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280M e-bikes are slashing oil demand far more than electric vehicles
- bimguy 3y agoIt's an interesting article. I am at odds with supporting full push to large electric vehicles in the wake of articles that have also been posted recently on HN: https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majority-of-ocean-microplastics-study-finds https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majorit... I don't see any issues with the electric bicycles being relatively light compared to electrics mopeds and cars. I would love to see a full and impartial comparison of all this EV vs Gas stuff, from the methods used for extracting the raw materials to the emissions and to the fact that the ocean is the main source of earths oxygen. It's insane that countries are fighting petty wars over land claims when the earths environment is seemingly at a point of no return.
- kdwikzncba 3y agoThe headline makes perfect sense from a purely first principles perspective. If your grid is dependent on oil, replacing gas cars with electric cars won't change anything. However, if people start using bikes rather than cars, there's a lot of savings in not having to drag a 1 ton metal cage around with you.
- slowhand09 3y agoI live in the US, mid-atlantic region. This moment its 44°F and a wind chill of 25°F. My commute was 39miles each way. Quite often I experience jams and slowdowns such as 10mph on a 65mph highway, with headlights and heater on, or max AC in the summer when its mid 90°F. E-bike on some of these roads are illegal. If they weren't, they be death magnets. My town has many e-bikes and scooters, mostly rentals. They litter the sidewalks and streets, sometimes are left in the roads. More often than anyone admits, the local youths throw them into the harbor - Boston Tea Party-style. You might go directly to the store and back, but you aren't making multiple stops as the few-as-they-are miscreants would steal your store #1 goods while in store #2. Or just take your bike, leaving you to shop and then rent another bike, all before explaining to the e-bike vendor that it wasn't you who mysteriously lost the GPS signal when your bike vanished at waters edge. I'm a fan of EVs. But I'm not giving up my ICE vehicle. The 7 day electrical blackout at my home years ago convinced me of that. And people in dead EVs sitting in a blizzard in Texas a few years ago. With giant wind generators offline due to ice on the right, and oilfield pumps stopped for political reasons on the left.
- allo37 3y agoWhat's nifty about an e-bike is that they're cheap enough to co-exist with your car. I still have my trusty Honda, but I also do many trips by bike now. I fill up with gas way less often, don't have to deal with traffic and parking, and get a bit of exercise to boot.
- marssaxman 3y ago> explaining to the e-bike vendor that it wasn't you Perhaps things work differently where you live, but in my experience this is not really a problem, because the rental app asks you to take a picture after you've parked as evidence that you parked correctly. Whatever happens after that is not your responsibility. You don't leave the meter running while you're in the store, unless it's a very short visit; the bike will automatically end your rental and lock itself. You just unlock it again when you're done shopping, and whatever happens in between is, again, not your responsibility.
- robbywashere_ 3y ago[flagged]
- gedy 3y agoWhile it's easy to pick on oil, there are also mass transit promoters and union jobs who will gladly do the same.
- amir734jj 3y agoI live in a suburb of a cold midwest US city, electric cars are not popular here because of cold weather. People always drive large pick-ups or Harley in the summer. But electric bikes are very common here. All types of types of them, including the ones that have no paddle and the paddle assist ones. All are very common here. If I hadn't bought a expensive road bike recently I would have bought an electric bike already. My only problem with them is they are not "bikes" as in exercise, they are a means of commute.
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoWhich is precisely the point for decarbonization. The government should be providing a 500$ subsidy to e bikes for the next 10 years. Everyone should have one. An e-bike with a kid trailer is really useful. The mass economics of ebikes is a lot better thancars. An e-bike needs like 1-2kwhr. A car needs 100 kwhr. If people use the ebikes, the environment impact improvements are maximized for current global cell production with ebikes.
