Love of cargo bikes is changing how we deliver goods in our cities | Hacker News Reader

Love of cargo bikes is changing how we deliver goods in our cities

euronews.com

67 pointsrglullis137 comments

We (family of 5) live in Vienna and we're pretty multi modal. We have an annual ticket for the public transport system, have a minivan, a cargo bike and individual bikes for all of us. On top of that kick scooters. So money is really not an issue when it comes to picking the right vehicle since we have pretty much all the options. Within the city, the cargo bike and the kick scooters by far get the most utilization. The kick scooters in part because they are super useful to speed up the way to public transport.

But man the cargo bike is just a whole different game. Yes, it's a bit heavy but you can use pretty much all infrastructure with it and you can haul a lot with it. Particularly in the summer time when we go to the pools or other activities it's a no brainer. Parking is not an issue, neither is being stuck in traffic.

The cost obviously is a massive hurdle for most families probably, and so is over night parking for many.

Within the city we have more kilometers on the cargo bike than the car by at least double.

> The cost obviously is a massive hurdle for most families probably, and so is over night parking for many.

Cargo bikes have an absurdly and inexplicably high cost. It's unbelievable how they can easily cost over $5k. That's nearly half a brand new car like a Dacia Sandero. The economy is barely there with all this price gouging.

I imagine economies of scale are much greater with cars than cargo bikes. If it was possible to charge, say, 50% less for a cargo bike I’m sure someone would be, and they’d be taking the entire market with them.

Not to mention, every government tripping over themselves to hand out all kinds of multi billion dollar subsidies to any car manufacturer willing to set up shop in their jurisdiction. And a slew of implicit subsidies to car manufacturing, use, storage/parking, legal frameworks ("if you want to murder someone and get away with it, do it with a car"), etc.

Yeah, scale is the problem. The market is tiny compared to cars and even motorcycles. Brands like RAD and Lectric do compete on price and as a result they sell higher volumes than the nicer expensive R&Ms or Urban Arrows or whatever.

Comparing a cargo bike to a new car only makes sense if that new car requires no fuel, no significant maintenance, no tax, and no insurance.

A $5k cargo bike it’s almost certainly a e-bike, additional cargo bikes haven’t really hit the manufacturing scale needed for automation to make sense. So there’s a significant amount of labour involved in effectively hand building, and hand welding these bikes. Something that simply isn’t true for cars.

I also don’t think there is much price gouging happening with cargo bikes. Unlike cars, the barrier to entry for new manufacturers is practically zero, so if it was easy to build new cargo bikes cheaper, someone would do it.

But even if there was significant price gouging involved. Economically, a $5k cargo bike will have a total cost of ownership orders of magnitude lower than a car, regardless of cars price.

Consumers are very sensitive to upfront cost.

There's a vicious cycle of automobile orientated development creating demand for cars. Cars are considered essential transportation tools. Bikes are considered nice to have recreational, fitness, or kids' toys. So people aren't willing to spend thousands on a bike unless it can replace a car.

You’re making some very big assumptions about “consumers” here. Unlike the U.S. most European cities have decent public transport, and a car isn’t seen as essential.

I live near central London, can easily afford a car, have a private location to park a car etc etc. But I don’t own a car, or consider a car essential, driving in London is simply the slowest, most expensive and stressful form of transport. I do however consider my bike an essential transport tool, alongside my Oyster card.

If we need a car, then we just rent one (and have it dropped off near our home). So we rent a car when going on trips out of London, or needing to move items that we can’t using our bikes.

> So people aren't willing to spend thousands on a bike unless it can replace a car.

That’s a very large assumption, you also make it sound like a bike can’t replace a car. Which simply isn’t true, for many European cities the opposite is true, a car can’t replace a bike.

situation is exactly reversed where I live. Car is a recreational luxury (get out of the city for a day, road trips). A bike is my essential day to day transportation.

The luxury status of cars is cemented by the wide availability of car rental apps that mean I have a car or van always available for the few times a year I need it for a trip to ikea or whatever.

Privately owned vehicles should be banned from city centres.

Most people I see using those 5k cargo bikes also have a car.

> So there’s a significant amount of labour involved in effectively hand building (...)

I call bullshit on that take. Some brands sell electric cargo trikes for around $1k, while other brands sell their cargo bikes for >5k. You can buy a brand new Opel Rocks Electric for 3k more than a cargo bike. Are we expected to believe that an electric mini car is less labour intensive than a bike frame with a bucket and a COTS electric motor? Unbelievable.

This where automation and scale make a huge difference. A bike can absolutely be more labour intensive to build a single unit than a car, especially when said car is being built by a company with expertise in design for manufacture, and production automation.

