Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
As you can see, it has a second seat in the back for a passenger, and is built much more like a very lightweight motorscooter than a bike. The batteries are typically lead-acid, not lithium, so they are big and heavy, and probably don't give all that much range. I'm curious how people charge and store these vehicles, since most people in Chinese cities live in multi-story dwellings -- I guess they must lug the batteries upstairs with them at night?
The real reason these work in China is that in most of the cities I have been in, they make up 30 to 40 percent of the traffic on the streets at any given time, and so they become a force to be reckoned with in terms of traffic flow. That makes a HUGE difference in terms of rider safety, especially when compared with the US where drivers are often confused or surprised when they encounter a single cyclist mixing it up with eight lanes of car traffic moving along at 45 mph.
I think it's really admirable that China has been able to get a sizeable fraction of the population riding these silent, lightweight e-bikes, instead of polluting, noisy motorscooters or big, inefficient cars. However, I really question whether this model would ever fly in the USA.
That said, the more bicycle looking ebikes... I am very tempted to get one. They can be a fun way to explore the neighborhood. But I would still need a car for commuting to work.
And that sums up why the typical US mentality will continue to impede transportation progress. I can easily carry over a week's worth of groceries to cook three meals per day for two people in one trip on my motorcycle. I ride to work every day of the year in Seattle. It's kind of like, you know, living in pretty much any other country in the world where cars are correctly seen for the luxuries they are.
Having a scooter without saddlebags would be harder in that I'd probably need to get groceries twice a week, but the only things actually stopping such madness are snow and large families. I would doubt the need for a car to get work, though, if we could just use those forbidden things called school buses and public transportation.
Apologies, I don't mean to question your lifestyle. I'm merely expressing one of my biggest concerns with driving. Of course the best solution is to not have to drive so much.
I'd be fine with my commute for most of the year. Having to get to work in the winter makes a pretty good case for a car though. And unless there's a bike/motorcycle that will turn into a car for three months of the year, I'm sticking to the one that works year round.
Like I said, though, snow on the road is a good stopping point for the average driver – car or motorcycle.
These things drive down the numbers of cyclists, which increases the general feeling that they aren't accepted, and that it's not worth it to cater to them.
> if we could just use those forbidden things called school buses and public transportation.
If they were available and timely? Sure. We have buses in my area. They come hourly. They aren't practical unless you have a lot of spare time, and each connecting bus compounds the problem. I can get to some nearby cities by train, but it's almost always more convenient, faster, and cheaper to drive there myself.
Cars will become a luxury instead of a necessity when those problems are fixed...and those problems will be fixed when cars become unnecessary for a reasonable quality of life.
In London there was a very big push to extend the bus network about 15 years ago, by the left-wing mayor (who had been given newly created powers). He also introduced a congestion charge for other vehicles. Both policies were quickly supported across the political spectrum. In central London few people use cars now, it is just far more of a hassle. The last mayor expanded bike lanes a lot, and now bike journeys are on course to overtake car journeys in central London.
The big development definitely helped to establish the network, but it happened on top of high density (in the number of people working in the centre, if not actually living there). And now we are getting much more housing closer to the centre.
As an example closer in size to where I live right now: Heidelberg, Germany. Trains made it easy to get between nearby cities. Streetcars and such made it easy to get around within the city. Walking and biking were both pleasant and common. Population density didn't seem much higher than in my neighborhood, but useful businesses (groceries, bakeries, etc) were in easy walking distance from our hotel.
If you are in Mississippi redneck country...ya, you aren't going to bike their. But most cities should be ok.
The real problem is that the lane isn't wide enough for a cyclist and motor vehicle to travel side by side with the motor vehicle remaining in the same lane. When a bicycle lane is added despite that, it leads to a bicycle lane that's too narrow and vehicles will pass without leaving sufficient clearance (at least 3 feet).
> (or even sidewalks)
Riding on the sidewalk isn't safe (and in many jurisdictions, is illegal). Mixing unpredictable pedestrian traffic with cyclists is not safe, and the number of potential conflicts that cyclists have with motor vehicle traffic when approaching an intersection is far greater compared to riding on the road and following traffic rules.
Also having to slow or stop for each driveway and intersection will significantly lengthen the time of the trip.
If that were true, it would be the real problem. As it is, even though there is space, cars frequently ride the shoulder. Most of the streets around here are pretty wide.
> Mixing unpredictable pedestrian traffic with cyclists is not safe
A problem, in theory...but not much of one with the low volume of foot+bike traffic around here. People here love their cars.
There are a lot of opportunities lost when you can't carry more than, well, you can personally carry. The "white cheddar mac & cheese" brand that everyone in the house likes as a meal base is on sale? With a car, I can easily choose to just buy 40 of them to throw under the counter to last us for the next two months. Without a car, I can't take advantage of sales like that.
