It also grinds my gears that there's tax breaks for getting e-cars and nothing for getting e-bikes. It's almost as if politicians are employed by car manufacturers.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/17/motonormativit...
[1] Tangential reading: 'Why Buddhism is True' by Robert Wight:
They require a secure indoor storage space at both ends of the any journey, and many potential users lack that, either at their workplace or their home (e.g living in an apartment only accessible via stairs)
Why can't e-bikes be this way? My answer: they can and are, just not all of them yet.
Bike theft is down there with shoplifting or recreational drug use when it comes to policing priorities. But when a bike is stolen, often a person is losing an important means of transportation, so perhaps it should be taken more seriously.
Not going to happen in a ‘soft on crime’ society, though.
I believe the Kia/Hyundai debacle of the last few years supports this idea:
> So far this year, Minneapolis police have received 1,899 Kia and Hyundai theft reports, nearly 18 times the number for the same period in 2022. [1]
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/hyundai-kia-tiktok-theft-stolen-8...
Fighting car theft lowers insurance rates. But virtually nobody insures a bike.
I would also venture to guess that most officers don't cycle to work or in their free time.
I'm particularly fond of theft magnets, very attractive stealable cars equipped with cameras and remote shutdown and a team watching from a distance. Park it at a mall or on some side street, wait for the trap to be sprung, and poof! One less thief on the loose.
Bikes, not so sure. A good U-lock and a plastic-coated cable are a start, but these can be defeated within a minute by a professional.
I just heard on one of the YT China channels that people are indeed taking their batteries with them when they park their bikes, not so much out of fear of common theft, but because the police are empowered to confiscate e-bikes for a variety of infractions and it's almost impossible to get them back.
I also saw Mark Rober speak yesterday, I think with Allen Pan. He mentioned doing some sort of video where they built bait bikes and used them to sucker thieves. And I think Rober said they are doing another bike theft project where they'll be trying to trace things to the higher ups.
So I think the lack here is more that of a motivated anti-theft team. But motivation may be hard to come by. Not only are bike thefts notoriously low priority, only 21.5% of SFPD officers actually live in SF: https://missionlocal.org/2023/07/sf-police-firefighters-supe...
Quality of life crimes matter a lot less when it's not your quality of life.
To steal a 15 lbs bicycle, one need only pick it up and walk away.
My motorcycle is 500lbs wet. Close to 700 with full cases.
Are you really suggesting it's just as easy stealing a 500-700lb bike as a 20lb bike?
So you do agree with me, that it's a lot more work stealing a motorcycle than stealing a bicycle?
All locks can be picked, but it takes more skill for the better ones. Modern encryption is (so our math says, though i'm not sure what the limits are) essentially unbreakable, and so a better solution.
The ability to gain entry is trivial given a few minutes and intent.
The locks in my house are there so the glass has to be broken. The glass is there to give me enough time to respond.
If someone is picking my lock they are involved in a hit, not theft.
Which I then questioned what the hell am I doing adding a deadbolt to a door with a massive window. If someone wants to get in, they're gonna get in. The only thing that really keeps my family safe is the fact the vast majority of my neighbors don't want to hurt me, not some lock on my door.
Just further shows the futility of putting an expensive lock on a regular home door. If someone wants in, they'll get in. The lock is definitely more of a "please don't come in" than anything real.
Cameras and alarms help a bit more.
The possibility of someone being home or men with guns responding is a big deterrent. Smash and grabs are usually done on cars not homes.
That's an electric moped.
So I guess it would look, almost exactly, halfway between these
https://currentebikes.com/wp-content/uploads/california_elec...
They have some good cells and some bad ones?
hit up the homebrew powerwall forums for more sources.
I wandered around a few weeks ago taking photos of all of the pink bikes because I appreciated them: my Jeep is a lovely fuchsia.
With a heavy chain and a cafe lock, theft is pretty low on my list of concerns.
If they store the stolen bikes somewhere, then it'd be easy for police to set up a honeypot bike operation with a tracker inserted into the frame. Lock it up somewhere that's known for thefts and wait for it to be nicked.
It’s really tiny, like half a stick of gum but lasts weeks between charges. Sends a notification whenever the bike is moved and tracks location when it’s on the move.
Also hidden an Air Tag and added a rear-light that doubles as an alarm when the bike is moved.
Still won’t leave the bike out for the night but feeling a bit better when I’m not around during the day.
Not everyone is willing to take matters into their own hands, like this person's dad did.
https://road.cc/content/news/cyclist-couple-challenge-counci...
Although I don't really understand why you can't reserve/pay for the spot outside your own house, for a vehicle OR a bike, which would seem to me a solution that would please everyone.
Quite rightly too - it's simply not legal for them to put it there.
There are proper processes in place to get an official hangar installed. These might be challenging, but that's the only fair way to do things.
I think the biggest problem with cars is that we happily accept the impact they have on the entire community, just so that some people who use them can have more convenience. The cost of having a car is passed on to everyone.
Similarly, with bikes it's never going to be possible for every single person in the city to have a cargo bike parked outside their house - there simply isn't room. This isn't ideal, but a situation where only someone who gets there first can do it isn't ideal either.
I don't believe the council provide official hangars that can fit a cargo bike and there's a significant waiting list for hangars as well as needing multiple neighbours declaring that they're going to use them. Unofficial solutions seem to be the only thing possible.
Hell even if my bike got stolen every month it's still cheaper to just buy a new one than car ownership once you factor in gas and maintenence, let alone parking.