Cars a built using huge injection moulded plastics components that are trivial to automate at scale, and metal bodies carefully crafted to make automated assembly trivial. Plus there will be a huge investment into fixtures and assembly processes that effectively reduce the human labour to little more than biological end effectors. Little operator skill or experience is needed for high productivity.

Compare that to bike frames which haven’t been optimised to automated mass production, and where manual welding is primary construction methodology. I can absolutely guarantee that a vaguely welder costs substantially more than someone that just needs to operate a fancy screwdriver. Welding requires significant skill and experience to do productivity, and compensated appropriately. Welders aren’t trivially fungible, screw driver operators are.

If don’t think that labour is the reason for the cost of cargo bikes. Then why don’t make contribution and tells us where you think the cost comes from, and why competitors haven’t sprung up to reduce that cost and make a killing.

I'm sure you could recruit the same bike frame welders in China/Taiwan to make a bike for you. There are some that are willing to make custom modifications on demand for a very reasonable price. If they can do that for one-off welded bikes, then making a standardized cargo frame is absolutely doable for a reasonable budget.

Sure, there's more material, more bending, more welds, and it'll cost more, but you could certainly do that within reason. Like much of the bike industry, these markups are rooted in a foundation of bullshit.

Maintenance on bicycles is also insane. An "oil change" (clean and lube the chain) every 300 km or so. Even if you consider that bicycles don't travel as fast and far as cars, that's quite an annoyance to deal with about every 20 or so operating hours.

If you were to actually pay a shop to do the maintenance, I suspect a bicycle would be more expensive per km than a car.

After over 15.000 Km of cycling with our bakfiets, I think I oiled the chain maybe 20 times. Replaced the tires once (and a few spokes due to user error/ring lock still locked+kick stand+two kids in the bike is not a good combo). Still on the first chain and cassette. I have never cleaned a chain.

Maybe your carbon bike with expensive options to save every last gram of weight requires so much maintenance, but any proper Dutch city bike or bakfiets made of steel will last very long with minimal maintenance

It's more about cheap parts - low quality alloys and such will wear at a much higher rate. I killed a Hope cassette in 3 weeks (yes, actually), for example, but a high-end SRAM cassette has lasted me 2 full seasons.

So in some ways, the higher-end stuff can last a very long time.

Some brands (eg: Campy) provide for much better mid-level gear than others (SRAM), but it really depends on the model and the year. Old mid-tier Shimano gear (stx-rc / lx) used to last forever and be a very decent value offering, but times have changed somewhat.

Luckily the prevalence of eBikes is making strong and reliable gear available for us non-eBikers.

> Maintenance on bicycles is also insane. An "oil change" (clean and lube the chain) every 300 km or so.

In the Before Times (pre-COVID) I cycled 5km to work and 5km back, rain or shine, every workday from March to December in Toronto, Canada.

Every spring I'd spend $100 on a tune up, which usually included a new chain, and every ~second year I'd need a new rear cassette too and some new brake pads too. I've had the same tyres for 10+ years (though I get flats 1-2 times per year so needed new tubes). I lubed the chain once a week from a bottle that I purchased for $10 which lasts for 1-2 years.

I have no idea where you get your bike maintenance ideas from, but my experience was quite different after a decade of experience.

Complaining about oiling a chain is silly (especially with dry lubes), so you deserve a little push back there, but you're not wrong fundamentally.

Bikes in general do need some love. Especially: old bikes, cheap bikes, and heavily used ones: MTB and e-Bikes. They need a LOT of labour if you use them seriously, and bike shops just gouge the shit out of people. My local shop rate is $140 per hour ... for what is very often a sub-par to dangerous quality of work.

I do virtually all of my bike wrenching myself, because I grew up poor and didn't have a choice, and now I do it because I'm stubborn and like to know it's done properly. If I had to pay for all the work I've done, we're talking many 10's of thousands of dollars (I put a lot of MTB miles in). This just makes the whole affair unworkable to a lot of people.

Biking can be extremely economical, but good lord the average bike shop makes it hard. And the community just lets them get away with it, justifying insane markups and gouging by saying you have to support your LBS (this may be mostly astroturfing).

Who would be paying for this astroturfing? Shimano? Cannondale? Mike's Bikes? It's far more believable that bicycle enthusiasts that work at LBS are posting to bike forums at work when it's slow or by enthusiasts while waiting for a part to come in, than a coordinated effort by someone with money to burn is paying people to post on forums and no one's ever reported being approached to do it.

Lubing and cleaning a chain takes literally 30 seconds though and the materials cost like fifteen cents.

How do you clean a chain in 30 seconds?!?

Hold a rag on the chain and spin the cranks?

turn bike upside down, spin chain with pedals using hand, while applying brush and wd40

I find it a bit odd that people do so much service. Is there something about modern chain oil that makes it less effective than in the 80s? I'm pretty sure I forgot the chain most years, though whatever bike I had was always an example of survivor bias.