With a car, I can decide to suddenly throw clothes in a suitcase and drive to Florida or Delaware (I live about halfway between those). Without a car, such things would have to be planned well in advance.
With a car, I can drive 3 hours to Atlanta to pick up a monitor arm with my two friends in the car for company.
With a car, I can go to the home improvement store and pick up lumber so my friend can build a nice gaming table for D&D days.
Is a car a luxury? Sure, from the perspective of 1920. So are 4K screens and guest bedrooms and mini-fridges and king-size beds and neighbors whose walls are not your walls, but that's not a reason to feel as though people should reject any of those things.
No wonder that I am more than happy with a good bicycle and a yearly ticket for all public transportation in my country. Of course, I don't own a car.
I drink tap water, no "white cheddar mac & cheese" but as many fresh vegetables / meet / cheese as possible (ok, and lot of pasta). If I want to go to Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Vienna, Rome, London or Berlin there is a (more or less direct) train every two hours. Just buy a ticket over the internet, print it, and jump on the train (And while I wonder where Delaware is and why I would want to go there, I can take my laptop with me and keep on working during the whole ride to Paris).
I need a monitor arm? Just choose one in the internet shop and it's delivered tomorrow morning at my doorstep. Or I can pick it up later in the afternoon at the delivery place 10 minutes from here.
If I want to go and play table tennis with my friends, there are public parks where we can meet... Basketball? Checked. Football (you would probably call it soccer)? Even easier. Want to have a swim together? In the lake or in the river in summer or in a public pool if it's cold.
No 4K screen, no mini-fridges, no king size bed, no cold walls... but i agree a real guest bedroom would be nice!
Owning a car is for me just unpractical. And for the few times a year I would need one, I can find alternative solutions or book one through car sharing.
It gets to the point where I wonder if owning a car or not shapes your life in such different way or different choices in life makes you own a car (or not)...
I have lived without a car for periods of my life, and done a lot more walking, and scheduled my life around public transit time. A Thursday afternoon train of thought upon being asked if I want to go to an event with work friends in 2009 in DC might have gone like: Hm, it looks like the last line back leaves station B at 12:30AM, and so to connect with that I could take the yellow to B from A at 11:55PM... no, that one arrives at B at 12:20, so if it's a little late I won't be able to get on the 12:30 from B... let's see, the next earlier leaves at 12:05AM, and if I get on the train at A at 11:30PM then I'll still have only 10 minutes leeway, but I can just take the 12:30AM train if I miss the 12:05AM. I need to get to B a little early because when I was there late last year they'd locked one entrance at 10PM and I might have to walk a few more blocks to the other side. So, best case I leave the event to walk to station B at 11:00PM and arrive home about 12:30AM... the event starts at 10PM, so an hour and a half of transit to spend an hour there and miss the second half... "Hey, everyone; I'm just gonna head out. You guys have fun, though."
Automated shared cars will probably completely change this. As long as I can walk out of my house and get in a vehicle and go exactly where I want to go without waiting, considering schedules, making connections, or stressing constantly until I'm safely on the last one about missing a connection and being late, I don't care about whether I am taking "public transit" or my own car.
At least we have the pasta in common. ;)
You probably do not want to go to Delaware at all; it was the first place that came to mind because I went there recently, and Florida (which apparently you do know...) is about the same distance south. I should have used Orlando / Disney World and Philadelphia, perhaps, for better name recognition.
> No 4K screen, no mini-fridges, no king size bed, no cold walls...
Well, my point was more separation than temperature... :)
> It gets to the point where I wonder if owning a car or not shapes your life in such different way or different choices in life makes you own a car (or not)...
I would argue that both are true. In many places one could live, a car is an enormous asset. In places without good infrastructure or with very high costs, a car might well be more trouble than it's worth. But owning a car will give options which weren't available before, so in that sense it shapes your life as well.
What may be tenable for a single person doesn't fit everyone's needs,
WTF?? That's a very unhealthy amount of sugar. Why would you buy bottled water?
I buy bottled water for two reasons. The reason I started buying it was that I wanted to drink more water and less of everything else (I was using a ketogenic diet and there's some question about whether some artificial sweeteners cause an insulin response, and to what degree that would partially defeat the point of the keto diet).
Most of the time during most days I'm in front of some screen or another, with a glass of Diet Mountain Dew or Coke Zero nearby, and I only really pay attention to the drink when I have it in hand and notice that it's empty, whereupon I get up and refill it. This process keeps me drinking enough not to be dehydrated during the day (much more than enough, obviously), but if I don't do this, then I will at first be distracted by not finding my nearby drink, which pulls me out of whatever I'm working or playing on. This would be fine if it happened every thirty minutes, but it happens basically as soon as I stop thinking about it, which is difficult to work through. After I've adjusted to that, or if I'm in an environment in which I don't expect a drink to be nearby, I have the opposite problem, where I can sit in the same position typing and mousing for far too long. So, having a drink nearby prevents dehydration and soreness, by keeping me drinking unconsciously and prompting me to get up and walk around every thirty minutes or so.
