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Reflections on E-Bikes

ebikes.neighbor-ryan.org

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Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#21

Post by TulliusCicero »

ambivalents wrote: post #3

I am excited by e-bikes and love riding them, but I'm not nearly as bullish. If you're single living in a bike-friendly city, sure. But I and many others have moved out of cities and often have to transport more than just our own bodies around. Roughly 80% of my rides include my dog (I take him to the park, to day care, to family outings, etc.), and I also appreciate the car as a second informal storage space - climb…

I have a kid and biking with him worked great in Munich, which has decent bike infrastructure (by US standards, mind blowingly good bike infrastructure). We didn't have a car, just an electric cargo bike.

It's true that there are certain compromises compared to a car, but a car has its own set of compromises (mostly cost + parking being more annoying in a city).

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#22

Post by londons_explore »

tcoff91 wrote: post #12
ezfe wrote: post #6

It is not accurate to use $40,000 as the amount of money needed to get a car. A good new car can be purchased for half that, not to mention the used car market.

Car insurance, gas, maintenance, oil changes, tires, etc… Total cost of ownership of a car is really high

I think this must be a US phenomenon. My used car in the UK costs me about $600/year plus $0.14/mile (including fuel, taxes, inspections, maintenance, depreciation, parking, insurance). And that's in a country with ~$0.09/mile in fuel taxes.

Granted this is not the average cost of car ownership but a car chosen for low total ownership cost.

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#23

Post by serf »

tcoff91 wrote: post #12
ezfe wrote: post #6

It is not accurate to use $40,000 as the amount of money needed to get a car. A good new car can be purchased for half that, not to mention the used car market.

Car insurance, gas, maintenance, oil changes, tires, etc… Total cost of ownership of a car is really high

it's still not near 40k unless you budget it towards that number.

Here's a reasonable one year old used car in Los Angeles. It only approaches the 40k number after five years of ownership.

https://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/sonic/2020/cost-to-own/?st...

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#25

Post by mixmastamyk »

londons_explore wrote: post #16
stephc_int13 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is clearly a pain point in need of an innovative solution, might be a sizeable market.

iPhones had a similar theft problem till they implemented decent anti-theft DRM. Now it's rare to see iPhones stolen. Ebikes could do the same. It would be a shame for the 'hacker' crowd, but with locked down firmware and all parts cryptographically linked by serial number, there would be no valuable parts to strip from a stolen bike.

What is anti theft drm?

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#26

Post by mixmastamyk »

mikesabbagh wrote: post #20
Gigachad wrote: post #2

IMO, the number one hurdle for ebikes is theft. The things cost a decent chunk of money and there is basically no way to secure them properly. I have owned an ebike and it's such a fun way to get around, but I quickly sold it because I was in constant fear of it being stolen. And shortly after, one of my cheap non ebikes was stolen while locked inside my apartments bike storage area. I think electric scooters might h…

you dont need to own an ebike. Bike sharing is already available in many cities and really awesome to use.

What if there isn’t one nearby?

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#28

Post by chrisfosterelli »

> Previously, you had to be a serious cyclist to access this speed (and corresponding ability to simply exist on car-dominated roads), but now almost everyone can.

Wow, interesting that they frame this as a positive. I'm a general advocate for e-bikes but this has been the absolute biggest drawback I've noticed with them: e-bike riders suddenly get all of the speed of a very fit cyclist but absolutely none of the road awareness.

Most "serious" cyclists in my area generally behave pretty well, or at least when they're breaking the law they are usually doing it in a way that has manageable risk to them (I'm not approving it, but I understand it's calculated), while I've seen a lot of ebike riders do some phenomenally dangerous things because they just didn't realize it was dangerous.

I don't necessarily blame the ebikes for this -- I just think riding on "car-dominated roads" requires some experience rather than just more speed. Ebikes aren't a replacement for safe infrastructure.

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#29

Post by presentation »

Gigachad wrote: post #2

IMO, the number one hurdle for ebikes is theft. The things cost a decent chunk of money and there is basically no way to secure them properly. I have owned an ebike and it's such a fun way to get around, but I quickly sold it because I was in constant fear of it being stolen. And shortly after, one of my cheap non ebikes was stolen while locked inside my apartments bike storage area. I think electric scooters might h…

As evidenced by the fact that ebikes are wildly popular in Japan where theft is minimal (most people have nothing more than a wheel lock)
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