Modern derailleur systems use very narrow chains that won't tolerate being dirty. A hub gear setup with a 1/8" chain (or an old 5-speed derailleur setup) will tolerate much more abuse. A traditional roadster bike (stadsfiets) with full-length mudguards and an enclosed chaincase throws much less dirt into the drivetrain than a sporting bicycle with neither.

It all depends on how many watts you want to lose to chain friction and how quickly you want to wear other components out with the sandy oil slurry on your chain. If the answers are "I can tolerate tons of lost watts because it's an ebike" and "the components are cheap, who cares" then maybe running a dirty chain for ages is acceptable.

I don't know if it's actually necessary, but it's the upper end of the recommendations I've seen/heard, and I noticed a surprising improvement in performance after I cleaned/lubed it.

I assume it's also more important on e-bikes (and especially cargo e-bikes) since the chain sees higher forces over longer periods of time.

Maybe more important, however in my experience these things are neglected more often with ebikes than traditonal bikes, because the motor compensates the dirty chain or if the tyres could use some air... ;-)

> If you were to actually pay a shop to do the maintenance, I suspect a bicycle would be more expensive per km than a car.

Not even close.

As other commenters have noted, lubing a chain is not especially challenging or expensive.

It takes 5 minutes. Nowhere near as involved as with a car oil change. And it’s simple enough that unless you’re basically inoperant as a being, you don’t need to pay a shop to do it.

With a fully enclosed chain guard, you hardly ever need to clean or oil the chain. Belt drives are basically maintenance-free.

Lots of people missing the point- not abusing and keeping an tool maintained is easy when the market is enthusiastic about said tool.

Which is essentially what most of the cargo bicycle market is right now.

Pushing it to a wider audience and expanding your users pushes the needle in one direction only: those less enthused about care and maintenance.

It also means less skilled riders, less common sense, more abuse, etc.

And if you want to open a business doing this as a service- you have 2 groups of clients: Cyclists and non-Cyclists who own bicycles.

I don't really want to imagine having to deal with either of those as my primary clients. For entirely different reasons. Unless I was charging absurd amounts.

300km is BS. No need to do so much maintenance every week unless the environment is really dirty.

My suspicion is that prices would drop a bit there was more competition on the market. That said: they are not really “mass” manufactured so I do understand the cost. One could probably learn a thing or two from car manufacturing to crank them out at a higher volume and lower cost. Presumably the investment cost into automation however doesn’t pay off.

> all this price gouging

Price gouging is short term and localised. If you truly think you’ve identified a mispriced product, this is HN. You’re capable of more than loosely complaining about it.

> Price gouging is short term and localised. If you truly think you’ve identified a mispriced product, this is HN. You’re capable of more than loosely complaining about it.

I don't understand what point you tried to make. Whenever I see price gouging, my reaction is not to "disrupt markets" or put together elevator pitches. I move on with my life because I have better things to do with my life than planning to startup a company whenever I'm baffled by something.

In this case, if I see companies price gouging cargo bikes, I solve all my problems by not buying one. Easy. No elevator pitch required.

But that doesn't mean that people aren't being fleeced by these cargo bike companies.

> don't understand what point you tried to make. Whenever I see price gouging

You’re describing a product that’s too expensive for you. Just because something is expensive doesn’t prove price gouging.

You may also be confusing profiteering in general with price gouging. Even then, you’re made no argument showing the problem is excess margins. Unless you’re looked into the BOM, labour, inventory and certification costs, “this feels expensive” isn’t insightful.

> I have better things to do with my life than planning to startup a company whenever I'm baffled by something

Then it’s not price gouging or profiteering. It’s someone providing a niche product conveniently.

(I personally cannot see how you can make a high-power, decently-ranged, decent-quality electric bike in low volumes with fairly-paid labor and safe storage of e.g. the large batteries without a cost floor of a few thousand Euro.)

I see price gouging in the price of cheese at my local grocer.

You won't see me buying cows and fencing to disrupt their market, I have better things to do.

> see price gouging in the price of cheese at my local grocer

You probably don’t. You’re seeing some combination of prices you don’t like and/or profiteering.

You might have missed the exchange rate a little. The cheapest Dacia Sandero is over $18k USD, more than 3x the $5k idea. But you can get very nice e-cargo-bikes for $2-3k, and you’re comparing one of the cheapest cars anywhere to the fanciest electric cargo bikes available, which is almost like comparing a $100 Walmart Huffy with a basket to a Porsche. Look for reasonably priced cargo bikes, and you can easily find them.

It doesn't have to be economic if you want it.

> it's a bit heavy but you can use pretty much all infrastructure with it.

What do you mean by this exactly? Can you take it in a subway/train?