Now, at this point you are probably thinking, "No problem! Just fill the glass with tap water and everything's the same!" In practice, however, that turned out not to be the case. For whatever reason, I was unsuccessful at training myself to drink water this way. Instead, I would find myself dehydrated and stiff with a full glass of water nearby.
At some point about five years ago, though, I found that if I had a small bottle of water (a half-liter, say) instead of an open-top glass of water, I drank that automatically and only noticed when it was empty. So, rather than fighting whatever part of me is uninterested in open glasses of water, I just bought a bunch of 0.5L bottles. Since I just put them next to my desk, I don't actually get up to refill anything, but drinking one every 45 minutes or so will force me to get up and walk in any case, so it's all good.
At first I spent some time refilling these bottles rather than buying new, but it was more trouble than it was worth: trying to train myself not to toss them, trying to be gentle (they're quite fragile), washing, filling, and drying them, keeping track of one or more containers (the plastic they come wrapped in is not a reusable container), and worst of all, keeping track of whether I need to do a refill or will run out during an upcoming stretch of work... I'm willing to pay a few bucks a week to just not have any of that.
So, I still do some of that, but have returned to drinking a lot of soda, as I mentioned, rather than 12-16 0.5L bottles every day. A 12-pack of them lasts me several days, now.
The other reason I still buy them is that sometime while I was drinking them almost exclusively I got in the habit of keeping one or two by my bedside, which solved the wake-up-with-dehydration-headache problem I had for the previous ~20 years, without any further conscious attention.
Probably too much detail. But that's why.
I don't understand. You do walk, or you don't walk?
> At first I spent some time refilling these bottles rather than buying new, but it was more trouble than it was worth: trying to train myself not to toss them, trying to be gentle (they're quite fragile), washing, filling, and drying them, keeping track of one or more containers (the plastic they come wrapped in is not a reusable container)
That's easy. Refill each one a few times before throwing it out. Don't wash it, and don't have multiple to keep track of.
> and worst of all, keeping track of whether I need to do a refill or will run out during an upcoming stretch of work...
But you run out and need a refill with soda or disposable bottles too. How is that a negative of refilling water?
> That's easy. Refill each one a few times before throwing it out. Don't wash it, and don't have multiple to keep track of.
It takes quite a bit longer to refill one of these, due to the mechanics of pouring into a neck. I can refill a widemouth class from a 2L bottle on autopilot while mostly still thinking about the problem that was at hand, but I have to devote much more attention to refilling a half liter bottle, and I'm inevitably going to spill some on the outside of the bottle anyway, which means drying the bottle, which means either using a paper towel or a cloth towel, but using a cloth towel means I need to have just washed the bottle or I'm dirtying a towel which can't be used to dry clean clean dishes, now...
A refill of soda, or just grabbing a new half liter bottle and twisting the cap, can be done without much conscious attention. See above for the much more involved process of refilling a half liter bottle. :)
How about a bottle with a lid that screws off for fast spill-free filling?
(I'm still utterly baffled that you can drink soda from a glass but not water from a glass. Have you tried a colored glass that looks like it has soda?)
All that aside the reason I take public transportation instead of risking a bike is my fellow drivers. We've had several hundred wrecks with our 7.5 mile long at-grade light rail. What chance do I stand on a bike when most people down here drive trucks or SUVs and can't avoid a flipping train? It's frustrating.
I know people raised the same concerns about electric cars back in the day, but people are far more likely to not "see" a motorcycle.
Maybe mitigate with a strobe light, but I find those very distracting when I drive by a cyclist.
Everyone drives slower (~40km/h at most) and cars actively look out for motorcycles and make slow, smooth controlled changes in direction that everyone can anticipate.
- Not being able to hear / audible warning is a terrible argument for many reasons - The danger is understood, but that's because of a lack of training for all road users; no amount of visual warnings will mitigate the lack of education / training
I think the downvotes stem from the lack of critical thought portrayed by the comment? I can't really say - to me it doesn't add anything meaningful to topic at hand and detracts from the intent of the article itself without giving tangible reasons.
I was replying to a comment with a kickstarter about an electric motorcycle, seems pretty relevant to me, hence my surprise.
And I was attempting to articulate why someone may have down-voted you by being overly critical; I didn't feel negatively towards your original comment either way.
As to your point, a friend of mine has an electric motorcycle. He said that it's silent is scary because in traffic cars don't notice he's there. He has to always be on guard for people merging into his lane.
The only way to ride safe is to ride as if cars do not see you.
I don't really understand why this is a kickstarter. Just buy a well established e-bike brand with the specs you want.
Maybe one day we'll also see gasoline powered personal vehicles be banned in the West ? I kind of doubt it, seeing how important the car is in our society, even though there is some progress towards it (see for instance the car-free days in Paris (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36243119), and I'm sure in other places as well)
As always, more information on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_industry_in_C...)
