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280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

• kibwen 3y ago
  Would anyone here like to recommend (or disrecommend) any e-bike models?
  • s0rce 3y ago
    An easy bet is buying from a good existing bike company like Specialized. High end ebikes from Gazelle and Riese and Muller are also good. Avoid low end generic and drop shipped Chinese imports unless you really have no budget but you might have issues and you won't have support for repairs.
  • Filligree 3y ago
    Riese & Mueller are great if you can afford them. You pay through the nose, but they're not really built like bicycles. You should be comparing to mopeds (or cars!), not muscle-powered two-wheelers. Do make sure to get the high-speed model, though; there's not a lot of use for the strengthened components if you're limited to regular bicycling speeds.
    • mapmap 3y ago
      Does one need a motorcycle helmet when exceeding bicycle speeds?
      • simmanian 3y ago
        that depends on local laws. depending on where you live, it may be illegal to ride high speed ebikes in the first place.
        • kibwen 3y ago
          Beyond a certain speed, full-face helmets become a practical matter rather than merely a safety or legal matter. Can't hear with the wind rushing in your ears, can't see with the wind in your eyes.
          • david-gpu 3y ago
            > Can't hear with the wind rushing in your ears. Some cyclists use a product called Cat-Ears. It's just some synthetic fur that attaches to the helmet straps akin to having some sick sideburns. It works great.
  • NegativeLatency 3y ago
    Converted my own with a mid drive bafang kit off of amazon, there are plenty of guides out there and while its not the easiest of bike maintenance jobs it’s also not that hard. The other option I considered was buying an urban arrow, yuba, tern or “harry vs larry” bakfiets style bike. If you’re looking for a car replacement the electric Bakfiets style is absolutely amazing for carrying cargo or even a person. (I pick my wife up in it sometimes)
  • simmanian 3y ago
    If you're in US, REI has a 40% sale for their gen 1.1 and 1.2 bikes. Great entry level ebikes with proper range.
    • dylan604 3y ago
      a 40% REI discount means it's only 20% higher than other places. I love REI, but they are not known for having cheap prices. Just trying to re-align the expectations of 40%
  • local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    Cheap and cheerful: Priority Current. Longer-term: Specialized Globe Haul. I feel the same way about it as I do my pickup truck - it can go anywhere, do anything, and seems incredibly happy to either cruise around town or eat shit for hours. I absolutely adore it and cannot recommend it enough. It also has a big dealer network, something you don't get with the DTC boys
  • dylan604 3y ago
    I have a Rad Wagon 4, and I love it. It is my only mode of transportation, other than my two feet. It's big and heavy, but I don't care. I've also picked up a couple of their attachments like the basket on the front, and the rack and insulated pack on the back. Even with that rack, I still have room for an old school 2x milk crate in the back. Parking/securing it can be a bit of a challenge as most places around me don't have a bike rike, and the bike itself is a bit larger than most racks are designed. That just means I have to get creative, and it's not really an issue. The amount of stuff I can carry is amazing, and its large motor makes carrying it all a breeze. Edit: also, if you do anything at night, I highly recommend the upgraded headlight. Unfortunately, it's not compatible with the front rack, but I have an idea how to hack something together to be able to have both at the same time.
  • joshcanhelp 3y ago
    We’ve had a Tern GSD for a few years (1500 miles, bought at 400) and absolutely love it.
  • mbil 3y ago
    I have a RadCity 4 with fenders and a basket. It’s much heavier than a regular bike. But it’s quite fun to ride and can hit 25mph. My city is rather flat and has passable bike infrastructure. I haven’t used it all that much simply because I enjoy walking and usually do that. But for certain travel scenarios it’s awesome. I upgraded from a 20 minute car ride across town to a 30 minute e-bike ride.
  • Glide 3y ago
    I would honestly look for Belt Drive versions of most of these recommendations as there is one less maintenance thing to worry about.
  • MontgomeryPy 3y ago
    Anyone know when the new Honda eMTB ebike will be available in US market?
  • dghlsakjg 3y ago
    For the budget end: I have a Rad Runner, and it is great. I've ridden super high end e-mountain bikes, and, yes, they are better but not $5k better. I happily use my Rad bike to run errands covering 20-30 km, no problem. For the price, I'm not sure that you could do better.
  • bluGill 3y ago
    Go to your local bike shop. Buy what they sell. There are other good ebikes, but if you don't already know them you also don't know how to service them and so they won't last long.
  • davidrhunt 3y ago
    In my experience bikes with Bosch/Bafang motors/batteries will be more reliable and easier to find service for. There are many brands/options/price points with that constraint.
• njacobs5074 3y ago
  I like the idea of an e-bike but in South Africa I’d be worried that it would easily be stolen. We also have grid challenges here but that can be dealt with by planning one’s charging schedule.
• seec 3y ago
  Yeah, and you could get much better results if we would agree on taxing the boomers for their irresponsible car overuse. My rich boomer parent bought a new car right before going into retirement, and now she burns even more petrol than she used to burn irresponsibly before retirement. Previously there were a lot of excuses around needing it for work related stuff, which was complete bullshit of course but now she will burn petrol to go on holidays for 3-4 days with in general at least 1000km roundtrip. The worst part is that she has the time/flexibility and also money to take the train (there even is a serious reduction card for seniors). But she doesn't. Because she can. Because the car doesn't look expensive enough. Seriously it's really needed to tax the boomer to death on that front at least, they already own all the valuable real estate we can't let them get away with burning more of our future. It won't happen because they hold all the political power thanks to their numerical majority (especially among voters). Cars, like many current problems, are a boomer related/created problem. If you want to fix the wound, you need to extract the thing that created the wound in the first place.
• thelastgallon 3y ago
  We don't need a 4000 lb vehicle to move a ~200 lb person. In order of efficiency: (1) Walk (2) Unicycle, roller skate, scooter (no battery, very little material) (2) Bike (3) Electric bike (and all forms of newfangled electric: escooters, segways) (4) Electric motorbike or scooter (5) Mass transit (can be public/private) transportation: Electric trains (6) Mass transit (can be public/private) transportation: Electric buses (7) Zipline (8) Carpools on BEV (9) Carpools on PHEV (10) BEV We can stop buying gas cars. Pollution kills 10 million EVERY year[1]. For context, the cumulative COVID deaths over 3 years are ~6.5 million. And fossil fuels are subsidized (Trillions of dollars per year). For 2022, this is $7 trillion[2]. Why are we subsidizing fuels that are proven to cause all kinds of diseases (nearly everything except STIs). [1] Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year. Why Do We Accept That as Normal?: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-pollution-deaths-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-p... [2] Why Are Governments Still Subsidizing Fossil Fuels? https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-16/climate-change-why-are-governments-still-subsidizing-fossil-fuels https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-16/climat... [3] https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel-subsidies-surged-to-record-7-trillion https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...
  • LUmBULtERA 3y ago
    Is taking an ebike really that efficient if its going to be stolen? I kid.. because I have one. But I take 3 locks with me when I need to leave it unattended...
    • ryukafalz 3y ago
      I do worry about this some, but I also have my bikes insured including an e-cargo bike. Cheaper than most car insurance. Still would be a pain in the ass if my bike got stolen though.
      • em500 3y ago
        In the Netherlands many insurance companies have stopped offering insurance for ebikes and electric cargo bikes, because the chance of theft is too high (approaching 90% in Amsterdam on certain types according the insurance companies).
