5 ms·

It’s criminal that US governments give over $7k in tax credits for buying electric cars, which are usually over $40k so are the domain of the middle to upper cl

It’s criminal that US governments give over $7k in tax credits for buying electric cars, which are usually over $40k so are the domain of the middle to upper classes at best, but does not provide any tax breaks for ebikes at all. The government could literally fully buy 5 high quality ebikes for the tax credit it gives for a single EV. If they would give a 50% tax credit for eBikes and push a program to convert a single car lane in most roads in cities to protected micromobility lanes to build out a complete network, they could eliminate the gas problem in both the short and long terms almost entirely.

slaw 4y ago
All of these bikes are designed and made in China. Only managements, sales and support is in US. I would rather promote domestic production than giving tax credits.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >All of these bikes are designed and made in China. Jeez, and why is that? Here's a wild idea, instead of offshoring out entire manufacturing sector to sweatshop countries without human rights and environmental regulations, just to drive down cost and increase shareholder value, we instead invest in domestic manufacturing for critical sectors such as transportation (yes bikes are a means of transportation and the best one for cities at that). Or, instead of the government aiding Exxon or BP they aid local E-Bike manufacturing. Several European countries have E-Bike companies with domestic manufacturing. So it's possible to do in the west.
  - trasz 4y ago
    It never ceases to amaze me how Americans claim China has no human rights, but at the same time claim US - the country with worlds highest incarceration ratio, where police can kill random people with impunity, where convicted child rapists can easily avoid prison if they are wealthy enough) is somehow better. (Fun fact: apparently the American condition doesn’t even mention human rights.)
    - feet 4y ago
- llampx 4y ago
  Are electric car subsidies based on them being manufactured from the ground up in the US?
- feet 4y ago
  That's just not true at all. There are a bunch of high quality European brands that use European parts
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Well then give a 70% rebate on bikes that are wholly produced locally and 50% on ones designed and assembled locally. Just whatever you do, don't give it to the ones pulling all the proprietary and drm bullshit.
dzhiurgis 4y ago
A car can drive 5 people and overall kinda has more utility. The criminal part is lack of bike paths.
- dagurp 4y ago
  More electric bikes (should) mean more bike infrastructure and that will increase a bikes utility. Just like more electric cars mean more chargers. Induced demand works for allt types of transport.
- kevincox 4y ago
  Or you could buy 5 ebikes for the same price which could drive 5 people. Bikes are also far more efficient with road space, especially since cars usually only have 1 person. Sure, a lot of the US lives in car-dependent neighborhoods but ebikes are a nice way to slowly grow out of that and they are excellent in places that aren't car dependent.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  A bakfiets can hold three to five kids, is far easier to park if even the barest effort has been made to accomodate non-car transport, can be taken on a train outside of peak hours, holds as much as a hatchback, and doesn't take away two apartments worth of habitable space and a quarter of an adult's income in infrastructure and healthcare costs from your city.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    > bakfiets Some electric ones I've seen cost as much as a used Nissan Leaf. Don't get me wrong, I loved cycling in Netherlands, but bikes wont work unless there's also great options for public transport. I can't imagine taking 30 mile rides in this from suburbs in Los Angeles or going up mountains at -20C...
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      That doesn't make it impractical. It makes it appropriate to certain use cases. A ford ranger is completely impractical in an italian inner city historic area where it doesn't fit in any of the streets. A nissan leaf is equally impractical deep in the canadian north where it can't make it to the next charging station during winter, let alone your destination. Trains are impractical when there are only five people within 20km of any proposed station site. Large cars are wildly impractical in dense cities in temperate or warmer environments (where over half the world's population lives). Even if you try to forcefully change the city to make them viable at massive expense to car owners and non-drivers alike it just results in the downsides being diffuse. In a context where you're trying to get a large number of people in the same place, arranging things so you have to travel 5x as far at 35km/h (traffic rarely moves faster than this on average during peak times) so you can bring a 2t hunk of metal and plastic with you that not only gets you to your destination slower than a brisk walk would if you hadn't - it also makes everyone sick via pollution (even electric cars cause massive air pollution issues due to particles -- a tesla actually causes more pm2.5 emissions than a euro6 hatchback) and diabetes; makes large tracts of the city uninhabitable due to proximity to loud, dangerous machines, wastes about half of the available space in parking, setbacks, roads, and so on; and reduces the maximum density due to congestion. This doesn't make a bike or a car impractical. It makes the bike an absolute no brainer for 70% of the trips of half the world's population (given sane infrastructure) and an option to add to a healthy mix for 95% of the rest. Trains are just as important, and cars should be optional everywhere (even if living without owning one is impractical for 20% of the population)
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Yet the simpler option of taxing carbon fuels appropriately is also attacked for being unfair to the poor (which it isn't, and if it was could be fixed easily). Americans seem to prefer complaining about their government to actually having competent government.

