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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

#11

Post by sleepybrett »

johnea wrote: post #3

I'm not really sure where in the US people live that makes them think transportation can be replaced by a bike. I live in San Diego, the climate is great, but there is no way a person can travel any farther than their neighborhood on a bike. The main impediment at this point is the outrageous price of EVs in the US. In China cheap EVs are readily available, trade policies are preventing their import into the US. Bike…

I bought an ebike about 2 years ago and it's been awesome. I started by using it mostly for grocery runs (in-neighborhood) and other small errands. But soon I was using it in an inter-neighborhood way, using dedicated bike infrastructure and bikelanes to range further out across the city and to commute for the limited days I go to the office.

It's not a silver bullet for all the trips I might take in my car but it's getting pretty damn close... and this is in rainy seattle.

Certainly where I grew up on the kitsap peninsula it would be less useful unless I had lived closer to the 'downtown' of my small town/rural complex. All of us kids, of course, had bikes and we'd use them to make trips to friends houses or whatever within probably a mile or two radius, but the grocery store / retail core was more on the order of 10m away .. more doable with an ebike for sure, but hard to justify to 'pop down to the grocery store for a forgotten item'.

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

#12

Post by uoaei »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #8

Eliminating the daily commute for those who have jobs where in person presence isn't essential beats all other forms of transportation. But activists, cities, and greenwash companies have all shown their true face, each for their own reasons of self-interest.

I'd like to see the numbers in the full accounting, ie, how much carbon cost is added with Slack calls and the like. Somehow I think (analog) biking to the office wins over fully remote especially if you have video on for more than one hour per day.

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

#13

Post by adrianN »

johnea wrote: post #3

I'm not really sure where in the US people live that makes them think transportation can be replaced by a bike. I live in San Diego, the climate is great, but there is no way a person can travel any farther than their neighborhood on a bike. The main impediment at this point is the outrageous price of EVs in the US. In China cheap EVs are readily available, trade policies are preventing their import into the US. Bike…

You can ride a bike for short trips and take a car for long trips or when you don't like the weather and you still reduce your demand for oil.

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

#14

Post by RowanH »

johnea wrote: post #3

I'm not really sure where in the US people live that makes them think transportation can be replaced by a bike. I live in San Diego, the climate is great, but there is no way a person can travel any farther than their neighborhood on a bike. The main impediment at this point is the outrageous price of EVs in the US. In China cheap EVs are readily available, trade policies are preventing their import into the US. Bike…

Well the article did start off talking on a world stage....

Every town and city across the planet is be different, some more amenable, some less so. We have ebikes and it replaces over summer some car trips, it's not a wholesale replacement for cars and (I personally) think they shouldn't be touted as that - that's fighting a loosing battle!

In the town I'm in ~55'000 people, there's a big uptake of ebikes particularly summer it's just mad. E.g. going to the market, or a cafe, or pub... so I would hazard a guess that the replacement journeys in summer time drop traffic 5%, maybe 10%.

I've lived in Toronto which probably fairly similar to a number of US cities and that would have been amazing to get around on ebike (outside of winter time).

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

#15

Post by kibwen »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #8

Eliminating the daily commute for those who have jobs where in person presence isn't essential beats all other forms of transportation. But activists, cities, and greenwash companies have all shown their true face, each for their own reasons of self-interest.

This is part of it, but people still need to leave their house sometime, and the best solution is one where people can survive without needing to own a car at all, which is nearly impossible in most of the US. We sold our nation's soul to cars, and now we're fighting to get it back.

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

#16

Post by drunner »

johnea wrote: post #3

I'm not really sure where in the US people live that makes them think transportation can be replaced by a bike. I live in San Diego, the climate is great, but there is no way a person can travel any farther than their neighborhood on a bike. The main impediment at this point is the outrageous price of EVs in the US. In China cheap EVs are readily available, trade policies are preventing their import into the US. Bike…

And that is a long standing failure in urban planning in the US. Cities that don't support walking/biking/public transit stupid, but just accepted as the norm here.

The whole I-10 thing in LA right now cracks me up. Like they are begging people "please take the bus/train, don't drive", because 1 road closed. Imagine if the bus/train was already preferred because the infrastructure was so much better. Imagine if all the haste/special orders they used to fix the road, they consistently used that to build/expand public transit and walking/biking instead.

The damage is so deep that it feels irreversible at this point, like the US will be doomed to cars and traffic forever. If it took NL like 30-50 years starting in the 70s to reverse course, were looking at a century+ here if we were to start now, which were not.

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

#18

Post by baxuz »

supermatt wrote: post #9
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.

Yup, IIRC in terms of kJ/km cycling is ~4x more efficient than walking (on flat surface). I guess they must be talking about the energy used in production, etc.

It's closer to 6x.

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

#20

Post by logankeenan »

I sold my car more than a year ago now and I’ve been using an E-bike as a replacement. I work from home so I didn’t really need a car that often and can coordinate with my wife when I need to use the family vehicle. It hasn’t been too bad and we can always rely on Uber if something comes down to it. We live close to stores and it’s more convenient to use the bike than a car when we need to go get a few things. For instance, I can park right next to the entrance of all the stores.

I think he bikes can be a great replacement for a car for certain scenarios and city layout. I live in the Des Moines, Iowa Metropolitan area where we have a large bike trail infrastructure that I can use to get around the metropolitan area

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