• johnea 3y ago
  I'm not really sure where in the US people live that makes them think transportation can be replaced by a bike. I live in San Diego, the climate is great, but there is no way a person can travel any farther than their neighborhood on a bike. The main impediment at this point is the outrageous price of EVs in the US. In China cheap EVs are readily available, trade policies are preventing their import into the US. Bikes, "e" or otherwise are a great way to get around the neighborhood, but most people are not able to restrict their travel to a 10 mile radius. And weather as well as traffic safety are serious mitigations of bike transport.
  • chucksta 3y ago
    You are forgetting about the other coast. A 10 mile Radius will get you almost anywhere you want to go in a NE metro
  • count 3y ago
    To be fair, San Diego seems like it was designed specifically to be hostile to non-car travel, especially around the valleys and passes between the hills. Downtown/GasLamp are totally viable with just an e-bike (and probably over into Coronado), bus as soon as you have to leave that area, I'd agree, non-viable. I haven't worked or lived in any other city quite that brutally bad for bikes though?
    • kjkjadksj 3y ago
      San diego coastal neighborhoods are fine. I saw a lot of bikes and cargo ebikes going to the ralphs in pacific beach. The whole greater mission bay area seems pretty idyllic from a biking perspective tbh.
    • allemagne 3y ago
      A core, dense walkable and expensive area (where a bike might be viable) surrounded by miles and miles of cheaper suburban sprawl (where it's not) is how every major American city is structured. I live next to commuter rail in a mid-sized city that I try to take advantage of, but if the option of a car was completely taken off the table for me it would make so much of my life more difficult by at least an order of magnitude.
• tofflos 3y ago
  "So what’s the best solution? You might think switching to an electric vehicle is the natural step. In fact, for short trips, an electric bike or moped might be better for you – and for the planet." Also in fact, electric bikes and mopeds are electric vehicles.
  • landemva 3y ago
    > electric bikes and mopeds are electric vehicles. At USA federal level, which applies to federal lands and federal funding like 'rec paths' on municipal lands, ebikes are bicycles. They are not vehicles and not motorcycles. https://usbr.gov/recreation/publications/ebikes.pdf https://usbr.gov/recreation/publications/ebikes.pdf A vehicle requires significantly different licensing, and typically registration + insurance policy + driver licensing. What location are you in that classifies an ebike as a vehicle?
    • ben0x539 3y ago
      A bicycle is a vehicle in plain language, I don't think they were making a point about the, uh, legal term of art. I was confused by your link, it seems to be saying ebikes aren't bicycles and are in fact a form of vehicle? > Why aren’t e-bikes considered to be traditional bikes and already allowed on Reclamation lands? > In accordance with 43 CFR 420.5(a), e-bikes are currently considered as Off-Road Vehicles
      • landemva 3y ago
        Like BlueTemplar wrote, it becomes confusing. That is why 'vehicle' caught my attention, and it may be worthwhile to not use 'ebike' and 'vehicle' as the same. Driving an actual vehicle on a rec path will likely be a big problem for anyone who is not engaged in approved rec path maintenance. Riding an ebike on a rec path may be encouraged. Maybe IRS tax code considers an ebike a vehicle for some deduction?
    • BlueTemplar 3y ago
      That they have a very weird definition of what a «vehicle» is, is part of the problem : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle
• Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Eliminating the daily commute for those who have jobs where in person presence isn't essential beats all other forms of transportation. But activists, cities, and greenwash companies have all shown their true face, each for their own reasons of self-interest.
  • uoaei 3y ago
    I'd like to see the numbers in the full accounting, ie, how much carbon cost is added with Slack calls and the like. Somehow I think (analog) biking to the office wins over fully remote especially if you have video on for more than one hour per day.
  • kibwen 3y ago
    This is part of it, but people still need to leave their house sometime, and the best solution is one where people can survive without needing to own a car at all, which is nearly impossible in most of the US. We sold our nation's soul to cars, and now we're fighting to get it back.
    • kjkjadksj 3y ago
      Yet the commute is a full ten trips a week you can eliminate. People aren’t running errands 10x a week. The clear roads and clear skies early in the pandemic showed us what this would look like if more people worked remotely.
      • kibwen 3y ago
        Note that I'm not against remote work, rather I'm all for it. But programmers like us here on HN are prone to tunnel vision on this topic: most people cannot bring their work home. Nurses, lab techs, construction workers, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, all these people still need to commute, and so we need to design our cities accordingly.
        • Mountain_Skies 3y ago
          Programmers aren't the only people who have work compatible with working remotely. My post explicitly was restricted to those whose jobs can be done remotely and laments that there are other forces at play that interfere with this ability. Most of those force like to bath themselves in greenwash. There's no need for any improvement to work for 100% of humanity for it to be an improvement. Stopping the good because it's not the perfect just stops anything good from happening.
• k_dumez 3y ago
  "In the United States, a staggering 60% of all car trips cover less than 10km." Being lucky enough to live in a walkable city (NYC) this is insane to me. The world is so car-brained.
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    walking 10km? in most US cities that is neither viable nor safe anymore
    • the_snooze 3y ago
      It can include mass transit too. For a practical example, 10km covers all of Washington DC proper if you start at the center, nearly all of which is walkable/bikeable/transit-able.
    • tekla 3y ago
      Rural areas too. I made the mistake of walking down to the store when I lived in rural Colorado. A Truck almost turned me into a paste when it blindly took a turn.
    • camgunz 3y ago
      Well that's the point I think. In practically all of the US you can't even take a sidewalk where you want to go. It gets even worse if you want things like walk signals or to avoid huge intersections, or even mass transit at all.
      • paddy_m 3y ago
        Not only that, our built environment is uninviting to walk in because it's built for cars. When have you ever walked by a parking lot and said "Oh my god, that parking lot was amazing, I want to spend time around it"? Yet we require by law parking lots to be built everywhere in America. We have legally compelled property owners to build something ugly. Thanksgiving is coming up. Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year. Drive around, notice how on the busiest shopping day of the year, most commercial parking lots still aren't full.
• logankeenan 3y ago
  I sold my car more than a year ago now and I’ve been using an E-bike as a replacement. I work from home so I didn’t really need a car that often and can coordinate with my wife when I need to use the family vehicle. It hasn’t been too bad and we can always rely on Uber if something comes down to it. We live close to stores and it’s more convenient to use the bike than a car when we need to go get a few things. For instance, I can park right next to the entrance of all the stores. I think he bikes can be a great replacement for a car for certain scenarios and city layout. I live in the Des Moines, Iowa Metropolitan area where we have a large bike trail infrastructure that I can use to get around the metropolitan area
• davidw 3y ago
  I do almost all the grocery shopping for our family of 4 with a Rad Runner Plus with a large basket and bag. I love that bike. Even as someone pretty comfortable getting around on a 'regular' bike, having that extra power just makes it a really easy choice for more trips compared to the car. If it's hot out, it is so much nicer to hop on the bike and get an instant breeze compared to a hot stuffy car. If it's cold out, I can really layer up and not worry about sweating because I overdressed. I just use the motor more. Edit: I'll add that like many things in life, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. We still have an automobile that we use, but the bike has replaced a lot of car trips. For some people a bike might not replace as many. Some might be able to ditch the car entirely. But it all helps!
  • nravic 3y ago
    what kind of pannier bags do you use to haul groceries? All the ones I've used have been too small for my purposes.
    • davidw 3y ago
      The bike in question has a front basket with a bag designed to fit it: https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/large-basket https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/large-basket https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/large-basket-roll-top-liner https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/large-basket-roll-top... So I don't have panniers. I might get some in the future to have a bit of extra capacity.
    • bronson 3y ago
      Not OP but I have essentially the same bike (Packa) with kid bars on the back. I throw a big Home Depot plastic storage crate into the bars, then 4 bags of groceries go into the crate. 6+ if you stack and bungee them. Plus another bag in the front basket. If the kids want to go to the store then the crate goes on the bike trailer.