I was just in Vienna for a week. I was surprised to see just how many people biked through the city. We obviously spent our time where the tourists do in the center, but how far out from there can you live in Vienna and still have what you said above remain true?

I don’t think the distance to the city center matters but the trips you take. A have a colleague who lives very far out but he cycles his kids by cargo bike to the daycare which isn’t too far away, then to the train before commuting into the center.

In the US at least, the non-car infrastructure becomes less of a thing the farther out that you are.

What are you primarily using during winter and rainy months?

Since our older kids go to school themselves I don't have to cycle them any more. The last few years I dropped two kids of at day care by cargo bike regardless of weather. The alternative is basically public transport because the combination of traffic and lack of parking locations in the city make dropping them off by car impossible for me.

So I basically have the choice of cycling in the rain (the kids are rain protected in the bike anyways) and taking the bus and subway. However at either one of those sides I need to walk a bit anyways and then the kids also get wet.

So despite potentially wet and snowy weather, it's still the best option.

> What are you primarily using during winter and rainy months?

In the Toronto, Canada, I cycled 5km every workday to/from work, from March to December, rain or shine: as long as the roads were clear I added layers for winter, and during rain I put on rain gear (like even a simple poncho):

* https://www.mec.ca/en/product/6017-198/mec-hydrocycle-jacket...

I bought my rain gear many years ago, and it gave be ~decade of service (don't cycle nowadays because of WFH/hybrid, but the gear is still good).

pretty milk winter in toronto as well

> pretty milk winter in toronto as well

How many people live in IECC Climate Zones ≥5:

* https://basc.pnnl.gov/images/iecc-climate-zone-map

And even for those that do, just because someone may not cycle in the winter, that does not preclude cycling during the other three seasons. Further, not all winter days are bad, even in colder climates.

See also "Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

Or a fellow in Calgary:

* https://www.youtube.com/@Shifter_Cycling

Or a couple that have live(d) in Ottawa and Montreal:

* https://www.youtube.com/@OhTheUrbanity/search?query=winter

Winter weather in calgary, ottawa, and montreal are all warmer than winnipeg or edmonton.

All bakfiets models come with (optional) rain tents, so young can kids stay dry and out of the wind. Cold is usually more of an issue than rain on longer trips. In a bit of snow, I feel a lot safer on my bike than in a car. Just adjust speed and do controlled braking to feel the grip (or lack thereof). It helps a lot that I live in a flat country (Netherlands), as snow/ice and slopes are a really bad combination with cycling.

vienna has a very mild winter. they're barely just below freezing most of the time.

People bike in rain and snow.

everything is relative. biking in vienna in winter isn't similar at all to biking in winnipeg in the winter.

> everything is relative. biking in vienna in winter isn't similar at all to biking in winnipeg in the winter.

Perfect is the enemy of the good: just because you can't cycle everyday, twelve months of the year, doesn't mean you shouldn't perhaps cycle for 6/8/10 months of the years when it is "possible".

But on the topic of locations, how about Finland? "Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

Or a fellow in Calgary:

* https://www.youtube.com/@Shifter_Cycling

Or a couple that have live(d) in Ottawa and Montreal:

* https://www.youtube.com/@OhTheUrbanity/search?query=winter

Also look at the larger conversation of one of the most car-centric countries, the US: how many folks live in climate zones (say) 1 to 4:

* https://basc.pnnl.gov/images/iecc-climate-zone-map

What does "winter" mean there?

Ya, I could bike in -20c to -40c weather for 1.5 hours a day in each direction (3 hours a day), or I could drive to work and be warm for 25 minutes and have 2.5 hours to do useful things with my life.

Bike nuts are nuts.

The most interesting part of the website is that first it asks for permission to use cookies.

"we and our 864 partners"

864!!!!? Who knew? In the US maybe it is 200,000 partners? And be sure to click on the "learn more" button to find out all the information that will be collected, how information will be stored on your device, etc.

The article itself was in my opinion uninteresting. Written by someone in high school? When you take out all the links, and click-ables there is less content than the comments on hacker news!! I have to say the comments here are much more informative and interesting.

And right now this is the TOP article on hacker news. Double WOW!!! The internet today! Who knew? This is hilarious!

>The most interesting part of the website is that first it asks for permission to use cookies.

It's a legal requirement in the EU.

It's a legal requirement only if you use cookies for nefarious nonsense like ad tracking. You're allowed to store login cookies etc just fine with no need for a popup and similar purposes.

The MBAs who are drafting these requirements don't know that. They're still confused on how double chocolate chunk is making its way into a web browser. They'll always just prioritize marketing, so put the banners and who cares.

Hey Jdietrich, I posted a while ago about being banned of Airbnb and you suggested to use GDPR to make a request to the DPO. It worked, the account is "unbanned". Many thanks for you suggestion and vive le GDPR (writing you here because my original post was flagged so no more comment can be added).