Imagine how polluted the air in major Chinese cities would be if they didn't do this. For a counter example visit Karachi or Lahore and observe the air, both huge population centres that are full of small 2-stroke engined motorcycles and motor-rickshaws emitting blue grey exhaust everywhere.
Ask them how those batteries deal with -40c. It's a problem ignored by nearly everyone.
In Sydney so many people drive around these pristine 4WDs for their 3-4 person family or just for image.
Plenty of them. In the last couple decades cold starts have really progressed. I think it's the developments in oil/lubricants that cling to metal surfaces. And the tighter tolerances that mean oils don't drain out of idle engines.
* Personal automobiles and delivery vans running on Diesel and which have received their license plate before the 1st of Jan. 2001.
* Trucks (of the profesional-logistics variety) which are not emmision standard IV compliant.
Note that this is not a country wide thing, but just the province of Utrecht[1]. There might be different restrictions for different cities, if any.
[1]: Utrecht is a city in the province Utrecht, like NYC, NY or Uppsala, Uppsala for the Swedes.
Yep, you carry the battery up to your apartment each night, or just take your bike up. I really wonder how people with those Tesla Model S's I'm seeing all around manage, since parking is so difficult and its usually on the street.
They should really figure out home charging also, however. The problem is that most people don't buy parking spots in their apartment garages, and even if they did the garages don't have pylons and there isn't much will to put them in. Having to drive to work to charge is a bit of an issue on the weekend! But I guess the people that own Model S's are rich since they are around $120K here, maybe they all have villas in Shunyi or other places in the suburbs.
Note the metal bar around the weak plastic housing, this protects it against falls and accidents. Notice also the fold-out passenger foot-rests. The seat opens to reveal covered storage space: many people use this to keep rain-covers of various types. Inside will be typically five to seven batteries, which last about a year with reasonably heavy daily use. Replacement is about USD$90-150.
I'm curious how people charge and store these vehicles
Most apartment/office blocks or shopping/entertainment areas have someone who 'minds' the vehicles against theft. They also provide power plugs for charging your batteries. At least around here, the fee for such a service is about 1-2元 per day (USD$0.15-0.30). Power is cheap in China... we have vast numbers of hydro-electric dams here in the south-west, and probably state subsidy.
First and foremost, following the commodities boom there was also a boom in car sales in Brazil, but not a boom in car lanes. Government is spectacularly inefficient around here, specially when it comes to building and maintaining roads. Traffic has worsen considerably in the last decade, and all attempts from most cities of creating new passageways and tunnels ended up in streets closed for construction for several years, the constructions being stagnated by the inherit inefficiency of our government and later on by the lack of money once the crisis hit. Here in Porto Alegre there are various of those constructions with no one working on them, just making traffic worse. The BRT project is half dead and buses need to get out of the bus lane where it's under reform and go in the middle of the cars then back to the bus lanes. There are at least four main access roads near the bus station closed for reform. Not to mention the new bridge of which the construction has been stopped, or the tunnels that for years do not progress. Anyway, that rant aside, the whole "green" vibe around bikes is probably a huge factor too. So you have this transportation which is clean, healthy, faster than a car in some parts of town, and relatively cheap. Then, cities started to "build" bike lanes (actually just paint part of the car lane adjacent to the sidewalk and call it a bike lane, which made traffic even worse). I think that turned what was an increase in the number of cyclists into a boom in the last years.
It is around here, too, it's just that people go ahead and pay it anyway. For example, the Alderwood intersection for I5 and I405 took about 30 years to complete. They'd build one set of temporary ramps, then tear them down and build another, etc., etc., etc. You had to pay attention to the signage because it changed constantly, all over the place.
I charge mine downstairs together with a lot of other electric bikes. It costs me 30 RMB per month to charge. My neighbourhood is a typical Chinese one - i.e. not one of those fancy foreigner compounds.
My bike has a range of around 40-50 km depending on how many people are on the bike and how I drive it.
It doesn't look like the one in the picture you sent. More like a traditional motorised scooter - just with a battery. I paid 3000 RMB for it (new). It even comes with built in Bluetooth speakers, so I can annoy my fellow drivers on the street and people taking a stroll in the park with loud death metal music.
Re: charging:
- some people charge them at work, by using long extension cables
- lithium batteries are getting more popular, and this cuts the weight by more than 50%
- yes, when I used to ride an electric scooter (a vespa-style one, not the type in your pic) I would lug my battery up and down 5 flights of stairs, not just for charging, but also because the lithium battery is worth more than bike
That said, I'd love to have an ebike! I have a 26 mile one-way commute (that's a 30 minute train ride) but every once in a while I ride my road bike in. I arrive sweaty and have to clean up in the bathroom. Not ideal. If I had an ebike, I could ride in assisted without sweating all over the place and then on my commute home, turn the motor down and get a workout in.