      • Maximus9000 3y ago
        > big Home Depot plastic storage crate into the bars Nice! That's such a simple solution. Thanks for the tip.
• uoaei 3y ago
  It's good that the batteries are many times smaller than electric cars and trucks. I still have a problem with the accounting being focused on what the consumer directly experiences rather than the full lifecycle of the vehicle (manufacturing, logistics of vehicle and spare parts, and disposal) but I don't think it changes the conclusions much except maybe a minor edit to the ranking by kilometer-people per ton of CO2e emitted when compared to other forms of transportation. I did the math on my 2000s Jeep and I would need to drive it for about 20,000 miles (5 years of usage in my case) in order just to emit the same as the production of a single Model S battery, not including building the rest of the car and bringing it to the consumer. I think we could do a lot better to emphasize buying used cars/bikes/everything especially if we reorient the accounting to reflect the emissions that consumers are typically insulated from. Frontloading our emissions kind of defeats the purpose of Nordhaus-style climate economics accounting...
  • cogman10 3y ago
    20k miles in 5 years of ownership? That's well below average mileage (13k miles for 1 year is average). But further, if you want to talk about lifecycle, then why not consider a used Model S (or other ev) with 20k miles? It's not like EVs suddenly explode and need to be junked after 20k miles. The CO2 payoff period for an EV is around 25k miles, after that every mile driven on an EV ends up being less emissions wise than a regular ICE. Add to this the fact that EVs have extended lifetimes compared to ICE. 300 or 500k miles is more than possible with today's EVs.
    • uoaei 3y ago
      > That's well below average mileage Hence the emphasis here and in other comments about finding ways to use cars less. I diverted an entire vehicle from the dump rather than buying new and requiring additional CO2 emissions in that production process. It suits my lifestyle well. I could have bought a used EV but this car was free to me (after cost of spare parts) and I learned a lot about how to work on cars getting it up and running again. Plus sometimes I'll need to tow stuff. Regarding payoff: My research says 5-8 years on average (12k miles per year) after accounting for production and emissions (generation for EV, gas for ICE), so I'm curious to know where you get your data. > 300 or 500k miles is more than possible with today's EVs. I'd like to see empirical studies on this but I suspect the sample size of EVs with that kind of mileage is too small at this point. It's well known that EV batteries degrade faster than expected, aside from early year Prius hybrid and later Leaf batteries which seem to be holding up well for some reason. So even if the car lasts, you may have replaced the battery multiple times already. None of this even accounts for microplastic production from tire and road wear, which goes as the fourth power of the vehicle mass. EVs obviously on the losing side of that vs bicycles, ebikes, even small ICEs.
• kragen 3y ago
  if this is what passes for 'academic rigour, journalistic flair' > Their batteries make them heavier than a traditional car, and draw heavily on the extraction of rare earth elements i think your academy is a diploma mill quoting https://www.sneci.com/blog/are-rare-earths-an-issue-in-the-production-of-ev-batteries/ https://www.sneci.com/blog/are-rare-earths-an-issue-in-the-p... which actually does have something resembling academic rigor > 15 years ago, the first hybrid vehicles, notably the Toyota Prius and the Honda, were equipped with NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries whose negative electrode (anode) was made of a lanthanum-pentanickel alloy (LaNi₅). > These batteries in the first generation of hybrid vehicles contained about ten kilos of lanthanum, which is a rare earth. > However, today this battery technology has been replaced by the family of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries with much higher performance. > While some Toyota hybrids sold in Europe are still equipped with NiMH batteries, the vast majority of hybrid and electric vehicles today are equipped with Li-ion batteries… which do not contain rare earths. > Of course, they contain lithium, cobalt and nickel, but as mentioned above, these metals are not rare earths and do not pose the same problems. most of the rest of the article explains why rare earths are a red herring and the historical background on why people were concerned about them 15 years ago > In short, rare earths are not rare at all, the world’s reserves are large, well distributed in the 5 continents and no shortage is to be feared for a long time.
  • cogman10 3y ago
    Yup, lots of anti-battery stuff is propaganda pretending like we still drive around with NiCd batteries. Even the weight argument is wrong! A model Y weighs up to 4,555 lbs. A Ford edge weighs up to 4520 lbs. As it turns out, ICE are really super heavy. Strip that out and have a steadily increasing battery density as we've seen over the years and it really won't be long before EVs are in fact lighter than ICE counterparts (and certainly lighter than hybrids). These articles are all written with anecdotes from 2000.
    • tomtheelder 3y ago
      The weight thing is absolutely real. You can’t just compare two completely different cars! Equivalent models usually gain a few hundred pounds in the EV version.
• crawdog 3y ago
  This is an area that government subsidies could really influence change in urban planning and cutting oil demand. If there was a similar subsidy on bikes as there are on electric cars, I would expect the push back against bike infrastructure would become less. Right now in the Bay Area through poor design and aging infrastructure there is push back on bike lanes. An example is the Richmond bridge, which has a protected bike lane taking a 3rd lane of traffic that could see a larger number of riders if more ebikes become used. Likewise for the Bay Bridge, whose bike lane is a ghost town in the mornings when commute traffic is worst. This would be less of a problem if the lane went entirely to the city.
  • burkaman 3y ago
    There are subsidies in a handful of cities and states in the US (https://ridereview.com/incentives/country/united-states https://ridereview.com/incentives/country/united-states), and there are bills for a federal subsidy with a decent amount of support in the House (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1685 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1685) and Senate (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/881 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/881). Also, shoutout to Vienna which has the coolest program I've heard of: businesses get subsidies for cargo e-bikes, and in return they loan them out to citizens for free. So if you've got a bunch of stuff to haul, you can borrow a cargo bike for free and use their incredibly good bike network to move your stuff. English summary: https://smartcity.wien.gv.at/en/approach/smart-city-made-simple/delivering-the-goods-the-graetzlfahrrad-bike-scheme/ https://smartcity.wien.gv.at/en/approach/smart-city-made-sim....
    • beembeem 3y ago
      It's a drop in the bucket and mostly symbolic, but my state recently passed one: https://wabikes.org/index.php/2023/04/26/electric-bike-rebates-coming-to-washington-state/ https://wabikes.org/index.php/2023/04/26/electric-bike-rebat...
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• simmanian 3y ago
  I bought an ebike to complement my aging 2007 Toyota instead of replacing it outright with another car. I use the bike for most light use cases within the 10 mile radius and still lean into using my car when needed. Here are my takes on ebikes. Pros: - Ebikes help people punch above their weight class, allowing them to bike farther and faster - Going uphill is much easier - Ebikes encourage people to be more adventurous and discover local scenic routes Cons: - Good ebikes cost as much as my 2007 toyota - If you drive a hub motor and you get a flat (and you will eventually), it's harder to fix it up - They tend to be rather heavy (harder to drive without assistance), and lighter ones cost a lot of $$$ - I am worried my bike may get stolen a little more For those interested in getting an entry level ebike and living in US, I recommend REI's gen 1.1 and 1.2 ebikes. They're 40% off(!) right now, which seems to be a rare discount for ebikes.
  • sgu999 3y ago
    > - Good ebikes cost as much as my 2007 toyota Car manufacturers are operating on razor thin margins and intend to recoup some of it elsewhere... or at least I've been told. I agree that the price of ebikes really doesn't seem to match their value. They are in the same price range as electric mopeds, which have a much bigger battery, need more material to build and have to abide by more regulations. Is it because the target is a rather young white-collar worker who live close enough to their office and is thus richer?