I live in Leipzig, Germany, there are more and more cargo bikes for parcel delivery and families are often seen with bikes to get to the lake or to go to the parks.

Nevertheless I think cargo bikes have a big con, which is the price as well as their "single" use. That's why I personally prefer trailers, they are cheaper, not coupled to the one bike to function, and there are some which can be stored very good in a small flat.

Somehow they are not financially supported in Germany, what makes me sad.

Germany seems to only support the auto industry.

I have RadRunner Plus with the big basket and bag they sell as accessories, and I do pretty much all our family's grocery shopping with it.

They are stil very expensive where I live(NL). EUR 4K+ on a cargobike or renting one for 150+ per month is A LOT for a normal family with 1-2 children. To add to that recently there's been a case in NL where more affordable manufacturer was deliberately selling cargo bikes with frames of sub-par quality[1][2].

I've been renting cargo bikes from two competing companies in Amsterdam (cargoroo and baqme) one offering super premium bikes bosch motors and the other with cheapie bafang motors. The build quality and riding experience is night and day.

Owing a cargo bike to me is more a life style choice or just virtue signalling. It's hard to justify the up front cost. Choosing cheaper options is risky since the maintenance cost is high or just unsafe.

[1] https://www.nvwa.nl/nieuws-en-media/nieuws/2024/02/14/nvwa-b... [2] https://www.nvwa.nl/nieuws-en-media/actuele-onderwerpen/freq...

Spending 4000 EUR on a bike is all kinds of crazy, but nobody bats an eye at people spending 20k on a car.

Of course, as cars and bikes serve different purposes.

You're not going to take your cargo bike on a weekend 200km trip or to visit family on the other side of the state/country unless you're bent on doing exactly that.

Spending this much just to move around the city? A hard sell considering a car also doubles as a moving room with AC.

My experience is that while people tend to be irrational in one-time decisions, they're asymptotically rational facing the same problem again and again.

> You're not going to take your cargo bike on a weekend 200km trip or to visit family on the other side of the state/country unless you're bent on doing exactly that.

How many times are those types of trips done, as compared to 'just' running errands around town? What are the fixed costs you are incurring for those presumably occasional occurrences, versus optimizing for the more likely common cases?

It's like the folks who buy pickup trucks "for towing", but:

> According to Axios, 63% of Ford F-150 drivers barely use their trucks for towing. 29% admitted to towing occasionally, while just 7% regularly tow. When properly equipped, many F-150 models can pull around 13,000 pounds.

> However, 28% of drivers say they use the truck for hauling. Meanwhile, 41% take advantage of the F-150’s hauling capabilities once in a while, and 32% are indifferent. It’s a shame considering all F-150 models can haul about 2,000 pounds.

* https://www.motorbiscuit.com/63-of-ford-f-150-owners-almost-...

Perhaps buy for what you actually do, and rent for when you need 'extra' capabilities.

> How many times are those types of trips done, as compared to 'just' running errands around town?

If you have children definitely more often the former than the latter. I think it's every 2-3 weeks in my case. That's also how my father would use his car and, coincidentally his father as well.

> Perhaps buy for what you actually do, and rent for when you need 'extra' capabilities.

I did. Perhaps you shouldn't make assumptions about people's habits.

> If you have children definitely more often the former than the latter. I think it's every 2-3 weeks in my case. That's also how my father would use his car and, coincidentally his father as well.

And of the couple dozen people that I know that have kids, precisely zero take regular 200km trips. Or 100km. Or 50km for that matter. And by "regular" I mean at least once a month: certainly on some holidays to visit family, but that is at most once a quarter.

I live in Toronto, Canada, and have neighbours with family all over southern Ontario (Windsor, London) as well as a some in the Maritimes. They regularly rent larger vehicles for trips (or fly there and rent/borrow).

> I did. Perhaps you shouldn't make assumptions about people's habits.

I made no assumptionsa about people's habits. I asked how often 200km occurred in general. In the US at least, 99.2% of trips are less than 150km, with 80% being less than 15km:

* https://evstatistics.com/2021/12/99-2-of-us-daily-trips-are-...

While 'road trips' do occur, they are the minority of events:

* https://www.utires.com/articles/road-trips-survey/

For most people, most of the time, considering 200km is a waste of time (using US data). That you just happen to perhaps be in the minority does not invalidate that: you are extrapolating a need to the general public from your personal experience which isn't statistically common and very anecdotal.

Well, I live in Europe and over here this is how we roll. There's plenty of places to visit within 100km and especially during the summer they're packed. You don't always have to drive, but at the same time some of the more remote places don't have a train station.

It appears that the US/Canada situation doesn't extrapolate to the rest of the world, but that's not surprising.