slaw 4y ago

All of these bikes are designed and made in China. Only managements, sales and support is in US. I would rather promote domestic production than giving tax credits.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>All of these bikes are designed and made in China. Jeez, and why is that? Here's a wild idea, instead of offshoring out entire manufacturing sector to sweatshop countries without human rights and environmental regulations, just to drive down cost and increase shareholder value, we instead invest in domestic manufacturing for critical sectors such as transportation (yes bikes are a means of transportation and the best one for cities at that). Or, instead of the government aiding Exxon or BP they aid local E-Bike manufacturing. Several European countries have E-Bike companies with domestic manufacturing. So it's possible to do in the west.
- trasz 4y ago
  It never ceases to amaze me how Americans claim China has no human rights, but at the same time claim US - the country with worlds highest incarceration ratio, where police can kill random people with impunity, where convicted child rapists can easily avoid prison if they are wealthy enough) is somehow better. (Fun fact: apparently the American condition doesn’t even mention human rights.)
  - feet 4y ago
llampx 4y ago
Are electric car subsidies based on them being manufactured from the ground up in the US?
feet 4y ago
That's just not true at all. There are a bunch of high quality European brands that use European parts
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Well then give a 70% rebate on bikes that are wholly produced locally and 50% on ones designed and assembled locally. Just whatever you do, don't give it to the ones pulling all the proprietary and drm bullshit.

dzhiurgis 4y ago

A car can drive 5 people and overall kinda has more utility. The criminal part is lack of bike paths.

dagurp 4y ago
More electric bikes (should) mean more bike infrastructure and that will increase a bikes utility. Just like more electric cars mean more chargers. Induced demand works for allt types of transport.
kevincox 4y ago
Or you could buy 5 ebikes for the same price which could drive 5 people. Bikes are also far more efficient with road space, especially since cars usually only have 1 person. Sure, a lot of the US lives in car-dependent neighborhoods but ebikes are a nice way to slowly grow out of that and they are excellent in places that aren't car dependent.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
A bakfiets can hold three to five kids, is far easier to park if even the barest effort has been made to accomodate non-car transport, can be taken on a train outside of peak hours, holds as much as a hatchback, and doesn't take away two apartments worth of habitable space and a quarter of an adult's income in infrastructure and healthcare costs from your city.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  > bakfiets Some electric ones I've seen cost as much as a used Nissan Leaf. Don't get me wrong, I loved cycling in Netherlands, but bikes wont work unless there's also great options for public transport. I can't imagine taking 30 mile rides in this from suburbs in Los Angeles or going up mountains at -20C...
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    That doesn't make it impractical. It makes it appropriate to certain use cases. A ford ranger is completely impractical in an italian inner city historic area where it doesn't fit in any of the streets. A nissan leaf is equally impractical deep in the canadian north where it can't make it to the next charging station during winter, let alone your destination. Trains are impractical when there are only five people within 20km of any proposed station site. Large cars are wildly impractical in dense cities in temperate or warmer environments (where over half the world's population lives). Even if you try to forcefully change the city to make them viable at massive expense to car owners and non-drivers alike it just results in the downsides being diffuse. In a context where you're trying to get a large number of people in the same place, arranging things so you have to travel 5x as far at 35km/h (traffic rarely moves faster than this on average during peak times) so you can bring a 2t hunk of metal and plastic with you that not only gets you to your destination slower than a brisk walk would if you hadn't - it also makes everyone sick via pollution (even electric cars cause massive air pollution issues due to particles -- a tesla actually causes more pm2.5 emissions than a euro6 hatchback) and diabetes; makes large tracts of the city uninhabitable due to proximity to loud, dangerous machines, wastes about half of the available space in parking, setbacks, roads, and so on; and reduces the maximum density due to congestion. This doesn't make a bike or a car impractical. It makes the bike an absolute no brainer for 70% of the trips of half the world's population (given sane infrastructure) and an option to add to a healthy mix for 95% of the rest. Trains are just as important, and cars should be optional everywhere (even if living without owning one is impractical for 20% of the population)

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Yet the simpler option of taxing carbon fuels appropriately is also attacked for being unfair to the poor (which it isn't, and if it was could be fixed easily). Americans seem to prefer complaining about their government to actually having competent government.