- tuatoru 3y agoThe identification of bikes with "exercise", as a separate thing from daily transport, a kind of mobile gym, seems specifically American. Most other places this is a subset of uses, and only bike nuts do that. Everyone else just uses bikes to get around. And it's been reported that e-bikes with pedals help elders get more exercise, going to the grocery store or visiting their friends, than is the norm in older age groups. So by all means, keep your mobile gymnasium bike. But consider gettng an e-bike, maybe with a carrier, basket, and saddle-bags, as well.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoIt’s not specifically American at all. Such a phenomenon can be found anywhere with a car culture. If you see someone cycling in the Arabian Peninsula for example, they are usually the lycra set. Ditto for white people in most of South Africa.
- Detrytus 3y agoI refuse to use bike as daily transportation on the grounds that I'm neither a kid, who's too young to get a drivers license, nor an Asian immigrant working as Uber Eats delivery guy. Riding a bike, other than recreationally, is beneath my dignity.
- steelframe 3y agoRelated recent post with 711 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38304485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38304485
- bxhdndnjdbj 3y ago[dead]
- lproven 3y agoSurely e-bikes are electric vehicles?
- MiguelX413 3y agoNot in a meaningful or non-misleading way.
- lproven 3y agoI disagree. I bought a plug in hybrid in August. It's my first ever car. I am 56 years old. All my life to date, my primary vehicles have been bicycles or, for a few years in my 20s, motorcycles. A vehicle means a machine that carries people or cargo. Some definitions include an engine, but that would disqualify railway carriages, for instance, or horse-drawn carts, which I submit are indubitably vehicles. A bicycle is a vehicle, and an electric bike is 100% a vehicle by any definition. The headline could be better written as: "Electric vehicles are transforming road transportation, but they aren't the vehicles you expected."
- MiguelX413 3y agoI don't think it's fair to break down set phrases into their components and use them as if their meanings are mere sums of their components. It is undescriptivist.
- lproven 3y agoYou are of course free to think that. I think it's totally fair and I think you're wrong, but hey, whatever.
- dagurp 3y agoMakes me wonder why there's still no "Tesla of e-bikes" or an established company trying to grab hold of the market.
- galdosdi 3y agoNo need. Ebikes are already highly commoditized and popular and available from many manufacturers. There was no need for a time to subsidize the development of evokes not work hard to market them as a luxury good to try to get a foothold in the market, as with Tesla. Ebikes are just a much more naturally highly valuable product and need less shilling. They sell themselves. I mean the amount of mobility and utility you get for the price is unmatchable by any other vehicle
- TheSpiceIsLife 3y agoA reasonable quality new ebike around these parts is about as expensive as a reasonable quality secondhand car. And: 1.fuck riding a bike on the road here, half of Tasmanian adults are the type of functionally illiterate arseholes who'd intentionally drive too close to a cyclist for shits and giggles 2. The weather is crap nine months of the year So the payback period is way too long.
- Spivak 3y agoWhere are you getting a car for <$2k?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bimguy 3y ago> 1.fuck riding a bike on the road here, half of Tasmanian adults are the type of functionally illiterate arseholes who'd intentionally drive too close to a cyclist for shits and giggles I feel like that is most of Australian drivers, however, I am glad I live in Melbourne and not Sydney. NSW roads are chockas and also, they literally try to kill you there, just for passing them while they are sitting banked up in traffic.
- fgsfds028374 3y agoThey really need to subsidize the shit out of ebikes. The more people ride the better our roads will be for bikes
- lm28469 3y ago> Of Perth’s 4.2 million daily car trips, 2.8 are for distances of less than 2 km. Sometimes I get a bit more hopeful and then I read stuff like that... two fucking kilometers... That explain why my city is in constant traffic jams, roads full of 2 tonnes cars displacing a single individual as far as the eye can see. Good thing they'll soon be electric cars, that surely will make it very sustainable and clean
- bimguy 3y agoUhh, EV's are not as clean as you think, please read https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majority-of-ocean-microplastics-study-finds https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majorit... Do you live in Perth or WA? It's pretty damn warm out there, 2km outside the car is not very comfortable the majority of the time.