How The Other EV Transition — To E-bikes — Is Changing The World
from the power-to-the-people dept
One of the most important transitions taking place today in technology is the shift to electric vehicles (EVs). Most attention is focused on electric cars. That’s in part because they are big glamorous items, and they have high-profile cheerleaders like Elon Musk. But there is another side to this transition to electric power, less glamorous but arguably more important, at least in some parts of the world. This is the shift to electric bicycles — e-bikes.
According to a recent article in Bloomberg, battery-powered ebikes now outsell pedal-only models in several European countries. You might think that would be great for the local environment. But Philippe Crist, a micromobility researcher at the Paris-based International Transport Forum, the transportation arm of the OECD, points out why that might not be the case. Asked by Bloomberg whether e-bikes have demonstrably reduced emissions from transportation, he replied:
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect it has not. Again, most e-bike buyers [in Europe] — not all, but most of them — are replacing a bicycle, so they were biking already. Of course, lifecycle emissions from bikes of all kinds are far lower than from cars.
By contrast, the uptake of e-bikes in the US has real benefits:
Compared to Europe, in North America you have a greater population of people who’ve never cycled for everyday travel. For that reason there are more people in North America who are buying an e-bike as their first adult bicycle, or using the e-bike to get places or do chores that they’ve not used a bike for before. So the benefits of e-bike adoption in North America may be greater than in Europe, because more car trips could be replaced.
That’s good news for US cities. But in other parts of the world, the shift to ebikes has a more direct positive impact on the lives of people. For example, in Bangladesh e-rickshaws are widely used, but were illegal until a couple of months ago. An article on the Rest of the World site explains:
There are between 2 million and 4 million e-rickshaws in the country, which have operated without any regulations or monitoring. Once the new regulations come, e-rickshaws will rule Bangladesh’s roads, according to experts who have studied the vehicle’s usage.
Rickshaws powered by electric motors not only make the physically demanding job of a rickshaw driver easier. They open up the profession to women, with important knock-on benefits for their independence. CBC News reports on an example from India:
A faded battery-powered rickshaw weaves in and out of traffic in New Delhi’s northwestern Jahangirpuri neighbourhood on a weekday morning, looking for passengers before sputtering into a narrow space in a row of brightly-coloured three-wheelers to charge its dying battery.
Behind the wheel is Suman, a 36-year-old mother of four, who takes pride in her chosen profession. Suman, who like many Indians goes by only one name, fought against the wishes of her husband and extended family to drive an e-rickshaw to provide for her daughters, who range from four to 18 years old.
As Suman explained:
“The best thing about an e-rickshaw is that you are not working under someone,” Suman told CBC News. “You can make some money, then take a break when the kids need to be sent to school.”
These very basic e-rickshaws, which cost around $1,500 to buy in India, lack the massive impact — both metaphorical and literal — that ultra-heavy EVs have in the US. But they may well change for the better the lives of many more people.
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Filed Under: bangladesh, bicycles, ebikes, electric vehicles, elon musk, EVs, india, rickshaws
Comments on “How The Other EV Transition — To E-bikes — Is Changing The World”
Now if only they’d stop catching on fire.
This is a special case of a general principle
While large/heavy/expensive/glamorous items tend to get most of the press, most of the heavy lifting in effective energy use is done by small/light/cheap/unnoticed items — because there are vastly more of them. We should be providing incentives for their development and use– such as dedicated lanes for ebikes — so that we give them a popularity bump and, hopefully, start to shift society’s attitudes about them.
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“We should be providing incentives for their development and use– such as dedicated lanes for ebikes”
Or, perhaps, just push harder for better pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in general rather than prioritizing one specific option. While we’re at it, rope in mass transit and specifically de-prioritize automotive infrastructure in dense urban environments.
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That’s important, but there’s always some question as to what’s allowed on such infrastructure. In Ottawa, Canada, I once saw a bicycle cop stop someone using a golf-cart-type vehicle on a bike path. Pedal-assist e-bikes are allowed on those paths here, but not scooter-style ones (which often feature “vestigial” pedals just zip-tied to the frame). I think all e-bikes are allowed on bike lanes and paved shoulders.
I can’t think of any good local justification for an e-bike-only lane, but I do think stuff like tax incentives and rebates could be important. People often say bikes are impractical because they need to pick up groceries, transport children, or travel kind of far. Financial incentives for buying e-bikes, trailers, cargo bikes, and such could help normalize such things and keep people from buying cars (and the traffic reduction will improve things for people who do still drive). Encouraging businesses and landlords to provide bike parking and charging could have value, too. And subsidized loans: people without money can often get a car loan at a bad rate, but might not be able to spend thousands up-front on a bike.