    • simmanian 3y ago
      My initial thought after reading this comment is, it probably requires a lot more "tech" and design work to allow bikers to have that seamless biking experience while giving them the desired boost. I remember seeing a lot of discussions around how certain motors "feel" on ebike forums.
      • fulafel 3y ago
        A good test for this theory could be the price and availability of the less finely tuned e-bikes, eg based on the 8-fun swxk front hub motor manufactured since the 00's and the low tech pedal assist sensor (as opposed to torque sensor).
• underbluewaters 3y ago
  I feel lucky every single day that I can take a 10 minute e-bike ride into the office. I say lucky because I know it's not available to everyone, but it's so good for my mental health to get outside every morning and afternoon. That experience can't be replicated with a Tesla no matter how affordable they might become.
  • radium3d 3y ago
    Yeah, e-bikes are great for good weather and living within 5 miles of your office. Tesla's are great for the rest and they do have windows at least for those of us who have to commute. And at least the 132MPGe of a model 3 is better than a gas powered motorcycle.
    • paddy_m 3y ago
      Oulu Finland would challenge your perception about good weather riding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
      • radium3d 3y ago
        Haha fun, hey I snowboard for entire days so I do know that snow clothing is fantastic now, so I believe it. But still doesn't solve for the distance problem in our area. A lot of people commute a very long way and not everyone can work 5, or even 20 miles from their home with cost of living so high sadly. EV cars are fantastic for them.
        • uneekname 3y ago
          Honest question, is an EV really less expensive than living closer to work for most people? I live in a city where rent is fairly high, and I'm fortunate enough to afford a comfortable apartment with a roommate. To buy an EV though (if I wanted one...), would be completely out of my budget. If the math works out for some people, they should do what's best for them. But I don't really think that is the case most of the time. Living in a modest apartment and using your bike is almost always less expensive.
• holoduke 3y ago
  Me in the Netherlands use an e bike for almost everything. Even bike with 3 kids to school, groceries etc. Love it. But i also have a big SUV. I could not live without it. Holidays, visiting friends, picking up large stuff. So i still fill 60 liters of fuel every week.
• josefresco 3y ago
  What's soured me on electric scooters and bikes is the complete lack of repair infrastructure. My electric scooter was not cheap and when it broke (out of warranty) my local bike shop wouldn't touch it.
  • Glide 3y ago
    Completely agree and it's worse with electric unicycles.
  • bluGill 3y ago
    Which is why you buy from the local bike shop of the brand they sell. My local bike shop will work on my ebike even though they didn't sell it, but it is a big brand that other bike shops in town sell so they see it enough and it is standard enough they can work on it. (I was given it for free, otherwise I'd have bought from the local bike shop). Bike shops will never work on the junk you buy at a big box store - the quality means it isn't worth it.
• dpflan 3y ago
  Yeah, makes sense: way easier to get a bike than a car (price, storage, insurance, etc). And in a society built for cars, personal-power isn't enough to make up the distances between locations that have been created all relatively-sized to a car's mobility (much faster than a human).
• odiroot 3y ago
  It doesn't even have to be electric. Even motor scooters are much less demanding on fuel.
• frognumber 3y ago
  Death and pain. That's what e-bikes and mopeds bring to my city. The infrastructures is designed for pedestrians, cars, and mass transit. Bicycles are being retrofitted. It's completely NOT designed for dozens of oddball vehicles which are coming up. The people riding them aren't as competent as cyclists (which isn't a very high bar) and cause unsafe situations all the time. That's my city. Yours might be different. I've been to cities where these worked great, and loved them. Here, they're pure evil and a menace. TL;DR: This needs planning, infrastructure changes, and regulation. With that, this might be the solution. Without that, a lot of cities will be in trouble.
  • david-gpu 3y ago
    > Death and pain. That's what e-bikes and mopeds bring to my city. Could you kindly share how many people have died at the hands of these dangerous e-bikes and mopeds? And how many have died due to crashes with cars? In my city cars drivers kill and injure people disproportionately, according to the official stats that are published every year [0]. [0] https://www.york.ca/media/76976/download https://www.york.ca/media/76976/download
    • frognumber 3y ago
      The statistic you cite show exactly what one would expect: Bicycles are less safe than cars. Mopeds and e-bikes are mixed in with bicycles, so it's impossible to tell how safe or unsafe those are. It's important to look at the statistics per trip or per mile traveled, rather than absolute numbers. Cars are around 20 injury/total collisions per 10,000,000 trips. Bicycles (which includes mopeds and e-bikes) are about 10x that, at around 15 injury collisions per 1,000,000 trips. My city doesn't release similar statistics, but I suspect they'd be worse. Does your city enforce traffic rules for e-bikes? Mine doesn't. They run red lights and are a menace. At the same time, they don't take the same skill as riding a bicycle, so there are many idiots out there. I would guess they're about 10x less safe than bicycles in turn (here). As a footnote, your trucks are crazy scary. Do you know why? They outnumber all other vehicles _in absolute numbers_ for collisions, despite being a tiny portion of the trips.
• bluescrn 3y ago
  Meanwhile, the UK government seem to be cracking down on them (lots of people are using bikes above the legal power limit), and seem absolutely determined never to legalise e-scooters.
  • djaychela 3y ago
    As a cyclist, motorcyclist and driver, I have to say that the use of high powered ebike (surron, cake etc) on the road is pretty high where I live (Bournemouth), and I'm not keen on it. They are taken where normal bikes would go but tear up the ground like an MX bike would do, leaving damage that will take a year to grow back. They have replaced the MX bike as the illegal transport of choice for obvious reasons. They are great, but shouldn't be on the road (unless properly registered), and the problem is that a lot of people lump them in with pedal-assist ebike (which I also ride) which is really negative PR for what is good sustainable transport. Having influential mtb riders like Sam Pilgrim hooning around on one in some videos doesn't help..
    • bluescrn 3y ago
      Ideally they'd make the S-Pedelec class of bikes (up to 28mph) much easier to own and operate legally. The requirement for insurance and a helmet seems fine, but putting a full-size car number plate on an e-bike looks ludicrous (they need some sort of ID, but designed for bikes), and an annual MOT seems an unnecessary burden for what's still mostly a bicycle.
• camgunz 3y ago
  I've said it before and I'll say it again: building the future around cars of any kind is completely unsustainable. We cannot reproduce the rates of rich world car ownership in the developing world without mass catastrophe (raw materials/labor needed for construction and maintenance, raw materials/labor/space needed for roads and parking lots, literal tons of waste--batteries, tires, steel, plastic, foam--, energy needed--most cars are driven by a single driver, pollution generated by all of this--e.g. mining byproducts and tire burn off). To be completely explicit: - If we're serious about meeting the 2030 "halve our emissions" and 2050 "zero our emissions" goals, EVs will not get there. Banning gas/diesel cars gets there. The only way that's even remotely possible is to heavily subsidize EVs (probably honestly just providing free swaps) and start making it way way more easier to get by w/o a car. - The only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. We've had freight trains and mass transit for centuries. I get that whole economies are built around producing/maintaining cars and related infra, but it was wildly disastrous. We're well into sunk cost fallacy territory here, like, on a species level.
  • Angostura 3y ago
    > EVs will not get there. Banning gas/diesel cars gets there. So we can have EVs as long as we ban petrol/diesel cars?