I keep seeing videos on /r/ebike and similar from USA where some yahoo has ordered engine and battery from Ebay or China that can push the thing way into motorcycle range.
FWIW that makes it not a bicycle according to EN15194. EN15194 recommends a bicycle classification for vehicles which
* only ever provide assistance
* below 25km/h (with progressive cutoff)
* with maximum continuous rated power of 250W
Anything beyond that is classified as a moped.
Though EN15194 is a recommandation, member states are free to follow it or not.
I don't really care if people choose to ride them, but there are already designated trails that allow motorized access, and poaching mountain bike trails is going to ruin it for everybody.
I beginning to see a few on the local multi-use trail (where motorized vehicles are banned). One even has a giant fairing and looks more like a tuk-tuk or e-car than a bicycle.
Right now, there are few enough that it's not a big problem. But, the tuk-tuk e-bike is larger than a normal bike, so it's hard to pass (or make a pass) and will do more damage in a collision. Some of them are faster than the average road bike - I've seen several hybrid-style e-bikes cruising at close to 20mph with the rider soft-pedaling.
It's a can of worms for sure.
Normal guy first day on the bike and 75 pound overweight? He does about 12mph. Throw him on an ebike and he can do 30mph or more (depends on the speed regulator).
Overall I am very split on ebikes. Love seeing more guys on bikes. The more bikes, the more cars expect them, the more bike friendly laws, etc. On the other hand, biking is pretty cool. ebiking is more like motorcycling.
As you probably know, mountain bikers already struggle to get access to a lot of trails. Zipping around even faster is a sure fire way to lose access.
Once or twice, he did the commute into work using Strava as his speedo ... needless to say, he got some fairly negative feedback when he accidentally claimed the KOM (king of the mountain) on a bunch of routes, blowing away the second-best time. He has since learned about how to use Strava in private mode...
In my state that's a motorcycle, and illegal to ride on the street without a license plate and insurance. It'll be the same way most everywhere soon, I expect.
Note that I used the term electric scooters. I have nothing against regular bicycles with electric assist. That is, a vehicle with a reasonable weight (40-50 lb) allowing people to got at reasonable bicycle speeds (20 km/h is the max on most city bikepaths here) without exerting themselves. But people doing 30 km/h on a busy narrow bikepath on a 200lb vehicle is just unreasonable.
If the bike infrastructure made sense for these vehicles, it'd be another story. But at the moement and for the foreseeable future, the infrastructure is barely adequate for regular bicycles. The roads would be a way better alternative. I'm all for seeing more cars replaced by electric scooters in urban cores. Of course, winter is a big problem in montreal.
Made me want to get one.
I agree with your point about MTB versions
I had a pretty strong knee-jerk reaction to the electric mountain bike proposition initially. We're not really seeing the trails get overcrowded with them though, and I don't expect that any time particularly soon. With regular mountain bikes already costing an insane amount, I don't think any regular riders will risk it until prices become reasonable. I guess the weight requirements can be lessened though, which could help the cost.
I always assumed dirt bikes tore the hell out of trails (and some do), but what surprised me was trials bikes - with low pressure and good riding style, these actually have far less impact that your typical mountain biker (or hiker), even on sensitive moss/loam. With luck, we could have a similar situation with ebikes, perhaps even semi-automated.
My initial reaction I think was more disgust that untrained, out-of-shape people would be clamouring on my favourite trails en-masse, wrecking it in short order. That's a pretty exclusive/elitist opinion though, and doesn't make my athletic endeavours any less worthy. Plus that no e-bike is going to make descending shore-style trails any easier (probably the opposite).
Hopefully these things can evolve in a way that's inclusive, sustainable, and respectful to all trail users. Personally, I'd just like a little re-gen from my brakes :)
And for commuting, I think they're just about perfect. Once I have a long commute again, I'll probably nab one.
The total cost of ownership is way below a car, due to the low cost of Uber, other people with cars, insurance and gas. In high traffic and hard parking cities like LA and Boston, I get to my destination faster. And though a bicycle is almost 7x as dangerous per mile ridden, I travel much less—maybe 1,000 miles a year instead of the 15,000 I did by car. While the weather is a problem in Boston sometimes, some gloves and a warm coat tide it over well. Besides, who wants to drive in a snowstorm? Overall, the experience holds up to close scrutiny.
Conversely, I am pretty much subsidized by other people's vehicles. And in LA, I nonetheless still owned a $1,000 Toyota with a $50/mo insurance and low hundreds in parking tickets to keep it outside. While that ownership was only a small part of time, it was necessary.
eBikes I think can really effectively complement ride sharing and car sharing. It will save everyone money. And as more people adopt them, the danger of biking will decline through changes in infrastructure like bike lanes and lower speed limits.