Something done in parts of Europe is to prioritize snow-clearing for transportation methods used by vulnerable groups. So, sidewalks first, then bike paths, then local roads and freeways. Supposedly that’s been a boon for some stay-at-home parents, who’ve gained some independence after previously being kind of trapped at home while a spouse worked.
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I must’ve missed this reply earlier.
” People often say bikes are impractical because they need to pick up groceries, transport children, or travel kind of far.”
They must not know about “Bakfiets”, the name for pretty much “do absolutely anything” bicycles in and around the Netherlands. Two wheels or three, electric assist or naturally aspirated, cargo bed and can still usually mount a second seat behind the driver if the cargo area is full. They are awesome. Not exactly cheap, but also less than most ebikes these days. They also say the same thing about motorcycles, but I do all of our grocery shopping on my daily driver (Honda CB500X) without a problem. I did make some modifications to make the bike that practical, but it really didn’t take much. Totally agree with your other sentiments though.
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Good theory,
how to implement, without spending billions on buying very expensive property.
Using the road outside my home as an example.
Currently it’s a 2 lane each way, with no stopping at any time . No bike lanes, only a pedestrian walkway that’s a bit close to the road ie cars will splash water across the pedestrians 4-5 feet high in heavy rain.
10 feet approx to properties,another 20 feet to residences and apartment buildings. adding another lane could easily cost a million dollars per 50 feet just for the land.
Coming from the inner harbour and outer beaches this road is a main direct route to the local major shopping centre and other destinations. It gets very busy at times, oh and despite recently going from 60-40k speed limit people at times will hit 100k. Nobody rides on the road, virtually everybody rides on the pedestrian walkway and I have yet to see a cop enforce the age limit on riding on the walk way. Heck in the early evenings the delivery riders have mini traffic jams on their own.
Oh and just for some additional issues there are a few oversized 100 year old trees between road and pedestrians.
so the road should be 3 lanes but they cant fit it, they cant really take a car lane, there is no room to fit a bike lane besides the pedestrians and even attempting it would mean taking out the trees and they are supposed to be adding trees for shade not removing them. adding another major road is not practical residential is even more expensive down towards the ocean or upwards towards the hill, let alone their are major gullies on both sides of the road.
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“so the road should be 3 lanes but they cant fit it”
Adding more lanes will not help reduce traffic congestion. It just doesn’t work that way, no matter how much people want to believe it will. The only way to reduce congestion is to reduce the number of cars on the road. It sounds like somebody with a wrinkly brain needs to have a good long think about it and be given the resources necessary to come up with a solution that works better for everyone. Frankly, I’d be inclined to steal one of those four lanes, and turn the road into a single lane in each direction with a center turn lane, then use the extra space for a wider combined walking/biking path on one side with a raised curb to separate it from vehicle traffic. Just an idea, and it would probably need a lot of work.
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It’s sometimes surprising how non-obvious things like this can be. Some years ago, a 3-lane-per-direction road near me lost half its outermost lane due to snow—making it unusable by cars, for like 2 months straight. There’s constant congestion on that road, and yet the loss of that lane didn’t seem to affect the flow at all. Except that, oddly, some people started riding bikes on that street, which nobody normally does. The half-lane made a semi-attractive bike lane, with it having clear dry pavement when the residential streets did not. Then the snow melted, and people returned to biking on the sidewalks and side-streets, but I don’t think the drivers benefited from having their lane back.
I found myself staring at a bridge-surface re-design last week. It used to be 2 lanes each way, and was reduced to 3 full lanes total—with no stopping or parking—plus a bike lane each way. What I never noticed before was that the 4-lane road on either side of that bridge has street parking on both sides of the road (making the outer lanes un-drivable), on both sides of the bridge, so… what’s that third car lane for? There’s one lane where every single driver is eventually gonna encounter a parked car and have to merge to get around it. But they won’t know till they cross the bridge! The existence of this 500-meter extra lane might actually be slowing things down overall.
I don’t know how fixable your road is, but you say that cars are going fast enough, even in bad weather, to splash water up to people’s heads. And that speeds above 40 km/h, even 100 km/h, are common in general. That seems way over-built to me—like a road that could stand to lose a lane, not gain one. That might reduce speeds to something more appropriate for a residential area.
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“That seems way over-built to me—like a road that could stand to lose a lane, not gain one. That might reduce speeds to something more appropriate for a residential area.”
