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Comment by greenaboveall | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate the technical challenge and creativity. But is it really that "green"? The battery, the solar cells, the extra heavy frame, and in a few years when it's out of fashion, all that is trash. Sure, compared to a gasoline driven motorcycle it's maybe better for the environment after enough miles, considering the whole lifecycle. Not by much though.

But if you compare it to a reasonably light "ordinary" bike, driven by muscle power, this is nowhere near "eco". It's heavy, it's expensive, and it's not going to do much good for your health. If you want a vehicle with an engine, leave the pedals out and be honest about it. Otherwise, a classical bicycle is the better fit in many ways.

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Let's forget about the solar cells (there's not that many on this bike) - e-bikes really are extremely eco-friendly. Your points are not correct and I want to point out why:

> It's expensive

It's cheap. An e-bike like this costs as much as some of the extras on a car.

> it's not going to do much good for your health

This is just incorrect - if you have an e-bike, you are way more likely to use it compared to a muscle powered bike, and you are going to ride longer distances with it. In sum, the positive health effects of using an e-bike regularily are larger than using a muscle-powered one.

> compare it to a reasonably light "ordinary" bike, driven by muscle power, this is nowhere near "eco"

if you count calories, and are on an average omnivore diet, e-bikes are actually more efficient than muscle-powered bikes. it's eco.

> leave the pedals out and be honest about it

?? not sure what you mean with honest?

> in a few years when it's out of fashion

opinion: e-bikes are not a fashion, but here to stay. it's far less trash than a car.

The gasoline-electro argument is kind of true for cars though, electric cars are not eco, just slightly better than gas cars.

> the positive health effects of using an e-bike regularly are larger than using a muscle-powered one

That might be true for someone, but it's a bit of a leap in general

It is only true for the lazy motherfuckers who wouldn't ride a bike instead.

So I'd say the presence of e-bike is a positive for the overall health of the society compared to these people owning a car. On a 1:1 case of having the choice to ride a muscular powered bike vs ebike this is different.

In general people with ebikes tend to use them more, there is nothing lazy about that. It just extends the range and time ordinary people can bike.

This is neither supported by statistics nor by personal observation.

What prevents people from biking is mostly weather: cold/hot, rain. Neither are fixed by an ebike.

When it's chilly, an ebike is actually worse. You heat up less and go faster, so more windchill.

People who buy an e-bike more than double their use of bicycle for transport. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136192092...

> It's cheap. An e-bike like this costs as much as some of the extras on a car.

Yes, if you buy a car new, and you are lucky enough to have the money and location (which is also money) to choose to buy this instead of buying a car with that extra.

In other words: it's not cheap for most people, who need a car or two anyway, and buy a second hand one.

There are many families with two cars that could drop to one car plus ebikes. The things you cannot do on an ebike can be done on the car that remains. It requires some coordination of trips because you can't just take 'your car' when you want to go someplace that needs a car, but most families are rarely in the situation where they have two such trips at the same time. YMMV of course, but if you are car dependent there is still a good change you can be a one car family.

> The things you cannot do on an ebike can be done on the car that remains

Imagine you are in the normal situation of having two parents, both driving to their jobs, and dropping one or two children to school or other activities.

If you can replace one of your cars with an e-bike, you:

- at least one of you is white collar and can work from home or have flexible hours

- live somewhere that transportation is simple for at least half of your journeys, and that half of your driving journeys can all be done by the same person

- have only one full-time worker, who has a big enough salary to cover all needs

- live in an expensive metropolis with excellent public transport

Now, my family has only one car, but we tick three of those boxes and live in a cycling-friendly city. I would never pretend that what we do is particularly doable by a large number of people.

You don't need to work form home, you only need to have a job within bike distance of home. This isn't everyone, but it is a fair number of people. Most people are in a long term marriage like relationship, and the other doesn't need to be in this situation.

I agree that there more of what you list you check, the better a bike is, but I think most people could check enough of those boxes if their tried just a little. It would be worth it for them for health reasons.

> This isn't everyone, but it is a fair number of people

As my list indicates, anyone who has this has an easier time of it, but they quite possibly paid more for their house if they live near their employer.\

> Most people are in a long term marriage like relationship

Are they? Why does this matter?

> I think most people could check enough of those boxes if their tried just a little

Most of them need relatively little effort if they have a tech job - that's my situation. They get far, far more difficult if they have a blue collar / low paying job / kids with issues / health issues of their own.

Marriage matters because with two people you can share one car, including the costs. If you need a car 10% of the time you still pay for it, so you may as well use it. However if you are married share the partners car. Odds are good that even a 10% use of a car overlaps with your partners use if you don't have some other alternative, and so most buy a second car, but a bike could cover enough transport that your remaining use doesn't overlap.

I said "marriage like" relationship. Marriage as other legal and cultural connotations that may not apply, but your relationship is still such that you can share one car.

My original case was considering a two parent family, so unless you're mentioning the case of two people and no kids, which would just be a different case entirely, I don't understand your point.

I don't understand the "cycling is for rich people" argument where it's actually the case that people with low wages are the ones that overwhelmingly do not own a car.

Your post works without the "e" in front of "bike".

For some people. The distance you can go is less on a regular bike. When I was young the idea of putting a tent on my bike and camping someplace remote sounded good, but these days I actually do put that load on my bike only for very short trips.

I explicitly stated that it depends on what you compare with. Sure a car is more costly. And sure the ebike is better for your health than going by car. And sure it's less trash than a car at its end of life. But if you compare with an average commuter bicycle, the story is the opposite. I already wrote all of this, but you chose to ignore that, sadly.

My parents still have their bicycles which they bought 48 years ago and use them daily. Minor repairs over the years, but by and large the same vehicles. I want to see you use your ebike essentially unchanged 48 years from now. With the original battery obviously, and with its bluetooth controlled smartphone app. Good luck.

Where I live, the people who bought an ebike and use it daily/regularly are disproportionally people who were already using an ordinary bicycle regularly. (A local newspaper made a study in collaboration with the local university.) The thought that it transitions people from using cars to something more green and healthy is largely a myth. It transitioned people from burning 600 kcal on their commute to 100 kcal on their commute. And when it's raining they still use their car.

Well I am a fit cyclist and am still riding completely muscular bikes. Having said that when I am using my trailer with heavy cargo hilly stuff can be a challenge and especially when I am on street clothing and don't want to sweat like a pig. Right now I am living at sea level so it is not a big deal but I can see my astmatic gf wanting an electric engine to help her in the hills when going back from groceries if we couldn't afford the seaside rent and had to live farther. Same with old people, they are totally fine with a regular bicycle in the flat but add groceries and hills and it is a different subject.

E-bikes an average end up being greener and healthier[1] than regular bikes because they get used so much more often, and the ultimate eco goal is to replace car trips rather than make the biking itself as green as possible. This is because they expand the possible destinations for a bike that fit into someone's daily life in a couple of possible ways:

1) The user doesn't want to be sweaty at the destination e.g. work, dinner

2) The user doesn't want to be too tired at the destination e.g. park, gym

3) the destination is too far away for their level of fitness

4) the destination takes too long to get to (a fit person can go much faster on an e-bike)

(3) and (4) are especially important in the US where bicyclists have to contend with the distances created by car-centric design.

[1] https://electrek.co/2019/08/11/electric-bike-riders-more-exe...

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