Ironically, probably the least persuasive thing is pointing out how the Chinese adopt eBikes. Americans don't want to emulate Chinese anything. It needs to seem cool, organic, high class. Besides, a $3,500 eBike won't break when you come to a fast stop the way a $500 eBike conversion will. Better to keep it safe and expensive than mass manufactured and dangerous.
Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists.
Fatalities Per Mile
Motor Vehicle Travel.................... Bicycle Travel
42,000 killed........................... 813 killed
2.56 trillion miles..................... 21 billion miles
0.016 fatalities per million miles...... 0.039 fatalities per million miles
Data from Traffic Safety Facts 1997 and The Environmental Benefits of Cycling and Walking
Pulled from http://www.bellboycott.com/cached/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages...
Similar things can be said for driving, in that motor vehicle accidents are concentrated in certain segments of the population, (and people having unlucky interactions with those segments.)
Though this niggle of the statistics is more of an issue with bicycling statistics because the bicyclists who know more or less what they are doing get lumped in with the accident rates of people like the "DUI bicyclist" riding home after dark with no lights into oncoming traffic, or terrible tragedies of people driving carelessly through neighborhoods and running over little kids on their bikes.
Then consider, even if we had statistics showing moderately higher injury/death rates for comparable travel styles with a bike opposed to a car, the overall mortality rates in the bike vs car cohorts would no doubt be reversed because of the physical activity vs sitting factor, and likely lower stress levels of the cyclists. Physical activity tends to reduce stress.
Unsure about deaths, but it turns out that more experienced cyclists are actually more likely to be injured, even taking into account that experienced cyclists generally ride more.
I can't find the paper now, but [1] shows a similar finding:
accidents were associated with.... cycling experience (curvilinear association)
According to the research, overtaking vehicles drive closer to better equipped cyclists (wearing a helmet, reflective vest...) than a woman with long hair and no helmet.
Also, the bicyclist with protective gear might be more prone to engage in risky behaviour. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-h...
"The implication," Walker says, "is that any protection helmets give is canceled out by other mechanisms, such as riders possibly taking more risks and/or changes in how other road users behave towards cyclists."
Where are you getting that from? Car specific taxes generally don't even come close to paying for roads, especially the roads bicycles are likely to be using. In the US its actually far more likely that you're subsidizing them than the other way around.
[1] Santa Clara country, paid to extend HWY85 out of their own pocket and as a result, trucks are banned. Last time I drove it, it was still seemed in good shape after mumble twenty years. Compare with HWY880 though Oakland CA. Always being worked on, always broken up.
Why would you think that? The usual estimation for road wear is a fourth power law: scaling of road damage is axle load raised to the fourth power.
You on your bike may be 100kg on 2 axles, or an axle load of 0.05T. A model S has an axle load of 1T (2T over 2 axles), which means a Model S generates 160000 times the road wear a bike does. Incidentally, a loaded 18-wheeler (36T, 5 axles) generates ~1 billion times the road wear a bike does (and ~6700 time the tesla's)
I'm a bit out of touch of the latest developments in the market (I walk to work these days) but I'm sure you can find plenty of good options under 3k.
Also, FWIW, I was debating a second car (married w/kids) or the bike, and am 100% satisfied with my bike and the price I paid for it
These ebikes are a clever hack. In China they skirt motorcycle laws. In the US they can make use of bike paths. You can make good time and your commute is generally the same duration regardless of traffic. At least, that's true in Silicon Valley.
Last I checked (a few years ago) pedaling the ebikes is like pedaling a tank. Batteries and motors a heavy bike make. So you're using the motor and there's not a lot of cardio happening.
I ride my bike because I want to live longer/better. I don't think you get that with these, but there's definitely a niche for them.
But my biased opinion is buy a recumbent! Fewer back, neck, and nether region issues, plus, they have comfy seats! http://www.bacchettabikes.com/recumbent-bikes/
VERY comfy seats! http://www.hpvelotechnik.com/produkte/scorpion_plus20/index_...
A long wheelbase (crank behind the front wheel) and a more upright riding position is perfect in city traffic. On my commuter, my eye level is about even with drivers in crossover vehicles.
And, you can get the same cardio per unit of time (if you want) on an ebike as a regular bike. You just go faster, therefore further. And since you have a bit more speed, and you aren't required to do a major workout on every trip (so you don't have to change into cycling clothes), you end up using the ebike for a lot more trips -- therefore getting more exercise overall.
In my case, I have a 25 mile commute -- no way to make it in time on a regular bike. But an ebike makes it no problem. And I still get a decent amount of exercise (basically the difference between going for a very long walk vs running a sprint, so a different type of exercise), and on the weekends I give it my all (and just rack up more miles).
It's been great except for what it's doing to my electric bill and the fact the batteries are lead acid. Hoping to convert to LiPo in a couple of months.