> Well, I live in Europe and over here this is how we roll.

I have several cousins in Europe with kids, and that is not how they roll. They rarely drive >50km.

So who should I believe: your n=1 sample size or my n>1 sample size?

> You're not going to take your cargo bike on a weekend 200km trip or to visit family on the other side of the state/country

Of course not. I will take the train for that, or fly if it's far.

I might consider renting a car if it's a more remote location. But buying? Why would I burn money like that?

And then nobody goes on to bat eyes at the galling maintenance costs, insurance, registration, or taxes on cars, but yeah $4k (or euro or gbp) for an e bike seems like a stupid idea to people for some reason. I think it’s either bad marketing on the part of the ebike folks or pernicious effort on the part of car manufacturers.

4000 seems high when you can get some type scooter or mobility scooter type of thing in that range... And some of them even have protection from rain.

Cost models are completely different too.

Bikes have very low maintenance costs and if you buy second hand you don't lose much on resale.

My city rent them for 70€/month (limited to 3 month/year, 35€/month in winter), i rented one last time i moved house, honestly i want to buy one now. Bike maintenance is both easy and cheap tbh.

We justified the upfront cost by treating ours as a cheap second car, rather than as a very expensive bike. It's been an incredibly positive experience for our family.

For us it’s cheap, but that’s because it enables us to not own a car. And we’re in Hilversum which is pretty car focused.

I love my cargo bike, still I can't help but smile when I think about how we're complaining about too-big-cars and are switching to bigger and bigger bikes instead.

For good reason but still... An electric cargo bike is a long shot from its protoplast.

> I love my cargo bike, still I can't help but smile when I think about how we're complaining about too-big-cars and are switching to bigger and bigger bikes instead.

At least there's a bit more friction involved (some of it literal!) in choosing to ride an unnecessarily large bicycle.

Electric "cargo bikes" are getting larger.[1][2] Those things do not belong in a bike lane. They're almost as big as a tuk-tuk.

[1] https://electrek.co/2023/11/08/cargo-electric-motorcycle-pny...

[2] https://www.allterrainmedical.com/pet-electric-cargo-truck-w...

It's the combination of power, weight, no barrier to entry and overall lack of imagination/consideration in the general public that concerns me.

Still, I find cargo bikes are cumbersome enough that people tend not to ride them too quickly. The "SUV" bikes and electric mopeds pretending to be bikes that concern me more.

"electric mopeds pretending to be bikes" is a very apt description, and they make me pretty mad as well. I have to keep reminding myself that, egregious as they are, it's one less person in a car and one step closer to a critical mass of "bike culture", where biking is normalized. Biking will look very different once we reach that critical mass, but we'll all be better off overall.

As a person who was way ahead of the trend in America, having had a (non-electric) family cargo bike 15 years ago, I have come to agree. When you see any kind of vehicle, whether a pickup truck, SUV, or cargo bike, just try to imagine what will happen if the most clueless person you know buys one. These days in my town the bike parents ride their ebikes right up to every place and leave them there, so a playground or park is totally surrounded by parked bikes now. Say what you will about SUV drivers, but at least they had to leave them parked on the street, instead of parking them on the actual park.

It is easy to think it's going to work when only the 1% most socially conscious people are riding them, but you have to create a system that continues to work well even when average clueless American is participating.

I see it the other way around. Yes, I am annoyed by some cyclists (like the lady with a cargo bike carring a full crate of beer trying to get it in the tram). But then, I always imagine that the same person could (and would instead) have been in a 3t tank. People exist and often do stupid things, so I prefer for them to do this in the least destructive way.

Continues?

There are bigger cargo bikes like these: https://eavcargo.com/

Think about the psychics, you remove all the steel of a delivery truck and replace it with plastic. Of course its going to be more efficient. Since it is like a bike, it doesn’t need a roll cage.

With last mile delivery, you don’t really care about the top speed of a vehicle. But how fast it can accelerate. With an electric motor and regenerative brakes, you could compete easily with an electric van. After all, there is less weight to propel.

Yes, think about physics.

How hard can you grab your brakes and shed momentum when stopping an e-cargo bike traveling at 25-30 mph and with 750 pounds of cargo plus human? When do bike tires lose their grip on dry, wet, icy, and sandy roads?

I've driven trucks with 1000-3000lb loads. I understand how handling changes between vehicle types (different masses and 2 vs. 4 vs 6 wheels). My experience is why I advocate for specialized training and licensing for class 3 e-bikes and cargo bikes. I also suggest cargo bike training should include securing and balancing a load because I've seen too many improperly secured loads by idiots putting themselves and others at risk.

The vehicle the OP linked has a cargo rating of 375 lb, not 750, and a top (assisted) speed of 15 mph, not 25-30.

