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

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

#261

Post by beembeem »

burkaman wrote: post #62
crawdog wrote: post #39

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 protect…

There are subsidies in a handful of cities and states in the US ( 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 ) and Senate ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/881 ). Also, shoutout to Vienna which has the coolest program I've heard…

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-rebat...

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

#262

Post by marssaxman »

cornholio wrote: post #185
camgunz wrote: post #83

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 ne…

There is a little something that's missing from the analysis above: what people actually want. And what many people want, across many cultures once they reach a certain level of wealth, is the suburban home: low density living in isolated housing units set in a park like environment with ample greenery. Just look at almost any billionaire's mansion and you will see this pattern which becomes an aspiration for the mid…

If that were true, you'd expect suburban houses to be more expensive than those in the city, but in reality it is generally the opposite. Here in Seattle, we watch the urban population grow in lockstep with the availability of new housing, year after year, while the cost of that housing continues to rise - much faster than the general rate of inflation. Simple economics suggests that city life must be very desirable, and that the urban population would be growing even faster if more housing were being built: therefore, some fraction of those people who end up in the suburbs are moving there not because it is their preference, but because wealthier people have outbid them for the more desirable city life. This is what people mean when they complain about gentrification.

You cannot be sure Americans actually want to live in suburbs when that is all that most of them have to choose from, and that is the case because American zoning codes adopted in the mid 20th century made it difficult to build much of anything else. Car dependency was created, by law; do not mistake it for revealed preference.

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

#263

Post by TheGRS »

cornholio wrote: post #185
camgunz wrote: post #83

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 ne…

There is a little something that's missing from the analysis above: what people actually want. And what many people want, across many cultures once they reach a certain level of wealth, is the suburban home: low density living in isolated housing units set in a park like environment with ample greenery. Just look at almost any billionaire's mansion and you will see this pattern which becomes an aspiration for the mid…

And yet skinny houses in dense neighborhoods are always scooped up the moment they hit the market in my area.

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

#264

Post by dghlsakjg »

kibwen wrote: post #19

Would anyone here like to recommend (or disrecommend) any e-bike models?

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.

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

#265

Post by bluGill »

gmuslera wrote: post #52
Shatnerz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you defining efficiency here? Is walking really more efficient than cycling? I would put walking as the least efficient manual powered methods mentioned. Aside: I used to unicycle to work, and I have to say that it was both fantastic and much faster than walking while on a 27.5" wheel.

There is another dimension to add: how far do you really "need" to go and how frequently. And why it is so? Remote working vs commuting, local/nearby enough shopping vs long distance for supermarkets, going yourself vs (maybe electric) delivery. If everything around you is built with base assumption that you must have a car, then the optimization was done by someone else with a different definition of efficiency.

Life is a compromise. I'd love to own 100 square miles of land, with my front door on New Yorks Time's square. That isn't physically possible, but it is what I want in the ideal world. (I don't live near New York so I don't know if times square is really where in New York I'd want to live, but it is an iconic place that at least gives the sense of what I mean - you could pick downtown of most large cities). Cars enable more people to have both the benefit of rural life while also getting the benefits of the city.

This isn't unique to cars - trains could give the same, but we already have a road network.

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

#266

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

zzzeek wrote: post #213
estebank wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've identified a problem: public transport in some places sucks. But then veered away from the obvious solution: invest in it to make it not suck.

throwing money at urban problems does not necessarily have a great track record, and NYCTA has had lots of issues with corruption when they do have money to spend. Id be pretty skeptical that giving them a lot of money would mean you can hop on a train in 5 minutes at 2 am, it wouldnt even be cost effective to run that many trains at odd hours. Cars are terrific for this use case, however. NYC cops have like a billio…

throwing money at the NYC subway seems to have a generally great track record (albeit one featuring less efficiency than throwing money at other global subway systems). NYC could not function without it.

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

#267

Post by lepus »

thegrim22 wrote: post #148
camgunz wrote: post #83

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 ne…

Remember when 20 years ago if anybody had doubts with the way things were heading we were told "there's no war on cars you conspiracy theorist, nobody's going to come for your cars you conspiracy theorist"? After 20 years they've made enough progress shaping the narrative that they no longer need to lie and hide their agenda they can just put it in the open.

If even discussing that some people may begin to prefer alternatives to cars in some situations is equivalent to a declaring war on cars, then I really underestimated how insecure the pro-car argument is.

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

#269

Post by jordanbeiber »

School-Cotton wrote: post #219
nicoburns wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn. If it's really 50/50 then that is bad!

It's not, OP was wildly exaggerating.

I can emphasize “feels”, but if you’ve ever parked a moderately expensive bike in a dense city center for a few hours you know the feeling. Especially if you’ve had a few stolen. If not the bike, the saddle. If not the saddle a wheel. If not the wheel the battery. Etc etc. It’s all really annoying trying to get home not matter the insurance.

I had two strollers stolen from my backyard while at home last year… it’s kinda crazy over here!

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

#270

Post by svnt »

cornholio wrote: post #185
camgunz wrote: post #83

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 ne…

There is a little something that's missing from the analysis above: what people actually want. And what many people want, across many cultures once they reach a certain level of wealth, is the suburban home: low density living in isolated housing units set in a park like environment with ample greenery. Just look at almost any billionaire's mansion and you will see this pattern which becomes an aspiration for the mid…

Setting aside that your opinion is not data, this is how you mentally entrain the future of society in a terrible moment in an unsustainable industrialization ramp.

What people want is incredibly malleable. To behave otherwise at a policy level is to enslave yourself to the lowest common denominator.

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