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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

#301

Post by cbozeman »

TheGRS wrote: post #246
tfrutuoso wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 haven't ever put "living in a city" together with "elitist". Living in the suburbs away from the cacophony of the city, a 5 minute drive away from all your favorite chain stores and malls seems much more elitist to me.

[flagged]

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

#302

Post by cvoss »

notatoad wrote: post #211
tfrutuoso wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

nothing about living in a city or riding a bike instead of driving a car is "elitist". elitism is using a vehicle that has an average annual ownership cost of $12000 and takes up a parking space everywhere you want to go.

I don't think GP claimed living in a city or riding a bike was elitist. I think the claim was that imposing solutions that only work in cities as if they work for everybody is elitist. And, speaking for myself now, it's important to remember that, in many contexts, living in the city is a luxury that many cannot afford without greatly diminishing their current standard of living. Outside the city, housing is cheap. You have to be very wealthy or else give up a lot to move into a city.

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

#303

Post by estebank »

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)

>> Why do we have such good and extensive roads in rural areas with such tiny tax bases? Because cities pay for it.

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

I can't think of any country (that has a rural area) where the statement wouldn't be true (although I could picture a counter example where the road infrastructure on specific rural areas is paid through export taxes and not city surplus, just none come immediately to mind).

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

#304

Post by concordDance »

jodrellblank wrote: post #286
cornholio wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This argument is overly general, allowing you to dismiss any expressed desires as "not real".

There is, in a sense, genuine suffering from not having a dishwasher or a bike or a basketball or a poster of the horsehead nebula even though we lived without them for millenia.

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

#305

Post by bluGill »

shortcake27 wrote: post #133
aftbit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly in the Bay it's pretty easy to get by with no car at all - just rent or borrow one if you want to take a trip to Tahoe every once in a while. If you go deeper into the country though, there are many places where car ownership is nearly mandatory, especially for people who can't WFH. EVs are pretty close to being able to replace ICE cars around here, but still can't match the range, cost, or longevity of an…

> but once or twice a year, we take a 1000 mile road trip that would be considerably more painful in an EV. If we're only going to own one car, it still needs to be ICE. You could just rent a car for those two trips like you suggested yourself in your first paragraph ;). Optimise for the most common scenario, not the least common one. > Would I still be able to run a 2023 EV in 2044? Will the batteries last that long…

The cost to rent a car for a week is getting close to the cost of just owning a car. (very much it depends, if you only own new cars renting is cheaper, but most people own older cars which are much cheaper). Plus when you rent they worry about little scratches and such which limits what you can do on vacation.

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

#306

Post by cbozeman »

estebank wrote: post #183
tfrutuoso wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated.

Same reason it won't work for most of Texas either. It's fine in Dallas or Austin, parts of Fort Worth... it doesn't scale to Lubbock or New Braunfels.

A lot of people have no interest in living in your concrete jungle... myself included.

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

#307

Post by rootusrootus »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #138
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…

Link (to REI gen 1.2 ebike): rei.com/product/190640/co-op-cycles-generation-e12-electric-bike How fast'll this lil'baby go, for a fat 250lb'er like me?

> a fat 250lb'er

Honestly, I'd worry more about that seat. Bike seats can pinch nerves even if you're not a big guy, and if you are, you probably want to be careful with a narrow seat like that.

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

#308

Post by david-gpu »

FredPret wrote: post #241
david-gpu wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived in Toronto, Canada, for 15 years and never had a car. My family gets around all year by walking, public transit and cycling. Most people live in urban centers where it is perfectly possible to live without a car. And as car use decreases, public transit availability will increase, together with other forms of transportation that don't have the externalities of private motor vehicles.

I did the same in Toronto. Then I bought a car. Night and day. Life became 10x easier. Suddenly Costco trips were possible. Weekend trips to cottage country. Visiting friends on the other side of town was a two-hour TTC (Toronto's public transit) ordeal; suddenly it became a 15-minute comfortable, safe, addict-free, warm car ride.

I have no doubt that driving a car would be very convenient, but how would that choice affect my neighbors? Because car traffic in the stroads around here make our homes noisy, our air polluted and our streets unsafe for children to play and be independent.

It's inconceivable to me that my kids can't bike to school because of all the car traffic around it... caused by parents dropping off their kids to school. Cars increase the safety of the people inside them at the detriment of everybody else.

We can thankfully begin to hear the death rattles of car-dependent urban planning and our cities will be much better once it's behind us.

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

#309

Post by davidw »

abeppu wrote: post #276
davidw wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Houston isn't _consistently_ in this territory, but it is worth a reminder that if the ambient temperature is above body temp and the air is humid enough, then a breeze makes you hotter faster.

Well that goes back to my point that you do not need to use a bike all day every day for everything. A few years back, here it snowed like two feet in a day. I did not, in fact, ride bikes that day!

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

#310

Post by seryoiupfurds »

concordDance wrote: post #206
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…

> The only problem that self-driving cars will ever solve is where to put VC money in a zero interest rate world. We've had freight trains and mass transit for centuries. They solve stress from a 30 minute daily commute. Public transport is never door to door and there are always changeovers and cancellations, while self driving cars on demand can be door to door and is far less dependant on whether there's a labour…

> Public transport is never door to door and there are always changeovers and cancellations, while self driving cars on demand can be door to door and is far less dependant on whether there's a labour dispute or leaves on the tracks.

My city's automated metro comes every 90 seconds at rush hour, and every 3 minutes the rest of the day. The commute from my old neighborhood was 25 minutes including walking, and now that I moved to the suburbs I added a 10 minute bus ride to get to the station.

My parents recently gave me their old car, and it's fun to have it for weekend adventures. (I'm not an anti-car extremist!) But for commuting to work it isn't much better to be sitting in traffic while the train zips past.

This infrastructure wasn't all that expensive to build and your city could have it too. The only special requirement to make it succeed is to rezone the areas around stations for high density housing, so they'll have lots of built-in demand.

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