more affluent areas of brooklyn. Two wheels, kids on the back. https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/611178/files/23705435/yuba-bicycles-llc-2021-yuba-mundo-electric-shimano.jpg https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/611178/files/23705435/y...

TulliusCicero 6y ago

> Escooter/ebike is rarely a replacement for a car. True for most of the US, but that's by design. Our family of three gave up having a car when we moved from California to Munich, here our electric cargo bike is our 'car'. Works great. Plenty of other families without cars as well. That's not to say that a car wouldn't be very useful or more convenient for certain kinds of trips, of course (e.g. Ikea). But it doesn't feel like a necessity here the way it almost always felt like one in the US. And that's for a simple reason: Munich actually takes different forms of transport seriously, including street design, allocated land, and $$$ (well, €€€). I could go on and on about the differences. In the US, mandatory very low density zoning, as well as local transportation systems designed to be car-first (or car-only), are the reason driving is usually a basic necessity. But if you start upzoning and pouring serious resources into other modes of transport, they can work very well too. edit: I guess I should say, thinking of it as "a replacement for a car" is a very American mode of thinking, because it assumes that the car is a necessity in the first place. The aim should be a system where a car is a nice-to-have, not an integral component of every single person's life, a system where an ebike doesn't need to be a "replacement for a car", because you don't strictly need a car to live your life.

IgorPartola 6y ago
Depending on where you live a car may be a necessity. In suburban or rural US you won’t have a nice time. The more infrastructure you have to alleviate the need for personal cars the less you need a car or a car replacement.
skocznymroczny 6y ago
I am not American, I am Polish. And having a car here is pretty much a necessity unless you live in the center of a big city. Unfortunately, most research in this seems to focus on places like Amsterdam or Berlin, but it completely ignores the reality outside of city center of capital cities.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  The shift in where people live is increasingly toward cities, and away from places where one is dependent on a car. That trend needs to continue for us to continue to afford our infrastructure and survive as a species, so it's where we're going to focus.

thomasahle 6y ago

> Escooter/ebike is rarely a replacement for a car. That's a strange response to an article that's literally saying the opposite. Evidently the scheme is popular.

mytailorisrich 6y ago
Giving free money to people is always popular. In this case the money is enough to effectively get a free e-bike or e-scooter, so of course people who can will use it. They may still buy a car as well, actually, since nothing prevent them from doing just that.

foxyv 6y ago

I've fit a weeks worth of groceries on my bike pretty easily. Between the rear rack, the panniers, and the trailer I can haul a lot of groceries. But you are right that it's a good idea to have at least one car in a family. Especially in the US. Although I would check first that it isn't cheaper to get a rental or a taxi when you need it. The only reason I still have my current car is because it's already paid for anyways and doesn't cost much to keep around.