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Comment by eemil | Hacker News Reader

Though I'm a big proponent of pure electric vehicles, we should be acknowledging that they're still a large source of carbon emissions from manufacturing and in some cases electricity used. The most desirable option would be to move away from individually owned automobiles altogether.

E-bikes are the way to go. They fill the gap between bike-able distances and those requiring alternate propulsion for many people. And depending on your diet, they're in some cases more environmentally friendly than normal bicycles per distance traveled. That doesn't even matter, since both are an order of magnitude better than the automobile.

It's crazy that we're spending thousands to subsidize electric vehicles and mostly ignoring e-bikes.

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Carbon emission from vehicle manufacturing is localized to the area they are manufactured in. The benefits of electric vehicles is that you don't have cities and suburbs full of smog from combustion engines.

You must live in a warm climate - these are the only people who suggest bikes as a replacement for vehicles. Riding a bike in the winter is really difficult. It's not impossible, it's just so much of a challenge that it's not even worth entertaining as an idea - just drive a car with a roof and heater.

I loathe car culture, but bicycles are very dangerous compared to cars, and e-bikes moreso. Motorcycles are approximately 30 times more dangerous than cars, and bicycles about 15 times more dangerous. Goes to figure that e-bikes would be somewhere between those two.

Plus, they are not usable in many weather conditions.

Dangerous in what way? It's my understanding that it's mainly cars that are a danger to bicyclists.

I've injured myself multiple times on bicycles, never as a result of a car, despite traveling a tiny sliver of the distance that I have in a car.

I've, thankfully, never been injured in a car accident.

I realize this is anecdotal, but there's strong reasons to believe bicycles are dangerous all by themselves. Traveling at high velocities with little protection on only two wheels is a recipe for accidents.

I assume velomobiles or recumbent tricycles would be much safer, if one doesn't mind the looks from passerby.

That's simply not true. Cycling in many European countries is no more dangerous than being an occupant in a motor vehicle and a significant proportion of cyclist injuries and deaths are caused by motor vehicles.

Proper cycling and walking infrastructure combined with a reduction of car usage in cities makes cycling an extremely safe activity. In addition the extra health benefits from physical exercise more than offsets any increase in risk from a collision at a societal level.

As for cyling not being usable in many weather conditions - perhaps in extreme winters, but in London there're very few days in the year, if any, that I can't happily ride the 22km round trip to work and back.

You don't need to die to injure yourself on a bike. I've hit ruts in the road and scraped my knee and torn pants. I've slipped my foot off the pedal and wacked my shin, cut my hand putting a chain back on the derailer, and nutted myself on the seat by hopping a curb.

Contrast that to the fact that I've never been injured in a car, even though I've been in a few accidents.

In case of bicycles, isn't the danger coming mainly from the fact that they are often used on roads alongside cars?

It is. Cars are by far the biggest danger to all other participants in traffic, including bicycles. There's a reason pedestrians have their own space separated from cars. Bikes have the same requirement, then we get drastically less risk.

Bikes would be much safer after reaching critical mass, where it would make sense to have dedicated infrastructure for them.

As it stands, the current infrastructure is basically hostile at every level.

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