  • PaulHoule 3y ago
    The trouble with trains is they are unresponsive to people’s needs. The #1 problem w/ trains in Europe is they are frequently two or three times the cost of air travel. So long as that is the case Europe has a carbon problem. I guess you could make air travel three times as expensive but isn’t the answer, if you don’t want far-right populist parties to take over, to get the cost of rail down? In the U.S. we have almost forgotten the memory of resentment against railroads (eg. the word “railroading”) who would build tracks past your town but no station, instead they’d build the stationa few miles up the track where they owned all the land and could take all the profit of rising real estate values. No wonder people were in such a hurry to tear up all the old railroad right of way as soon as they had the opportunity. This sci-fi novel https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250883001/theterraformers https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250883001/theterraformers spins a scenario where people who can’t imagine they can afford to eat meat (kinda ridiculous when they can 3-d print organisms and have enough energy to spare to drive plate tectonics) reject the idea of building a planetary transit system based on rail because: doesn’t the current generation get to decide where they go and not have that decision forced on them?
• local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  A few people have asked for recommendations, and I just spent months researching ebikes to buy. Cheap and cheerful: Priority Current. Mid hub, internally-geared rear hub, upright position, cheap. Can get from Costco on fat discount for $2,600. Not a cargo bike, but amazing to go to the shops. Longer-term: Specialized Globe Haul. I feel the same way about it as I do my pickup truck - it can go anywhere, do anything, and seems incredibly happy to either cruise around town or eat shit for hours. I absolutely adore it and cannot recommend it enough. It also has a big dealer network, something you don't get with the DTC boys. A steal at $3,500, but you can almost certainly get it for less at your LBS
  • hurryer 3y ago
    Looking at both of them, they look very heavy (not considering the motor and battery). And the gearing seems limited. Are they actually usable in non-electric mode?
    • local_crmdgeon 3y ago
      Yes, both of them are. The Current in particular rides very normally when the battery is dead. The Haul rides fine, but like a fat tire bike that weights 90#. If you want light + power + midhubed, you're going to spend a LOT of money. That's Riese and Mueller territory
• AdamN 3y ago
  30-40m each way to work and usually get to drop off my kids at school on the way ... love my Xtracycle Stoker!
• FpUser 3y ago
  I have bike, e-bike and EUC (monowheel / electric unicycle). My only car (minivan) is only for far travels or bringing heavy items. Out of all 3 EUC is the most fun.
• anderber 3y ago
  Electric motorcycles in developing countries could be huge. So many things are done in them: deliveries, taxis, work transportation, etc. A combination of that and some form of non-oil public transportation would be huge.
• julienreszka 3y ago
  Have you seen the picture with the 2 children plus one adult on one bike? Make me really uncomfortable I immediately imagine how they risk to be crushed by a truck.
  • BlueTemplar 3y ago
    Why would there be any more risk than if they were instead walking on the road ?
    • Axsuul 3y ago
      Bikes often have to ride on sharrows and share the road with fast moving cars. Pedestrians usually have a much better degree of separation.
  • dublinben 3y ago
    Sounds like we should get rid of trucks then.
    • didntcheck 3y ago
      Be the change you want to see then. Logistics demand comes from the consumer
• PopAlongKid 3y ago
  Another comment mentioned pros and cons for the user of the ebike. As a frequent pedestrian on the nearby heavily-used trails, I see a number of cons for everyone else: Despite a prohibition on motorized vehicles on these trails, they exploit a loophole for handicapped users, and the agency in charge refuses to do anything to fix it. Even if it makes sense to allow these motorized vehicles, the 15 MPH speed limit is frequently violated. Many of these people (especially scooters) don't wear helmets and speed recklessly, zipping between walkers, joggers, people pushing toddlers in strollers, etc. I saw a scooter user painfully wipe out just a few weeks ago. I'm sadly awaiting the first case of serious injury or fatality (to the user or others) caused by an uninsured speeding e-bike or scooter.
  • hurryer 3y ago
    Why do you care if they don't wear helmets?
    • PopAlongKid 3y ago
      Because if they suffer a serious injury they are going to drain hospital resources from people who did not cause their own disease/injury, possibly become a permanent disabled person on the public dole, and in general raise the cost of health care.
      • p_j_w 3y ago
        This is far less likely in a world where people don’t use their cars to drive 2 minutes to the grocery store.
      • hurryer 3y ago
        You can make this point about a lot of activities, sports, drinking, smoking, drugs, eating too much. And a helmet doesn't prevent broken bones, spines, so they will still drain hospital resources.
      • shortcake27 3y ago
        It’s not quite that simple. Helmets are deterrents - Melbourne is a fantastic example where cycling is less common than it should be and public bike schemes keep failing specifically because of the requirement to wear a helmet. Companies like Lime try to solve this by attaching a helmet to the scooter. 90% of the time the helmet is missing. Yeah I could spend 30 minutes walking to every scooter in the area trying to find one I can ride legally, or I can just get an Uber. When people are deterred, they take less eco friendly forms of transport, and are less active. This has negative health consequences, although difficult to measure and compare. But it’s not black and white. The entirety of Europe gets by perfectly fine with public healthcare and no helmets. So I don’t buy the argument that this is truly a problem for healthcare.
• trashface 3y ago
  I've seen a lot of these on my local walking path. Which is exactly that - a narrow, paved walking path, in a park. Sometimes they will use their horn to alert peds walking they are passing - which is like, a car horn, because they need that for roads. I've never been "horned" but I've heard it and its not pleasant. Other times they just blow right by no warning. And unlike walkers or bikers, I almost never see them coming back the other way. I think what has happened is they discovered the path is a quick cut-through to roads they want to get to on the other side. Last time I was out I saw a literal motorcycle on the path. It wasn't a big one, but no doubt, it was a straight up gas-spewing motorcycle, no question about it. I had to laugh in between choking on its fumes. I'm used to getting buzzed by cyclists but this is a bit much, and I've been walking less in the worse-affected park. Another park I walk in is a national park and the rangers don't tolerate that kind of crap. But the state and local parks don't have the manpower to enforce.
  • ItsMonkk 3y ago
    Completely agree. This form of transportation needs it's own infrastructure. We need wider dedicated paths for this much higher efficient form of transportation that can carry many more people than car lanes can. Like in the Netherlands the Unites States needs to build an entirely separate bike path network so that these bikes can stop being ping-ponged between getting killed on the roads and slightly annoying pedestrians. Every single person that converts from driving a car to riding an e-bike is one less person creating traffic. If there's anything cars hate more than pedestrians, hate more than bikes, it's other drivers. This will be a huge win for drivers.
  • paddy_m 3y ago
    That is rude behavior from those two wheeled users. If you honestly look at the dangers and attitudes involved I think you will find that drivers of cars are a much bigger problem. In a large portion of cases where a bike is using pedestrian infrastructure, or going the wrong way on a one way street, it is because the alternative would be more dangerous. It is unpleasant to be buzzed by a two wheeler, that is inconsiderate full stop. However the actual consequences of a collision are much much less severe. The fastest e-bikes go around 20-28mph, and mostly travel slower than that. A heavy ebike + rider weighing in at 350lbs at 28mph has an energy of 1.2437e+4 J, a 3500 pound car moving at 20mph has an energy of 6.3454e+4 J, 6 times as much. Cars regularly go much much faster around pedestrians. Bottom line, you'll break a bone from a nasty bike collision, the car driver will kill you. However drivers of cars aren't held accountable. We dedicate so much of the US built environment to cars, for their movement, and free storage. Look at how wide car lanes are... encouraging speeding (despite what the speed limit signs say). Look at how entitled car owners are that they think its fair for them to store their private property on public space for no charge. If we gave a small percentage of the space dedicated to cars for bikes, bike use would flourish because it's safer to ride a bike. Given that most trips are less than 3 miles, its also quicker to get around on a bike, especially an ebike than a car. [1] https://www.1728.org/energy.htm https://www.1728.org/energy.htm
• montebicyclelo 3y ago
  Propelling 1500kg around at speed just to get a 80kg human somewhere, doesn't seem super efficient, (apparently electric bikes are around 30 kg).