In the US we don't require special licensing to drive box trucks up to 26,000 lb GVWR, much less a few thousand lb like you're talking about. Requiring licensing for all class 3 ebikes (speed limited to 28 mph, vast majority carrying little to no cargo) would be absurdly disproportionate.

Does anyone have experience on two- versus three-wheeled cargo bikes?

When he made a video on the topic, Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes preferred two wheels with the big box upfront (bakfiets):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhzEnWCgHA&t=2m55s

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_bike#Long_john_bicycle

Yes, I own both.

The three-wheeled ones take some getting used to. You can't take turns at a high speed or you'll tip over. They are nice when you are standing still, because they stay up-right. They are easier to turn-around on foot: the front wheels are closer to the centre of mass, so you can easily lift the back wheel and swing it around.

The two-wheeled ones are faster, and handle more like a normal bike. When fully loaded (100+ kg) they take some effort getting them on the stand. They are clunkier to turn around.

I prefer the two-wheeled ones.

The risk with the three-wheeled ones is that they are perfectly stable right until they aren't. You're either upright or on your ass. The steeper you turn the smaller the stable area gets, even when going slow. The two wheeled ones have more of a gradient. You'll feel it when it starts to go so you can course-correct.

The nice thing about the three wheeled ones is you don't need to use a kickstand, though the two-wheelers tend to have really solid kickstands.

I've only done the three wheeled one, and that is a never again. It's like training wheels. You can't lean in a turn. Besides that, the steering was weird because there wasn't an axle, instead the entire middle of the frame was articulated.

That thing was a slightly faster and more ergonomic wheelbarrow, not a bike.

Renting a cargo bike is my default option to haul something bigish from ikea nowdays. Rich people love them, as you can put all your three kids and go haul them to school 300 meters away much easier in this thingy compared to both car and walking.

What are the challenges facing more rapid uptake and availability of cargo bikes for the general public in your opinion?

I'm in Seattle - I have a car and an e-bike. What I've found is that you can surprisingly get to many places using trails. For instance, you can get to the Costco in south seattle from places like Ballard or Interbay largely on separated lanes. The thing that stops me from getting a larger bike and doing that is the fact that I have no idea where to park my bike securely if I need to make another stop. Your shit is getting stolen in this city if you're not careful.

Ideally you'd have at minimum a frame lock, and a beefy chain lock. When using the chain lock make sure the chain passes through the rear wheel and the read triangle of the frame, then back the other way outside the triangle of the frame. Lock the chain to something immovable. Ideally park somewhere there's other bikes as well.

Personally I've added a motion activated alarm on top of that, but that's mostly because I got tired of people fiddling with my bike and breaking shit.

Doing the above should get most thieves to try and steal the next bike over instead of yours. Still might be worth getting theft insurance though, depending on how bad it is where you live.

They are pretty useless unless e-powered, so the cost is like 5k upwards and it's kinda only useful on occasion. They are big and you have to store them somewhere. They are also kinda single-use once in a while. So target user groups are either deliveries, where it's a special kind of cargo bike or above mentioned rich people who have a spot on a pavement to park them.

You don't really need a cargo bike, but it's a nice to have.

Initial cost (6000 euros buys you a decent second-hand car), storage cost (to protect it against weather and thieves), maintenance cost (bike mechanics get paid the same as car mechanics), limited usefulness. I have owned multiple cargo bikes and I believe they're a status thing.

The mechanics may be paid the same, but the maintenance efforts are exponentially different, thus also exponentially reducing the costs. You need to remove zero parts to do just about all forms of maintenance on a bike, truing a wheel is probably the most effort part and thats still less time than a typical oil change.

Not sure about the exponential part. Sure the maintenance is different, but with a bicycle it has to happen more often, and the parts aren’t as cheap as one might expect. It’s cheaper, but it has to be balanced with the limited utility of the bicycle.

> but with a bicycle it has to happen more often

This depends heavily on the bicycle. If you get a bicycle with hub gears and coaster brakes you'll likely be riding it until the chain literally breaks in half. If on the other hand you get a bicycle with a derailleur you'll be fiddling with it every quarter if you want to keep it operating nicely.

I got a new bicycle two years ago. It hasn't had any maintenance other than inflating the tires and replacing the bell because nincompoops keep pulling the hammer off when it's parked. Still rides like new.

It’s 100% that they cost as much as a decent used car. Also they are easier to steal and also I wouldn’t trust my insurance in case it’s stolen.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to buy and use one. But it’s still too expensive to be a rational investment, especially if you are on a budget.

> It’s 100% that they cost as much as a decent used car.

Apples and oranges. You can get cargo bikes second hand too.

Where do apartment dwellers store them?

