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The world's 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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If you're not that wealthy you might be able to afford a car but not want to buy a car and an expensive e-bike. A car is useful for short distance trips in bad weather, longer trips that might not be the majority of your travelling, and transporting stuff that won't fit on a moped (or an e-bike unless you get a trailer... or bigger stuff than that.) In that case you're going to buy the one tool that covers your needs.
On the other hand, a car has far greater maintenance costs. The car has license, insurance, maintenance, gas, parking, etc., whereas an ebike is basically free in comparison. Electricity to power an ebike is pennies, and maintainance is a few basic tools and a new tire or inner tube on occasion.
With all the money saved, you can just rent a car for the handful of days the ebike genuinely is not sufficient.
Yeah, which is why it's the reasonably wealthy people who have cars and not bikes. But that includes almost everyone in developed countries.
E-bikes are kind of a red herring here anyway; there's little practical use-case for them that isn't already covered by unpowered bicycles unless you live somewhere very hilly. (Even in moderately hilly places you get used to hills quite quickly). It's not unreasonable to do a shopping run on a bike as long as the shop isn't far away... But if it is, an e-bike won't help you get there in a reasonable length of time.
Even in a place that isn't very hilly, an e-bike could make the difference between arriving to work sweaty or not, which can easily mean the difference between biking or not. The extra help also expands the available user base to those who are less fit, and expands the range of what is doable for any given person. And, again, I want to emphasize the sweat difference, which also ties back into range (how far can you bike on a regular bike versus an e-bike without breaking a sweat?)
Exactly. I rode an ebike one summer to commute to an internship. The sweat factor alone meant I never would have done that by regular bike, as I would've arrived at the office sweating like a pig.
The sweat factor alone is what allowed me to use the loaned ebike as part of a journey to a wedding. Had changing facilities en route but not shower facilities...
range extension is huge
When I biked to work I never arrived sweaty. Cycling allows you to travel faster than walking for the same effort, so you have better evaporative cooling (i.e. your sweat works better, before it soaks into your clothes) so this line always seemed weird to me - how far can you walk without breaking a sweat? Indefinitely, most of the year.
We’re generally assuming that walking is impractically far for the trips in question. It’s quite obvious that you can bike faster and further on an e-bike without breaking a sweat than you can on a regular bike.
I brought up walking only because I don't get sweaty walking - it doesn't have to be practical to commute that way. If you can go for a 6 hour hike without getting sweaty, you can bike to work for substantially less than 6 hours without getting sweaty, right?
No, I don’t think most people in most climates can, actually.
Do your sweat glands just not work like most people? You can probably bike very slowly on level ground without breaking a sweat. The faster you go and the warmer or more humid it is, the more likely you are to sweat. E-bikes move that threshold significantly. Every person is a little different, of course, but it moves the sweat threshold for everyone.
I live in a relatively cool climate but it gets to a high relatively humidity. I don't think it has anything to do with my sweat glands - if it were then I would overheat easily because I wouldn't be sweating enough, right? It's bizarre to me that you think most people in most climates can't walk indefinitely without sweating - walking shouldn't be an exertion unless you're climbing a steep hill or are seriously unfit. Sure, in a hot climate in summer, but there's a lot of the world which is not that.
I do cycle pretty slowly (about 10mph) so if your journey is onerous at that speed but doable at the speed limit of an e-bike than that would make a difference of course. Still, I think people get too fixated on cycling fast in some countries where cycling isn't the norm because cycling is seen more as a sport than as transport.