• jjcoffman 3y ago
  Something I’ve thought a lot about is why don’t we have more support around golf cart and golf cart adjacent vehicles? They are fairly cheap compared to a car, can be BEV, drive around on most city streets, fractions of the weight and danger to pedestrians etc. I know it doesn’t work in a lot of areas due to weather etc, but it seems like an obvious stop-gap solution. It is also kind of “cool” to drive around in a golf cart
  • fatherzine 3y ago
    There is a delightful little town on an island off SoCal coast, Avalon, where the main mode of motorized transportation is indeed the golf cart. The shaping constraint is geography, the town is on an island by a bay surrounded by steep hills, medium/long distance travel is out of the question. Would be difficult to transition nearby LA megalopolis to such a mode of transportation without enforcing political barriers to travel, which in practice would require a ruthless tyranny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon,_California#Transportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon,_California#Transportat... "The main method of transportation within the city is by small gasoline or electric powered motorcars referred to locally as "autoettes". These include numerous golf carts and similarly sized vehicles. Vehicles under 55 inches (140 cm) wide, 120 inches (300 cm) long, and less than 1,800 pounds (820 kg) may qualify as an autoette. Any resident may acquire an autoette permit with the restriction of one permit per household. It is very difficult for a private citizen to get a permit to have a full-size vehicle in Avalon."
    • jjcoffman 3y ago
      Well, I think this is letting perfect be the enemy of good. You could definitely improve the support for these types of vehicles and add incentives to purchases and use. As one example in CA you can’t drive on on roads that have a speed limit higher than like 40 or something. So adjusting speed limits in towns or providing exemptions for city streets’ right lanes or something would go along way with adoption. I’m not saying you would ban cars, just incentivize using more economical modes of transport. My family of 4 would happily use a golf cart if my community had support for them on city streets.
  • 3y ago
• adolph 3y ago
  There is limited support in the article for the headline claim. The largest BEV transition is in the very large fleet of Chinese mopeds, from ICE to EV. As a result less oil is being used in that segment. It isn't a transition from ICE car to BEV moped as many comments opine. The article links to a Bloomberg document quoted below. EVs of all types are currently displacing 1.5 million barrels per day of oil demand. 67% of this is from two- and three-wheeled vehicles and 16% is from buses. Passenger vehicles represent just 15% of displacement today, but this is set to grow sharply. [0] In chart "Global EV Fleet sizes by segment and market" [1] Electric two- and three-wheelers are 95% in the China market. 0. https://bnef.turtl.co/story/evo-2022/page/7/1 https://bnef.turtl.co/story/evo-2022/page/7/1 1. https://bnef.turtl.co/story/evo-2022/page/3/1 https://bnef.turtl.co/story/evo-2022/page/3/1
• robotburrito 3y ago
  Electric cars are totally overboard. I think that if you change infrastructure a bit you will see many get bike-pilled by electric bikes. Especially as Americans get poorer and unable to afford automobiles.
• chucknthem 3y ago
  My e-bike uses the same battery cells used in Electric cars, so I have to give credit to what Tesla and the electric car industry has done to make long range ebike batteries affordable.
• BlueTemplar 3y ago
  Where's the proof that they actually are ? It seems to be «projections» at best. Where are the respective numbers of light/heavy oil/electric road vehicles, how much they consume, and where the electricity for the electric ones is coming from ? Latest oil consumption numbers seem to be from 2020, a rare year they were down, but that's more likely to be an effect of Covid, the trend is still of growth otherwise : https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-oil-supply-and-demand-1971-2020 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-oil-sup... Don't get me wrong, more people having better access to transportation is a good thing, but that's not going to solve the issues coming with oil usage, if oil usage is not going down.
• cozzyd 3y ago
  It's kinda weird how there are tax incentives for electric cars in the US but not for electric bikes (or... analog bikes, for that matter).
• mtrees_io 3y ago
  hate to be the stinky kid at school, but Honda Ruckus. its specs after twenty some years still beat out at ebikes. yes i dont have a car just my rucky (midwest usa)
• t43562 3y ago
  I live near a couple of big supermarkets. I can ride to them easily but it's an uphill journey back and my last bike was stolen. If I solve the stealing problem by adding some sort of bike shed and get an electric bike I'll be very happy to ride most of the time to do shopping. The key issue is that I don't live miles from shops that have all the basics. I think if zoning laws allowed it then many trips could be satisfied by a bike.
• deleted 3y ago
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• nfriedly 3y ago
  My wife and I got an electric cargo bike with seating on the back for both kids this summer, and we love it. We jokingly call it our "mini van" and we've put ~170 miles on it, many of which would have been (gas) car trips otherwise. Initially I pedaled a non-electric bike when all four of us wanted to go somewhere, but after a month or so we got a second (non-cargo) ebike.
  • candiddevmike 3y ago
    What bike did you get?
    • nfriedly 3y ago
      The first one was a RadWagon 4 - https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/radwagon-electric-cargo-bike https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/radwagon-electric-car... - with a lot of accessories, so it looks a bit more like the "Everyone Pile In Kit" here: https://www.radpowerbikes.com/pages/bike-customizer?pid=4584305492064 https://www.radpowerbikes.com/pages/bike-customizer?pid=4584... Second was an Aventure.2 - https://www.aventon.com/products/aventure2-step-through-ebike?variant=42255471509699 https://www.aventon.com/products/aventure2-step-through-ebik...
• Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
  [flagged]
• jwells89 3y ago
  I love the idea of some small electric vehicle like a moped for things like grocery errands, but would not feel comfortable riding them on many of the roads where I live which are full of large vehicles moving at high speeds. I also worry about theft. I don’t know what rates of that are for mopeds, but for bikes it’s quite high, and at least with those you can always buy cheap bikes that don’t hurt as much to lose (and are less likely to be stolen anyway). Electric bikes and mopeds are not cheap and eating the cost for one would hurt. With those concerns in mind, it feels like the best I can do is a used Leaf, even though that’s considerable overkill.
• lacoolj 3y ago
  Crazy how being in the US (not a super dense area like NYC but still a big city) and reading this headline immediately results in a disconnect for me. I don't believe I have ever encountered a moped in the wild, and I've never even seen an e-bike (literally would not be able to describe what it looks like to you if you paid me, other than "a bike with two wheels and a handlebar, I assume").
• notjustanymike 3y ago
  If you've lived in NYC for the last decade this is completely obvious. First came CitiBike, then came Vision Zero, and now years later we have growing infrastructure to support new methods of transportation. Is it perfect? Oh god no. But it IS so much better than ten years ago. It's also not happening because we're a bunch of flower loving hippies. Instead it's pure economics and practicality. Faster, more enjoyable, and cheaper that both cars or public transport. Electric transportation with appropriate infrastructure is more practical.
• mattlondon 3y ago
  I would like to point out that the people in those pictures are wearing short sleeves and it is sunny (and presumably warm). As someone who had to scrape ice off of my windscreen this morning while the temperature inside the passenger compartment was creeping up from 1 degree above freezing, the inevitable suggestion that bikes are a better solution than cars is going to fall on my deaf ears. You're not going to get me to drive my very-young kids around in near-zero freezing rainy conditions in an open cargo bike with no heating. Sorry. Don't get me wrong ebikes are great, but suggesting that we should all have bikes doesn't work if you don't live in California.or somewhere else where it is also mild and never very cold or very hot.
