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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

#281

Post by loeg »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #237
DanTheManPR wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a class 1, so it will assist up to 20mph. I typically cruise at around 15mph on my own (I'm in a similar weight class as a rider). For getting around my town, trips are not much longer than my car.

>assist up to 20mph (I'm in a similar [250lb] weight class as a rider) So, how does it do on the occassional hills of a Chattanooga (e.g.)? I'm about to visit my local store, which has one in stock, available today.

350W motor, so you'll hit that 20mph limiter on the flats, but maybe won't sustain that up hill. It's better than a 250W motor, but not by a huge margin.

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

#282

Post by Moldoteck »

rychco wrote: post #182
k_dumez wrote: post #17

"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.

I was recently in Europe & came back to the United States with a renewed sense of hatred for cars, single-family zoning, & our awful public transport. Cars especially continue to steal our space, time, health, sense of community, & money. In Bern (Switzerland), for example, there's trams/streetcars for short trips in the most populated parts of the city; there's (ice? electric?) motorbuses for trips around the rest o…

Have you observed how quiet is Basel? I was always shocked when compared to another similar eu city where i live

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

#283

Post by jwells89 »

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.

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

#284

Post by epistasis »

concordDance wrote: post #253
estebank wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that continues to happen is that people living in rural towns think that cities changing their mobility priorities to decenter cars is a personal affront. People asking to properly account for the negative externalities of car ownership can be construed as a war on cars through taxation, or as a removal of a subsidy. The only difference is framing.

A big factor is that the urban population is much larger and tends to vote for things that make sense in their context, but any laws would also apply outside it. So those in the countryside might be badly effected by a car ban imposed by urbanites. It's a similar effect to the way policies tend to get made that are good for the middle class but bad for the poor.

This is exactly reversed, people in cities bend over backwards to adapt laws to work for people in rural areas, fund massive infrastructure efforts for rural areas, etc.

Why do we have such good and extensive roads in rural areas with such tiny tax bases? Because cities pay for it. Telephone services, electricity, broadband... all these are hugely expensive and inefficient in rural areas and need to be funded by the productivity of cities, which we gladly do.

Meanwhile rural areas have outsize weight in legislative bodies, and often make explicit laws banning cities from running in that they want to.

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

#285

Post by estebank »

concordDance wrote: post #253
estebank wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that continues to happen is that people living in rural towns think that cities changing their mobility priorities to decenter cars is a personal affront. People asking to properly account for the negative externalities of car ownership can be construed as a war on cars through taxation, or as a removal of a subsidy. The only difference is framing.

A big factor is that the urban population is much larger and tends to vote for things that make sense in their context, but any laws would also apply outside it. So those in the countryside might be badly effected by a car ban imposed by urbanites. It's a similar effect to the way policies tend to get made that are good for the middle class but bad for the poor.

That problem goes both ways and it is wrong headed whenever a single solution is imposed on the whole.

I've seen for example NY politics around transportation, where people that live in the city predominantly use public transport, but any attempt at traffic calming or providing more space for people "at the expense of cars" is an uphill battle because people from surrounding areas predominantly drive into the city. The irony being that following a "park and ride" model would make the city more appealing, including for those that must drive.

Having a bus coming every 5 to 10 minutes in some random place in Nebraska is never gonna happen, but not having that in a city like Seattle, San Francisco or even Los Angeles is ridiculous.

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

#286

Post by jodrellblank »

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…

In large part, people want what we are taught to want. A hundred billion humans lived and died without ever knowing about or wanting Coca Cola or a Ford F150s or a McMansion or a photo album of their children or a poster of Marilyn Monroe in primary colours or a Fabergé egg or a KFC bucket or a private jet or a luxury yacht. Such things didn't exist, and nobody suffered a moment for it. The things we want as animals are such things as warmth, shelter, calories, respect. Most everything else is a manufactured desire, and a lot of the remainder is "wanting nothing, seeing someone else have a thing, wanting that thing".

Marketing turned women on to smoking, turned Americans onto sodas, turned Americans onto cars, onto basketball, onto Nike sneakers, onto fast food burgers, onto SUVs and are now turning Americans onto pickup trucks - it's not accidental, it costs billions and takes years. Billionaires don't want luxury yachts because they develop a mysterious desire to go boating, they want luxury yachts because they are useful tax vehicles.

Talking about "what people want" without taking into account that what people want is malleable and flexible, is missing something important.

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

#287

Post by bobajeff »

tfrutuoso wrote: post #172
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…

That's very elitist. Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5. Even in large urban areas it's tricky to get around past a certain time. I remember working unexpected shifts and later staring at closed metro stations, having to walk in the rain to get home. No thanks. Also, some people like cars. Deal with it, i'm not ditching for an e-bike or whatever. An electric moto…

I also don't live in a city with useable mass transit either. Bus routes take far longer to get to a place than by car and there are no train or subway lines nearby. Every place I've ever lived you needed a car to get around.

That said, I would love it if I could get around this place without the need of a car. I would love it if my shopping centers were beautiful walkable areas with little shops I could get to on foot.

Traffic sucks, driving sucks and my shopping center is a bunch of big box retail and grocery stores that spread out around neverending road construction far away from where I live.

I don't think things will ever get better either but eventually this common design pattern will severely screw us all over.

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

#288

Post by svnt »

davidw wrote: post #239
ubermonkey wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I feel like this indicates you do not live in a very hot & humid place. That sounds wonderful, to be sure, but in Houston summer a 1.5 mile trip to the grocery store on any kind of ebike would definitely require a change of clothes & a shower once done.

I feel this indicates you do not understand how an eBike functions. You can get on one and simply turn the throttle or set the pedal assist to the max, and poof instant breeze with no effort. It is cooler than just standing there. I lived in northern Italy for a while so I get 'hot and humid' although I'm sure it's another level in Houston.

Yeah, you don’t get it. You can’t even be outside or you will need a shower — no exertion is required.

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

#289

Post by vbeeaz »

lepus wrote: post #267
thegrim22 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My man, the post explicitly says "Banning gas/diesel cars gets there".

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

#290

Post by [deleted] »

sgu999 wrote: post #131
simmanian wrote: post #48

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 adventur…

> - 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…

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