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For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

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Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#51

Post by JKCalhoun »

timewizard wrote: post #17
knowitnone wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a job and it pays the bills. Nobody is calling it a career.

You read the article, listened to the stories, and looked at the pictures, right? This is obviously the only source of income for many of those people. They're economically trapped and you're just happy to sell them e-bikes and pretend that it materially improved their conditions. Oh, but it's greenwashing nonsense, so everyone turns off their critical reasoning skills, and pretends it's a secret virtue that they do…

The alternative pushed by the tech elite would seem to be that delivery goes to drones and the delivery jobs are gone completely.

I'm pretty sure though they're not thinking about the welfare of those ex-delivery drivers.

Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#52

Post by baud147258 »

andrepd wrote: post #41
brokenmachine wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia too. They don't follow any road rules and ride on the footpaths at insane speeds. They're not actually legal - I believe the law is that if they can go over 17kph without pedalling then they must be registered, have indicators, etc. But nobody seems to do anything about it. I guess some elderly pedestrians must die before something is done.

That is because there are millions of kms of roads for cars and virtually 0 for bikes. Plus cars kill thousands of people every day , and we just sort of accept it as a natural fact of life. Why is a bike going 20kph suddenly a problem?

> Why is a bike going 20kph suddenly a problem?

because the bike can and will use the sidewalk if there's not bike lane.

Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#53

Post by numpad0 »

luma wrote: post #40
kibwen wrote: post #31

For this use case you really care about reducing the lifetime total cost of ownership, which means making the bike as reliable, serviceable, and repairable as possible. I love e-bikes, but IME they have a long way to go to get to same level as normal bikes in this regard. It's good that the bikes in the article are locally-built, but I'd like to know whether or not they emphasize using standardized parts with high av…

Do you deliver packages in a tropical climate? If the answer is no, maybe you have a different use case than the people in the article. Being able to make it through the day might carry more significance for these users than being able to tear the thing down without any electrical knowledge. HN in a nutshell - you see an article full of first-hand reports of the users and their use case and your immediate reaction is…

Hot and humid is the worst for any machines. Which tropical climate is. It's also lowkey why Toyota ended up being ~the most reliable brand of cars.

Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#54

Post by kasey_junk »

aitchnyu wrote: post #50
asl2D wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capacity is still needed, or you will miss out on a lot of deliveries in peak hours, where you load up several orders and then deliver them all in one route and you dont really need to carry whole bag to client/restaurant, just fish up the package. Also boxy bags allow for bigger packages(pizza, water bottles) and usually help to pack orders in a way that damages them less.

Which companies batch food orders now? It was a short lived and unpopular experiment in India years back.

Both Grubhub and DoorDash allow drivers to pickup multiple orders in one run in my neighborhood.

Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#55

Post by rurban »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #48
rurban wrote: post #26

For USD 1400 you also get a good E-scooter from Taiwan. I got mine here in Germany for that price. It's far better than an E-bike.

I think the scooter is going to be the winner in the U.S. People not used to biking are averse to being unable to sit and have both feet solidly on the ground at a stop. And it will also be a "cargo" scooter because carrying things.

Just that the e-scooter batteries last much shorter than the e-bike batteries. And they won't work in colder temperatures.

Typically 2 years only. E-bike batteries last much longer.

Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#56

Post by yellow_lead »

rurban wrote: post #26

For USD 1400 you also get a good E-scooter from Taiwan. I got mine here in Germany for that price. It's far better than an E-bike.

> It's far better than an E-bike.

Why? Not doubting you, but would love to hear more.

Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#57

Post by Lanolderen »

timewizard wrote: post #17
knowitnone wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a job and it pays the bills. Nobody is calling it a career.

You read the article, listened to the stories, and looked at the pictures, right? This is obviously the only source of income for many of those people. They're economically trapped and you're just happy to sell them e-bikes and pretend that it materially improved their conditions. Oh, but it's greenwashing nonsense, so everyone turns off their critical reasoning skills, and pretends it's a secret virtue that they do…

So are many jobs. Many students do them, many people do them as an inbetween thing while looking for a better job, etc.

I get the desire to replace all no skill jobs with roombas and drones but some people need them and some even enjoy them.

A friend did over a year of grocery deliveries with a cargo bike recently and outside of the career growth issues he liked it a lot. Physical exercise, lots of free food and decent pay including tips.

Not everyone is a HN minmaxer following the meta to get to the highest posible salary in the shortest possible time. Some are happy with paid rent, food and a weekend visit to the club or w/e.

Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#59

Post by rob74 »

So, a 50 year old former "business manager in a government role" is now working as a delivery worker in Colombia, and the fact that the company gave him a loan for an e-bike (they didn't even provide it to him!) is listed as a "reason to be cheerful"?! I swear this is the most depressing thing I read this week so far, and that's something if you consider how depressing the news has been recently...

Re: For Delivery Workers in Latin America, Affordable E-Bikes Are a Superpower

#60

Post by asl2D »

aitchnyu wrote: post #50
asl2D wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capacity is still needed, or you will miss out on a lot of deliveries in peak hours, where you load up several orders and then deliver them all in one route and you dont really need to carry whole bag to client/restaurant, just fish up the package. Also boxy bags allow for bigger packages(pizza, water bottles) and usually help to pack orders in a way that damages them less.

Which companies batch food orders now? It was a short lived and unpopular experiment in India years back.

Well it is pretty normal in russia, atleast for big operators
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