I hate parking. Not paying for it, but finding a spot. It sucks. And I'd rather deal with someone taking something off my bike than smashing my window again.
Idk man, I encourage anyone to give an ebike a try. They're fantastic.
But what they're missing is that the SFPD has always been like this for bicycles. A while back I had only locked my front wheel and my frame, so some dedicated thief stole the back wheel. I walked in to the nearest police station with the remains of my bike. The cop on the desk asked why I was there. "To report a crime," said I, holding up the bike. He looked befuddled, asking if I needed it for an insurance report or something. "No, I thought that the police might want to know about a crime." He shrugged and took the report, but clearly did not give a shit.
If cops took bike theft as seriously as car theft (which they should given that in both cases it can be somebody's primary transportation) I think we'd see a lot more e-bike usage.
We weren't missing much from that theft, but some of our neighbors were.
And so it is extremely unlikely that I'd leave my cheap bike anywhere, let alone my electric bike or scooter, no matter how well-locked it was. It 100% goes with me, or I don't take it at all.
Cops don't care about it, virtually nowhere in the World
The same goes for bikes in most cities. Strangely enough they seem to care about theft of jewellery more, even if a bike is more expensive.
If that becomes more widespread, e-bike theft will be a lot riskier, and hopefully easier for companies to insure.
One thing at a time.
These schemes have boosted the adoption of e-bikes and most cities, big and small, have been playing catch-up to provide bike lanes in and around city centres.
Currently travelling across France along canals and rivers and the network is pretty extensive all over the country. It’s basically the same story all over Europe (and the UK), with varying degrees of coverage.
You can also buy (or rent) tricycle-style bikes that have a large space at the front to carry heavier loads - children, pets, or just shopping. I assume there are electric versions of these as well.
In fairness, most of this assumes that the city is reasonably bike accessible, mainly in terms of having all the necessary amenities within a cycle ride from home. If you live in suburbs, this may not be as possible. But I think that says more about the inadequacy of poorly planned cities than that of electric bikes.
We have kids and since moving somewhere with good cycle infrastructure and convenient city planning I have never missed having a car. It works fine with cargo and individual bikes.
Where I live in Texas there’s a $800 rebate for e-bikes.
Cycle to work schemes let you buy a bike before income tax. I'm not sure how that compares to e-car tax breaks though.
All your employer if they have such a scheme.
(I'm not looking to buy an e-bike as I'm more of an acoustic cyclist)
That's just a technicality, I assume to make it comply with other laws about using company money to buy personal items. Payments are deducted from your pre-tax earnings each month, so the saving come from paying less income tax; you can't give the company a wad of cash up-front, or have it all come out of one month's salary.
> you hope that your employer will give the bike to you at the end of that period
They will always give you the bike: Cycle to Work schemes are offered as an employee benefit, the company doesn't want the bike. More important is what happens if you leave the company before that period; e.g. when a previous employer folded I had some some balance remaining to pay (around £500), which was deducted from my redundancy payment.
> The problems are that your employer might not want the extra hassle involved of potentially owning unwanted bikes (my employer has no interest in the scheme)
That's certainly true, and probably the main reason to avoid it (as an employer). Still, it's not much different to having surplus office furniture; at the higher-end, I imagine it's similar to an employee requiring some specialist desk chair, which the company can sell off afterwards.
> he last time that I checked, the tax break was on only the first £1000.
It varies per employer, e.g. I got one up to £1500. More annoying is that it must cover the full price: e.g. you can't pay £100 cash to get a £1600 ebike (although some sellers may fiddle the price tag to get around this!)
The only time I used cycle-to-work was many years ago, so I might have misremembered. However, I've heard that current schemes tend to just give out vouchers that can be used in certain bike shops (e.g. Halfords) on bikes and bike accessories and can be used in part payment for bikes. To be honest, increasing the price limit only really helps people who already committed cyclists, so maybe it's at a fair level.
Bikes are a local thing. If the weather is too hot, or cold, or wet, or snowy, you're out of luck.
Cars appeal nationwide. They'll get you hundreds of miles, comfortably, between remote destinations that aren't served by public transport or airports.
Or, they'll help you get groceries for the whole family.
If you think your area would be better off if tax breaks went to e-bikes, write your city and state governments. Depending on where you live, they're already taking upwards of 10% or more of your income, plus taxing the goods you buy and the land you live on.
> If the weather is too hot, or cold, or wet, or snowy, you're out of luck.
I really don't think the weather is as much of a barrier as it's often made out to be. The Netherlands is famously windy and rainy and Oulu, Finland has snow 5 months out of the year, but nevertheless lots of people cycle in both places.
But yes, if your bike lanes and paths are unmaintained (or worse, have all the street's snow plowed into them) it won't be attractive to cycle in the winter. That's a question of infrastructure and priorities though, it's not the weather alone.
> Or, they'll help you get groceries for the whole family.
I ride an Urban Arrow Family, and it works fine for bringing home lots of groceries.
I'm not making some wild guess, I'm going based on observations of riders in the nearby metro where I once lived. Bike usage plummets twice a year- very few people want to deal with -40 wind chills or have a shower at work after biking in 90F/33c sun.
Hence, my argument that e-bikes tax breaks make more sense at local levels than they do broadly applied.
Hot days aren't an issue for ebikes until you get to extreme temperatures. I've found it to be much better than walking; I'd sweat more waiting for my car to cool down. This is in Sydney, up to 40C and fairly humid.
Extremely variable based on local climate. I'll take cycling in a 68F rainstorm or the snow compared to 98F at 76% relative humidity.