Probably depends on the crime in the city and location. Here (Vienna, Austria) a lot of people just store them outside. We store ours on one of the parking spots we have (since we only have one car) together with some of our other stuff. They do take space, but I'm not sure if that is the main challenge with cargo bikes.

Personally I think it comes down to cost and availability. They cost around 5000 Euro if not more, and they take sometimes months to be delivered.

In Europe? In the building's designated areas for bicycles, or you just use the bike share systems like cargoroo.

They don't. You need to be rich, then you keep it chained near your front door or in backyard or wherever. You can't put them into the bike shed and people who have them also have a car, so parking spot is out too.

Some flats have boxes or full garages in the basement.

We rented a parking spot in our underground garage.

I‘d wager it‘s cost.

> haul them to school 300 meters away

(Clearly not North America)

Speak for your rural or suburban self. I’m in North America, kids school is 420m from home.

Speak for your dense population area self. 418m gets me to the end of my rural driveway. Kids school is 8.3 miles (13.4km).

Well, not everyone on the internet is you and not everyone lives in a village.

to go even further, most people don't live in a village. Population of NYC is 8.3 million, population of Wyoming is 581k.

Yes ?

Isn’t it obvious? 300 m is like five minutes of walking..?

Yes. What is your question?

Maybe just how young kids are we talking about here? As 300m is clearly a walkable distance.

Look I dunno why people do the thing. Maybe one of the kids is going to pre-school. Maybe they go to the shop on the way back. I have no idea why honestly.

Dont these things have high labor per kilogram-kilometer costs? How would they ever be competitive? What am I missing?

Edit:

> Another study in Brussels looking at the operational advantages of cargo bikes over vans found that when you factor in insurance, maintenance, depreciation, and energy costs, vans have five to 10 times higher expenses per parcel.

I'm skeptical. I would imagine that the driver cost is the largest driver.

For last-mile deliveries in dense cities with good infrastructure, cars have to make detours and spend time stuck in traffic, I imagine.

Plus, you don't need a driver's licence for a cargo bike, so you can also hire younger (cheaper) delivery drivers, I guess.

This, plus no emission zone in the center.

> I would imagine that the driver cost is the largest driver.

In addition to all the other things: Any immigrant can ride a cargo bike. But in Europe, getting a drivers license is quite expensive in many countries. So technically, the van drivers are higher skilled.

You're likely correct about the labor per kilogram-kilometer cost, and this e-bike solution is only competitive due to constraints applied by the government. This does ignore the negative externalities that result from the use of larger parcel delivery vehicles.

>a fleet of electric cargo bikes in Norwich to deliver thousands of packages per week.

Reading the article, this quote in particular stuck out to me because it is not uncommon for a single package car driver to deliver thousands of packages a week. This comes from my experience as a UPS Package Car Driver in Raleigh, North Carolina, which has a population density comparable to that of Norwich.

In a car-hostile/bike-friendly city, they're going to be able to move much faster than a car, so the only downside is that you need to plan shorter routes/return to the base more often. Which probably isn't as big of a drag in a compact city as you'd think.

A cargo bike with a 90x60x60cm box can fit 36 packages assuming a 15x20x30 size (weight will not be the limiting factor for the typical "one piece of electronics and some air" packages). 36 stops with 5 minutes per stop (travel + stopping and delivering the package) is 3 hours.

In European inner cities, it can be faster to get around on bikes.

Depends on your city. Here in London the average driving speed is around 12mph, easily beaten by a bike any day of the week.

Further the bike routes tend to be much more direct than vehicle routes. No getting trapped in horrible one way systems, the ability to travel directly though low traffic neighbourhoods, because bike are allowed through model filters.

Honestly it’s not clear to me how van or car based last-mile delivery is viable in most parts of London.

> I'm skeptical. I would imagine that the driver cost is the largest driver.

I'm skeptical as well. I expect that cargo bike operators will physically age out from banged-up bodies at roughly the same age as construction/trades workers. I think it will be hard to attract people because the corps won't pay a living wage, and it will be hard to keep people after their first few bad weather events.

I'm also skeptical. I worked for a delivery company using cargo bikes. These things were needing repairs all the time. Employees were passionate about bicycles and accepting a very low wage. The bikes themselves are expensive. In specific situations they make sense because they're narrow and quiet, but I don't believe they're cheap to operate.

This seems to be the report mentioned: https://www.larryvsharry.com/media/wysiwyg/cms_pages/Stories...

Larry vs Harry is the producer of Bullitt bikes. They're cool, but it's fair to say they're probably biased.

>Dont these things have high labor per kilogram-kilometer costs? How would they ever be competitive? What am I missing?

Compared to a fume-spitting van, yes they can be more expensive to operate. Compared to a fancy e-van for which supply is limited, maybe not. You may be missing the local government not liking fume-spitting vans in the inner center.

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