US electric bikes set to pass 1M sales annually, globally tracking to $40B
electrek.co
electrek.co
The government could literally fully buy 5 high quality ebikes for the tax credit it gives for a single EV.
If they would give a 50% tax credit for eBikes and push a program to convert a single car lane in most roads in cities to protected micromobility lanes to build out a complete network, they could eliminate the gas problem in both the short and long terms almost entirely.
Americans seem to prefer complaining about their government to actually having competent government.
Jeez, and why is that? Here's a wild idea, instead of offshoring out entire manufacturing sector to sweatshop countries without human rights and environmental regulations, just to drive down cost and increase shareholder value, we instead invest in domestic manufacturing for critical sectors such as transportation (yes bikes are a means of transportation and the best one for cities at that). Or, instead of the government aiding Exxon or BP they aid local E-Bike manufacturing.
Several European countries have E-Bike companies with domestic manufacturing. So it's possible to do in the west.
(Fun fact: apparently the American condition doesn’t even mention human rights.)
Just whatever you do, don't give it to the ones pulling all the proprietary and drm bullshit.
The criminal part is lack of bike paths.
Induced demand works for allt types of transport.
Some electric ones I've seen cost as much as a used Nissan Leaf.
Don't get me wrong, I loved cycling in Netherlands, but bikes wont work unless there's also great options for public transport. I can't imagine taking 30 mile rides in this from suburbs in Los Angeles or going up mountains at -20C...
A ford ranger is completely impractical in an italian inner city historic area where it doesn't fit in any of the streets. A nissan leaf is equally impractical deep in the canadian north where it can't make it to the next charging station during winter, let alone your destination. Trains are impractical when there are only five people within 20km of any proposed station site.
Large cars are wildly impractical in dense cities in temperate or warmer environments (where over half the world's population lives). Even if you try to forcefully change the city to make them viable at massive expense to car owners and non-drivers alike it just results in the downsides being diffuse. In a context where you're trying to get a large number of people in the same place, arranging things so you have to travel 5x as far at 35km/h (traffic rarely moves faster than this on average during peak times) so you can bring a 2t hunk of metal and plastic with you that not only gets you to your destination slower than a brisk walk would if you hadn't - it also makes everyone sick via pollution (even electric cars cause massive air pollution issues due to particles -- a tesla actually causes more pm2.5 emissions than a euro6 hatchback) and diabetes; makes large tracts of the city uninhabitable due to proximity to loud, dangerous machines, wastes about half of the available space in parking, setbacks, roads, and so on; and reduces the maximum density due to congestion.
This doesn't make a bike or a car impractical. It makes the bike an absolute no brainer for 70% of the trips of half the world's population (given sane infrastructure) and an option to add to a healthy mix for 95% of the rest. Trains are just as important, and cars should be optional everywhere (even if living without owning one is impractical for 20% of the population)
Sure, a lot of the US lives in car-dependent neighborhoods but ebikes are a nice way to slowly grow out of that and they are excellent in places that aren't car dependent.
The only problem I see is that bikes are also very easy to be stolen and the police here (Finland) doesn’t seem to do much about it.
i solved this by getting insurance. when mine was stolen police told me they never find them except when they find a huge number of stolen bikes all at the same place and time (eg a warehouse, a garage etc)
*it may be a different grade steel than a lock steel
For completeness sake, I used a machinable steel rod, turned to 18mm. For cutting I used a Makita 18V grinder with a 125mm disc (I had a partially used disc. A full disc would cut it faster) and with a full battery (it cuts slightly slower as battery runs out).
I have the Kryptonite New York Fahgettaboudit Mini. Two cuts are needed to remove it. Along with the quality of steel, and awkwardness of cutting a lock that isn't clamped in a vice, there's no way the thief will be done in 20 seconds.
The best seems to be the Hiplok D1000, which took 20 minutes for them to cut using a corded grinder, vice and several cutting blades. https://youtu.be/GMg6zVdYI0g?t=179
The Hiplok weighs 2kg, (same as my Kryptonite), so looks like a great lock for e-bikes. Only problem is, everyone wants one and not enough supply.
this didn't help me. they cut through that easily.
Definitely the future of personal mobility.
https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/01/solte...
The bike would weigh about 20kg. She's carrying it on her shoulder like it's nothing.
E-bikes are awesome, but not easily carried on shoulder. The speed limiter is another annoyance, to comply with laws the assistance cuts out at 25kph or similar. On straight paths 25 feels sluggish on a big sturdy ebike, so there's incentive for rider to fix and circumvent or bump the limit by 10 or so.
25-32kph is the ideal status quo speed for human piloted transport. Faster than traffic can flow in medium to high density areas, but slow enough that it is hard to kill yourself and everyone has plenty of time to react at conflict points without burdensome traffic control measures. Pushing for faster ebikes just turns what little dedicated infrastructure there is into mini stroads and we're back to the same idiotic arms race that got us here in the first place.
So I paid a guy to halve the speed that is reported to the controller. This is the best way to modify the bike, as it can be easily reversed. No hardware change needed, and no trace of tampering.
I couldn't do it myself. A guy with special bluetooth device and software connected to my bike made the change. Bike is now good. Motor no longer cuts out at 25 km/h.
I almost never ride above 35 km/h anyway, and often use the lowest power setting. If they had made the limit 32 km/h, I probably would never have bothered hacking the firmware.