To charge it, I have to bring it in the elevator of my building which is fine though it is the size of an actual gas motorbike and way heavier because of the batteries.
Power goes as the cube of speed, so 80 takes more than 4 times as much power as 60.
Of course, your speedometer could be lying to you.
It can only do that on a full charge and the bike shakes a bit too much for comfort. But traffic in Saigon rarely goes above 30km/h anyways. When I have free charge of the road, I average about 55km/h.
Given the same tires and aerodynamics, the difference in top speed between 1400W and 1800W is the cube root of 1800/1400, or 1.087 -- you can go 8.7% faster. That gets you to 61km/h. And I bet your aerodynamics and tires are both worse than mine.
So something is out of whack here. My guess is it's a combination of things. Most speedometers in cars read high, many by as much as 10%. So let's say you were really doing 72km/h. Maybe with a full battery you're really getting quite a bit more than 1800W. For my bike to do 72km/h would take at least (72/56)^3 * 1400W = 2800W. It sounds a bit unlikely that you could really get that much, but who knows, it depends on your controller and motor. (You'd think they would have rated it higher, though, if it could really do that.) To really get 80km/h would take over 3800W.
Why?
1. Hardcore cyclists are elitists in the US and will hate it and make life miserable for the e-bikers.
2. Non-cyclists will do dumb things in them like ride on the sidewalk.
3. Many state laws require registration and plates for these things.
2) As it gets more popular, hopefully more education will happen. In many cases, you have a seldom used sidewalk that runs for miles next to a bicycle hostile road. Is that a sidewalk or a multi-use path?
3) State laws are catching up -- see the new classification system that California passed (different regulations based on pedal assist vs. throttle, max speed, power, etc). They seem to have struck a decent balance.
Is there a pedestrian present? If so, that's a sidewalk.
Casual peddling on the sidewalk is one thing, zipping around at nearly 20 mph changes things.
Right now fast bikes are the province of serious people in spandex. When some overweight IT dude like me is moving like Lance Armstrong, that's a different story!
How will they make our lives miserable? They are the minority. Most cyclists are not "hardcore."
> 2. Non-cyclists will do dumb things in them like ride on the sidewalk.
Cyclists already do that with regular bikes.
> 3. Many state laws require registration and plates for these things.
Really? Which ones?
My biggest fear is when we will ruin it for everyone. There just isn't the proper infrastructure for them. Bike paths around here have 10mph speed limit signs and are mostly mixed use. Not enough connecting roads have bike lanes.
It will grow wildly popular once a cheap US based lithium battery supplier appears (Tesla/Panasonic).
I don't see a lot of people who aren't already comfortable cycling to work (though maybe preferring to get there faster and with less sweat), going out and buying an e-bike.
Basically, all the vehicles that sit in the intermediate gradients of speed/acceleration are in a position for their simple existence to offend everyone else.
Common sense wattage restrictions (I have seen 1hp or 750W as a threshold, for example, and apparently parts of Europe do 250W limits) are perfectly feasible.
Apparently federal law on imports dictates that the class of 'low-speed electric bicycles' is defined by a maximum of 750W and 20mph, which is a surprisingly appropriate envelope - about as much as you'd want out of a single-rider passenger bicycle with a heavy rider or cargo in a hilly city.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#Defined
That's part of the EU recommendation for classification as an assisted bicycle (pedelec) rather than an electric moped (e-bike): 250W maximum continuous rated power, assistance-only (user must be pedalling for engine to engage) and progressive cutoff to 25km/h[0] (so the cutoff starts earlier, at 25km/h or above there's no assistance)
[0] ~16mph
(This isn't a good thing. A poorly enforced law is a great vector for discrimination.)
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2015/03/electric-bikes...
During my daily commute from and to work I think about one in ten I pass / pass me is an electric motor supported bike. It seems that mostly elderly people are riding them, but more and more people under 50 are using them as well.
Note that e-bikes here are normal bikes with an electric motor to assist the cyclist to keep a (slightly faster than) normal pace. Personally, I dislike the e-bikes who behave like mopeds/scooters and go 30km/h or more because they're dangerous. Especially on bike path given the difference in speed between regular cyclists and these electric monsters.
Then again everyone rides bicycles here.
The perfect low-cost solution to traffic carbon emissions and we hate the people who use it. Expect the same in USA.
Why e-bikes are the next big thing
Like a car, they offer cheap on-demand transit to your exact destination. Unlike a car they do not support long distances, heavy loads or more than 2 people, but often those features are not needed by the urban commuter. Furthermore they lack many of the drawbacks of a car; getting stuck in traffic, the need for parking, the need for insurance, licensing requirements, high fuel requirements etc. Furthermore an e-bike is a signifigantly smaller investment than a car. Having it lost, stolen or damaged poses less of a personal risk to your finances. Unlike a classical bike, e-bike's do not require the user to be in shape or even exert effort to operate. Thus we see that in the personal transport market, e-bikes represent the best of both worlds for the urban commuter. We can see proof by demonstration that in the right conditions they can be enormously popular (China). Why haven't they taken off all over the world yet?