  • atom058 3y ago
    I live in Sweden and we live with slightly-above-freezing temperatures (often with rain) for 4-6 month per year. Perfectly possible to bike if you put on the right clothes. Even when it has been snowing, as the bike paths are cleared. Several of my colleagues with kids bike every day as well, taking the kids with them on thei bike. Might not be as comfortable as a air conditioned, well-cushioned car. But there are other benefits.
• proee 3y ago
  Is there a market for something in between bike and car, like a micro-electric car that holds 2 people max. I know these exist, but I don't think they've caught on for whatever reason. I would be cool to see some kind of federal incentive to buy a super small electric car instead of a full-size EV.
  • Tade0 3y ago
    What you need is the final stage of vehicular evolution - a golf cart. We'll not there yet as a civilisation, but I hope it happens during my lifetime.
• brotchie 3y ago
  Bought a super rugged, dual battery, two-seater, motorbike-looking eBike for Burning Man. Turns out it's also amazing for getting around San Francisco. Good sized road presence, better-than-moped acceleration and silent except for tire-on-road noise. Does 50km/h no sweat and ~100km range. Bright front light as well, so cars see you coming. That + Waymo access has transformed my experience in the city (Waymo is hugely superior experience to Uber / Lyfy). Using the car less and less. Living in the future.
• slothtrop 3y ago
  This has turned in to a r/fuckcars thread. Zoning reform is the cure, if we want 15 min cities. The market will do the work, if you let it. Plus, many problems are just housing problems in disguise (including homelessness). Rhetoric I see here about banning cars is both redundant and ridiculous. If people have more convenient options, they won't use cars anyway. If you deign to "ban" cars without a replacement people accept and find convenient, not only does that not help anyone, it will be ignored and cast off as fanaticism. Granted as climate is an issue we want to address in the short-run, that can demand some imperative policy moves to encourage a faster transition. Still need zoning reform first though. Anything resembling "degrowth", however, will just make peoples lives worse in the developing world and here.
  • didntcheck 3y ago
    Yeah, this is what annoys me with a lot of the fanatics. If your carrot is apparently so good, then why do you need the stick? Almost nobody has a problem with building walkable neighborhoods and "15 minute cities", what they have a problem with is the direct attempts to just make driving worse rather than making the alternatives better. Frustrating cars is a goal loudly and proudly declared (hence the name of that sub), then suddenly turned round and called a "conspiracy theory" when someone dares to say they don't like it. That phrase seems to have made a comeback to be the thought-terminating cliché and shunning-smear of the 2020s thus far The whole attitude is just completely elitist, thinking that they know what people want better than they do themselves, and calling them all manner of names for being impertinent enough to hold an opinion of one's own rather than yielding to their betters
    • afuchs 3y ago
      In the context of the US, the vast majority of all infrastructure built or rebuilt over the past century was optimized for cars at the expense of everything else, including demolishing buildings which helped to create the demand for that infrastructure in the first place. Because car traffic was prioritized over everything else it created a situation where improving any alternative will unavoidably require some sort of compromise. Although, somewhat non-intuitively policy choices which discourage driving can free up space on roads and create a better experience for other drivers. (I can't find an original source, but I remember hearing about a planning study in some European city which found that about a third of the drivers who contributed to the traffic jams in that city's downtown were just going for a drive and didn't have any specific destination)
• steve_adams_86 3y ago
  I hadn’t properly calculated how much my e bike saves in energy and oil until now. I always think of it in terms of maintenance reduced and fuel not consumed with the car I already own… But at this point it has completely prevented the purchase of second vehicle. I bet it’s the same for many people like me. I guess I’m around year 3 of not needing a second car. In fact, I bought a home with a two car garage because I anticipate needing a second car… But not yet, and probably not in the foreseeable future. It’s strange to think of. That happened very organically. I always had the expectation of needing the second car, but because of this cargo bike, I’ve found ways to avoid it. I always thought it was expensive ($7k CAD) but now I feel like it was really, really cheap. I guess my car-centric brain didn’t believe I could actually avoid the second vehicle. There’s sacrifice for sure, it’s not a perfect replacement, but it’s a great one. I hope this trend continues.
• charlie0 3y ago
  Did they account for the rise in remote work? I'd say that would have a much bigger impact than anything else. I used to drive 7 days a week, now it's just 2, if that.
• jwr 3y ago
  I ride my E-bike every day, to office and back, and to run various errands (in a European city with some, but not enough biking infrastructure). After several months of doing this, sitting in the car trapped in traffic feels almost painful. The bike gives me real freedom: I can stop pretty much anytime I want, I can park close to any destination without searching for a parking spot. Compared to this, being stuck in traffic in a car feels like being in jail. You can't stop, you can't move, you can't park, you have to follow the traffic. Some common misconceptions: 1. An E-bike does not always replace a car, it replaces some/most of car trips and a second car in our case. 2. An E-bike is not for "the lazy people". Pedal assist (which is how this should be one, not like I've seen on some US bikes where you press a button and the bike goes brrrr) means that it's like normal biking, except with a tailwind. You can bike longer distances, you don't arrive sweaty, you can carry lots of cargo.
  • davidrhunt 3y ago
    Your point #1 was the case for our family as well. E-bikes allowed us to go from two cars to one car which has been amazing. So many of these conversations get caught up in ban bikes vs. ban cars and it is exhausting.
• 1323portloo 3y ago
  The average American is not going to accept an e-bike, moped or motorcycle as a replacement for their SUV/wheeled living room.* Autocycles are starting to become more mainstream thanks to companies like Polaris that focus on performance ATVs and 3-wheeled motorcycles. They would be a good middle ground for the future, either as electric or small-displacement gas engines. They need better penetration in more states and need to have the same insurance and operator licensing as a regular 4-wheeled automobile. My state allows autocycles where you can use a regular drivers license, but the vehicle is insured as a motorcycle (higher premiums), you must wear a helmet (but my autocycle has an enclosed body?). One of the states that borders mine does not permit autocycles as an automobile, so I wouldn't be able to drive there for any reason. * For years I have bicycle commuted and picked up groceries year-round in a place with hills that gets real winter snow. It takes a level of commitment that most people just do not have.
• ak217 3y ago
  As e-bikes and electric cars multiply, managing the sustainable repair and total lifecycle of their batteries is going to become a lot more important. Currently we treat e-bike batteries as disposable. When a battery dies, you are invited to throw it away in a designated way, and maybe if you're lucky it will be sent to a recycler that takes apart the casing, throws it away, melts down the cells and rebuilds them. If you're lucky, the e-bike or scooter has a standardized interface that takes a new battery. This is wildly wasteful and unsustainable. Lithium ion batteries have a limited lifespan and are sensitive to being left discharged for a long time. When they break, it's usually a single cell out of a hundred that takes out the whole pack. It is entirely possible and safe to replace a pod that comprises 10% of the pack and prolong the life of the battery for several years, if the other pods check out. This process should not be done by consumers. It requires local repair shops to be able to get training and certification in these repair procedures. We need "right to repair" laws for standardized swappable battery connectors and modular battery internals - this will make a huge difference in our future transportation carbon and resource footprint (of course, cars and overweight SUVs should be charged proportionately to their footprint too).
• thepasswordis 3y ago
  I became very disillusioned with my “eco conscious” friends when they all went so hard against the bird scooters. These seemed like such an obvious and amazing solution to having too many gas powered cars in the road. The cost was very low, the distance you could travel was high, and they were everywhere. This seemed like such a massive ray of hope. When people started throwing them in the water, or damaging them intentionally it really made me question what their actual motivations were.
