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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

#521

Post by nradov »

houseatrielah wrote: post #229
dv_dt wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an interesting comment to me because it gets so much right on how to motivate ditching cars. If you were funding a campaign to eliminate cars to reduce carbon emissions I think you would meet with widespread resistance. If you promote an idea of a higher quality life that is possible w/o cars and explore that - in the end I think you'd end up removing many more cars than the first approach.

I think the root cause is further up the chain of casuality. People need cars because they live in the suburbs, they live in the suburbs because they have children, they want to raise children in more square footage than the urban housing stock offers. Notable exception being Tokyo Ironically, if you look NYC in the 1910s, kids used to play baseball in the street because it wasn't yet overrun by cars, suddenly not en…

Public school quality and levels of crime (or at least perception of crime) are also huge factors driving parents of small children out of dense cities and into suburbs. Somehow most city governments have been taken over by progressive idealogues who are intent on pushing their luxury beliefs regardless of the negative impact on education or middle-class quality of life. This is how we end up with schools run for the benefit of teacher's unions rather than students, fentanyl dealers in the neighborhood parks, homeless tents on the sidewalks, and organized shoplifting rings excused as reparations for the oppressed.

If we want to give people the option of living without cars then let's start by fixing our cities.

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

#522

Post by lambdasquirrel »

uneekname wrote: post #142
willio58 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agreed. And while everything you said is super important and true, one piece that really makes me pumped about this movement to ditch cars is more around quality of life. If you have to get in a car and drive to a parking lot somewhere to get groceries, commute to work, go out with friends, get healthcare, etc. You will obviously live a less healthy life both physically but also mentally because of it. Walking…

I totally agree about the noise and health benefits, but to me it's more a matter of respect and safety. In the U.S., we see too many pedestrians die each year. Our roads are built for cars only, with everything else as an afterthought. When I cross the street, drivers act like it's my responsibility to stay out of their way. If some people need to use cars for mobility or business reasons, that is fine with me. But…

In some Canadian cities, they build the residential streets with only one lane (there’s still traffic in two directions), and it solves both the speed problem and helps with the density problem. I hated it at first, but once I’ve parked my car (probably to take the bus, no less), I’ve thought, gee this is nice.

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

#523

Post by CalRobert »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #295
Glide wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a positive vision of where society can go rather than having to sacrifice and buckle down. Do people not remember riding bikes as kids? Riding a bike is _still_ fun. It never stopped being fun. Now you can do that and get to work.

Riding a bike is not fun if you're doing it to commute - having to do it in all weathers, in traffic that feels unsafe, even if you don't feel like it and got poor sleep etc. It's really fundamentally not the same.

I do this with my kids and it's still pretty fun. Though admittedly it's nicer when the weather is good (just like driving).

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

#524

Post by epistasis »

concordDance wrote: post #294
epistasis wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I take it you're American? (Pretty much no one else days "we" to include anyone they're talking to)

Well this is generally a US focused site, though if we are getting more input internationally here these days that would make me very happy.

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

#525

Post by stefs »

mdgrech23 wrote: post #424
willio58 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If some people need to use cars for mobility or business reasons, that is fine with me. Definitely. For stuff like that, emergency services, delivery, trash collection, etc. larger vehicles on streets are totally fine and I think most would agree. I don't even necessarily think we should ban all cars, but we should definitely stop incentivizing them by heavily subsidizing car infrastructure with city budgets funded…

worth visiting an old city like Rome. I was shocked by how walkable it was. It was maybe the second night we were there, we causally strolled around after dinner and just happenstance managed to walk by all the major attractions. That's no mistake but honestly when you experience it's so magical. To create a tech analogy I remember the days before Google when search when would have 20 buttons and could take regex and…

i've never been in rome but i visited trieste - a very walkable city - a few weeks ago and i was shocked how cars were clogging up everything there. not necessarily cars driving, but parked cars. maybe trieste is a bit special because big parts of it are on a steep hill so it's not that well suited for cycling but none the less, i was very disappointed. not a pleasure with kids. i asked an italian friend about it and his answer was: "welcome to italy".

so, walkable - yes, maybe. but cities that get rid of cars are still on a completely different level when it comes to quality.

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

#526

Post by conductr »

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.

I don't think you truly understand Houston-like climates. A 10 meter walk to the mailbox often causes you to break into sweat. Another concern is it can and often does have random showers; often quite heavy and difficult to plan for.

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

#527

Post by CalRobert »

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…

It's pretty elitist to make me pay for your parking in my city.

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

#528

Post by uoaei »

cogman10 wrote: post #251
uoaei wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac7cfc This is actually really common data. I'm curious to know where you got yours. > I'd like to see empirical studies on this but I suspect the sample size o…

> https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac7cfc

Very interesting!! Especially Fig. 5. Thanks for the link.

Summary:

* ICE vs battery crossover at 18k-24k miles (1.5-2.0 years avg usage) and Hybrid vs battery crossover approx 36k-48k miles (3-4 years avg usage). Reducing car usage obviously extends those timelines.

* ICE with 12k-18k miles is equal to battery with 0 miles, Hybrid with 18k-24k miles is equal to battery with 0 miles.

Temperature and energy generation sources affect the calculations quite a bit by region regarding engine and battery efficiency and cleanliness of generation sources.

Appreciate your inputs, updating my priors.

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

#529

Post by engelshell »

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.

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

#530

Post by patagonia »

Gud wrote: post #519
patagonia wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be completely explicit, you're telling anyone with any need or desire to pull a trailer or go off publicly planned and constructed roadways that their needs or desires are not even on the table for discussion. I don't believe it is in fact necessary to eliminate cars as a primary mode of transportation in the future in order to meet climate goals. But, even if it was, the argument just will not fly with many many…

You don’t need to own a car to do this. The simple fact is, public transport in most places sucks. I’ve moved to Zürich, and there is no way I’ll drive a car willingly again. Taking the tram everywhere is extremely liberating.

I lived in New York City for 5 years. I loved it. I didn't own a car. I took the subway, cabs, trains, and planes everywhere. But, I didn't go camping or own a boat. I live in South Carolina now where I tow my catamaran to different regattas or just to the beach for fun. I go camping with an amount of gear that would be completely unreasonable to take on a train. Public transportation does not allow for the same activities as a car or truck. That's just obviously true. I'd be happy to give up my car. I would not give up sailing or the type of camping I do. People that hunt, should they give up hunting because they can't transport their game? How are contractors going to get equipment to the worksite? Cars/trucks/vehicles are not just for moving people.
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