1. Topography. They are generally not powerful enough to go up steep hills. Sadly this rules out San Fransisco which would otherwise be quick to pick up on an eco-friendly trend.
2. Weather. In the cold winter with icy roads these vehicles are unpleasant to drive. A 40 km/hr wind chill on top of 0 degrees will make you sick. The Chinese have invented a sort of bike apron/jacket that helps with this but although it is an unfashionable solution. For this reason the bitter North East and flat-but-frigid Mid West probably wont take to them (ruling out the otherwise perfect market of New York).
3. Regulation. These vehicles neither qualify as motorcycles nor bicycles and thus are often ambiguous or de facto illegal in many parts of the states.
I think point 3 is a huge mistake. If the US is serious about green technologies, deregulating e-bikes would be a huge boon.
Further thoughts: People initially think e-bikes are unsafe. That is because of historisis. If e-bikes developed before cars then most traffic would be e-bikes for the practical reasons cited. If most traffic were e-bikes then they would be seen as enormously safe. In general they do not have the momentum to seriously damage pedestrians or other e-bike users. It is actually cars that are the dangerous vehicles. Furthermore if most traffic were e-bikes then the throughput of a given road would go up because about 4 to 5 e-bikes can easily drive in the same space currently used by a car. This effect is partially canceled by the fact that e-bikes are slower than cars, but within a city driving speeds are only about 30-50 km/hr anyway. The amount of parking space available in the city would also go up for similar reasons.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flux-electric-bikes-with-...
I also think that a critical point, use will take off, and safety will go up.
I think that when someone rides a bike they become much more aware of cyclists, so getting more people on bikes makes them safer from vehicle drivers.
These days I'm seeing a growing number of e-bikes on paths that were designed as bike infrastructure but are multi-use. My view is that they'll be OK so long as the behavior of the riders doesn't get out of hand, which we'll find out when the accident statistics start to pile up in bigger cities. For now they're relatively few in number, and the riders tend to be quite courteous.
I'm supportive if it increases demand for bike infrastructure and awareness of bike safety.
I like the idea of bikes. I want to ride them on bike trails. But I wouldn't ride it on the streets in suburbs, for example. It it just not worth the risk to me. It would take considerable infrastructure rebuild, bike lanes, better planned intersections, etc before I would consider riding a bike.
IMHO ebikes are not less safe. You can manually pedal faster than most ebikes, and just because their average moving speed is higher, that does not make them intrinsically less safe.
Then I got a car and got lazy and tired of the dangers of trying to travel across town next to people texting on their smartphones in two ton SUVs
I have a 4.4 mile round trip commute but I don't really want to spend $1000+ , plus I'm pretty diy.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/25/recipe-for-a-badas...
2.2 miles takes about 40 minutes to walk.
On a bike and mostly flat terrain, 10-15 minutes max.
Unless the commute is a steeply graded 2.2 mile slope the motor seems overkill and providing little if any benefit to travel time or enjoyment. Wouldn't you rather get to work with a little endorphin rush?
Maybe ride the route first after work or on a weekend to show yourself you can do it. But after a commute or two you will quickly see it's nothing and likely want to ride even further.
People buy a cheap MTB from Halfords, use it casually a few times out with the kids and then try commuting on it perhaps as part of a Cycling Week. After a couple of attempts it goes back into the garage.
Outside Oxford and Cambridge, traditional road-going non-racing frames are quite rare.
Just wish more would come with accesories useful to most utilitarian cyclists. Fenders, lights, racks/baskets, and chain guard. Man, chain guards are so hard to come upon in NA, I really envy european bikes for that. I suspect for most peopl it's #1 reason for not cycling in regular/work/office clothes
A decent hub motor kit starts off at around $350 from a reputable vendor, you can either put on a front or rear hub motor. I've heard good things about the Golden Motor's magic pie kit (and variations) -- this is a direct drive from $325 to $375 or so, but since it is direct drive I would put it on the back wheel myself. The only front wheel conversion I would do would be a geared motor.
< 5 miles is very doable with pedaling. my commute is to work is 5 miles and my best time is 23 minutes (in Boston).
You can spend nothing and get a free gym membership out of it.
Individual cells are usually fragile (as in, you can dent or puncture easily). However, they are usually protected by their enclosure.
If you are talking about lithium cells, then you should not drain them completely. Which means that they should be kept with some charge. But, unless you intend to keep them stored away for months at a time (and maybe even then) you should be fine.
There's also that fact that, when people think about batteries, they think about laptop batteries. Those are optimized for power density above all else. They are not the only type of cells available.
If you are worried about safety (and charging cycles), get a LiFePo battery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery). This is the same kind usually found in electric vehicles and hybrids.