  • rootusrootus 3y ago
    Doesn't take too many near misses or having to walk out in the road to get around a pile of cheapo scooters before you want to join the folks throwing them in the river.
  • atom058 3y ago
    Scooters live a hard and short life from what I have understood. So they are not very environmentally friendly given their resource intensity over their life cycle.
• daneel_w 3y ago
  Because there aren't 280 million EVs on the planet yet.
• lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  so I have a mental model I wanted to share. I hope it's simple. Imagine the 80/20 rule - we all know it. It's simple. 80% of the good stuff comes from 20% of the effort. 80% of the value society gets from journies comes from 20% of the actual journies. Doctors driving to hospital, farmers driving food to market etc. Now repeat the 80% rule on the remaining 80% of journeys - and we find that 16% of the value we get comes from just 16% of the effort. So we can argue that 96% of the value society gets comes from 36% of journeys- basically 2/3 of all we do is just crap. So how do we find ways to replace 2/3 of the effort much more public transport is the first take. Reduced door to door deliveries perhaps (I mean is a deliveroo starbucks a good idea?) but then we hit the big infrastructure stuff - denser housing (ala strilong towns) and yes, spend energy moving humans but not a ton of metal around the human.
• PaywallBuster 3y ago
  that's why tesla is not the future it's just an expensive toy for boomers a small scooter would suit satisfy a lot of travel needs for lots of people and free the road space bikes flow like water, cars flow like tetris, it would solve most traffic congestion bikes (EV or ICE) require a lot less resources to produce and have a lot better mileage
• outside1234 3y ago
  It is crazy in California - it feels like almost every kid here in coastal california has an eBike. Which is great! (Even if they are a bit nuts with them at times)
• engelshell 3y ago
  Last summer I wanted to get an e-bike, work was only a few miles and I enjoy the morning air. Looking around the apartment complex there wasn't anywhere to store it! Sure I could get a very expensive lock, but people get spiteful when they can't steal bikes, so they destroy them. If I had the money in cash I was thinking of doing a DIY carbon fiber build that I could easily put over my shoulder and carry up the stairs and hang on the wall. The actual electronic components are pretty simple, we just need innovation and scale to make it affordable.
• TacticalCoder 3y ago
  I wonder: why are people using e-bikes and mopeds instead of public transportation? To those bent on removing the ability to use a car from others: are you going to prevent people from using e-bikes and mopeds too?
  • fraaancis 3y ago
    Public transit is hot garbage in 99% of cities in the US. Bus routes represent a shuttle for moving the poor, elderly, and infirm between various public assistance offices. It won't go away, but it's unlikely to ever be more than that.
• aaron695 3y ago
  [dead]
• entropicgravity 3y ago
  That might be true but e-bikes won't really take off until there's a reliable and safe way to lock them up while you go about your business on foot.
• steelframe 3y ago
  I can speak to my own experience as a regular e-bike rider in my city which has built one basic bit of infrastructure that's dedicated to micromobility. I've been commuting on an e-bike for the past year, and I've recently ordered a replacement e-bike with newer technology (https://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub/e-14 https://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub/e-14). I have racks with waterproof panniers mounted semi-permanently. I pack my work clothes and laptop in bags that I can easily slide into and out of the panniers. I use an StVZO light powered by the bike's battery pack that illuminates the path in front of me effectively while respecting oncoming people. I live in an American city that built a 10-mile rails-to-trails crushed gravel "linear park" about 8 years ago, and I've been commuting on it by bicycle since it opened, at first on a non-electric bicycle. It's about 10 miles long, and I ride the entire length of it every day I go into the office. The trail's cost to develop and maintain is a fraction of what it cost to build and maintain infrastructure for vehicular traffic. I haven't been able to find any reports of injuries from collisions on the trail. It's quiet and peaceful to ride along. The air is mostly free of emissions from gasoline motors, tires, or brake pads. The only "road closures" have been due to work on roads that cross it. There is never a traffic jam. There are no stop lights or stop signs, only crosswalks where motorist traffic stops for me as soon as I get to them. Once I get downtown where I work I never have to worry about traffic, since I can bypass it in the bike lanes. You have to pay a lot to park a car near my office, but I can stow my bike in a locked cage for free. If I want to combine my commute time with cardio time all I need to do is switch off the motor, pedal away, and take a shower once I get to the office. If I instead just want to get there without needing to change clothes or anything I switch on the motor. There is a shopping district about 2 miles from my neighborhood that's often congested. There's a quiet street and a raised trail through a shallow lake that I often take my e-bike on. Trying to navigate the parking lots is a nightmare with hardly any parking and near-constant gridlock on busy days. I zip past all of that and park at the racks directly in front of the entrance to the stores. I don't get bags at the store, but instead transfer what I buy directly from the cart into my panniers. Maintenance on my e-bike is a fraction of maintenance for my car. I have sealant in my tubes, and that's made the occasional puncture a non-event for me. The space that the bike takes in my garage is almost negligible. It's light enough to hoist up on a wall hook. I charge the removable battery pack from a 120v outlet. If something were to really go wrong with my e-bike, I have another much less expensive meat-powered bike with a rack that I can transfer the panniers to and use while I get the e-bike repaired. My workplace has a sensible WFH policy, where I come into the office a couple of times a week for in-person collaboration and can WFH the rest of the time. I check the weather forecast for the week on Sunday and move in-person meetings around to days when it's going to be nicest. If I really need to go in on a bad weather day, my bike has full-size fenders, and I have shoe covers, gloves, and water-resistant clothing that make riding in the rain not so bad. I still prefer to ride on the trail in the rain rather than drive my car mainly because traffic tends to be worst on those days. My own quality of life has benefited immensely from an e-bike and a single relatively inexpensive gravel trail that my city converted from some old railroad tracks. As more people discover the joys of e-biking, I hope that translates to more pressure on municipalities to build infrastructure that makes micromobility more safe and comfortable for everyone.
• CHB0403085482 3y ago
  Car-Replacement Bicycle (the bakfiets) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhzEnWCgHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhzEnWCgHA
• mastazi 3y ago
  I live in an apartment, I'm unable to install a charger in the garage for various reasons. But I can take the battery off my e-bike, bring it home and charge it.
• dreamcompiler 3y ago
  I'm a big e-bike fan but they are not a universal magic bullet. To be practical for daily needs you must be --In a city or otherwise have a fairly short commute (i.e. less than 20 miles; probably less than 10 for most people) --Where it's usually not raining or freezing --Where riding a bike is safe --Where you have a way to bring the bike indoors or otherwise protect it from theft at your destination without needing a lock that weighs as much as the bike. There are a great many places in the world that meet those criteria, but there are also a great many that don't. And a huge number of the "don't" places are in the US, unfortunately.
• tmellon2 3y ago
  If people can connect small scale renewable power grids (think solar powered grids of a few acres) present alongside highways to charging facilities the revolution would truly happen especially in sunny places (think Texas, Africa, South Asia etc.) !
• ryzvonusef 3y ago
  how is the 2nd/3rd hand market of e-bikes? with cars, you expect that you would be able to buy today's new and shiny in a few years time, a bit used and scuffed but still useable, for cheaper. With EVs, that's just started to happen, and even then with inflation the price point is just barely in range, plus with battery degradation fears and lack of easy access to parts etc...it's difficult to manage to get an EV in the lower ranges that most people who depend on the 3rd/4th hand cars for their travel needs. Ebikes are just too expensive now, and I don't see how they will reach the price point to reach the used-vehicle-buying masses... especially since bikes are not "registered" and thus easily stolen (and police doesn't care), and with most company bikes having proprietary stuff that makes it unlikely to make certain you will get parts 10 year down the line.