Agreed. I’d also bet $20CAD that, ironically, traffic throughput would actually improve in spite of the reduced lanes and slower speeds. Here in Honolulu, we have several streets that are similar to the road and bridge you mention. The weird part is that they made the parking lane extra wide, on top of the extra-wide lanes that are standard operating procedure in ‘Murica. I’m guessing it’s an attempt to reduce the risk of an idiot opening their door into a passing car because they didn’t check their mirror first. The cool part is that the extra space makes the lane usable on a bicycle and almost on my motorcycle as well. Admittedly it’s also risky as hell and every time I use that narrow path I’m concentrating hard on tail lights, mirrors and windows to make sure I’m not about to remove somebody’s door and ruin my own day in the process.
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Even if such vigilance can mitigate the risk, I find it exhausting to do for more than about a minute at a time.
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“Even if such vigilance can mitigate the risk, I find it exhausting to do for more than about a minute at a time.”
Absolutely. It’s far from ideal, but I use the tools I have and advocate or buy better tools when I can.
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I’m not sure that would make sense in many areas. The “bicycle-shaped” e-bikes—as opposed to scooter-shaped, rickshaw-shaped, and even car-shaped as I’ve seen recently—can usually already use bicycle lanes. Sometimes the non-bike-shaped ones are allowed, too. E-bikes that can keep up with car traffic probably don’t need dedicated lanes for safety.
Road complexities such as “special lanes” and even sidewalks tend to exist on “unpleasant” roads, because nobody much needs them in low-speed low-traffic areas. But such features also won’t usually exist on freeway-type roads, where bikes and e-bikes and pedestrians are often banned entirely; and that’s where we tend to see stuff like carpool lanes, explictly to incentivize certain behavior.
Maybe there are some often-congested downtown streets where it’ll make sense to have an e-bike lane next to a regular-bike lane. I think a better configuration, if possible, would be to put such traffic on a parallel car-restricted road. The kind with “no entry — bicycles excepted” signs at most intersections (maybe flex-posts or full bollards too), excepting a few to let the residents bring their cars in and receive deliveries.
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Any e-bike that can keep up with car traffic probably also demands motorcycle-level safety gear as well.
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No, not really. Drivers often over-estimate how fast traffic can go, which leads to them needlessly passing bikes—then having those bikes catch back up to them.
I’m talking about speeds in the 20-30 km/h range here, 30 km/h being a common local speed limit on residential roads; and, incidentally, also the maximum speed an e-bike motor is allowed to reach. Busier streets are often posted at 50, but move at 20 to 30 (on average) during their busy periods—due to red lights, street parking, and such. Normal bicycle safety gear is sufficient.
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” I think a better configuration, if possible, would be to put such traffic on a parallel car-restricted road. The kind with “no entry — bicycles excepted” signs at most intersections (maybe flex-posts or full bollards too), excepting a few to let the residents bring their cars in and receive deliveries.”
I believe the term for the first part is “Modal Filter”, and they are pretty common in some parts of Europe already, but not so much in ‘Murica. Putting a modal filter at one end of a street while leaving the other end open to all traffic would effectively block all through traffic and accomplish this goal.
Yes, I’ve been watching too many “NotJustBikes” videos on YouTube.
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Yes, thank you.
When there are two busy routes running parallel and nearby, some people might suggest a complex re-design of both—reserved lanes, special traffic light configurations, curb shapes. That results in a design that’s less bad for pedestrians and cyclists, but usually not actually pleasant.
Better to see which way those people are inclined to travel (“desire paths”) and send the cars to the other street. Put signs to tell cyclists there’s a nicer street nearby.
It depends how many side-streets and other useful connections that street has. If one can drive in at the open end, and exit onto a (possibly different) major street before reaching the barrier, there may be quite a bit of “rat-running”.
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The rat running can be further mitigated by implementing other “traffic calming” measures, like narrowing streets, raising crosswalks to sidewalk level rather than dropping them to street level, switching to one-way traffic on streets that are not blocked at one end, switching to diagonal on-street parking instead of parallel, and adding chicanes or other devices can all slow traffic down. Not only does this make the paths less desirable for drivers seeking a slightly faster path, but it also makes the roads far safer for pedestrians, cyclists and any children that happen to be running around. They are also a helluva lot more effective than throwing up a new speed limit sign with a smaller number on it than the old one. I definitely agree about giving cyclists and pedestrians a more desirable path than the cars. Selecting a smaller and lower traffic parallel path to the main “stroad” (bigger than a street, smaller than a highway, and terrible at everything) through an area and redesigning it to prioritize things other than cars is often a better option than redesigning that stroad to safely include that same infrastructure.
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Raising the whole intersection would be less annoying to cyclists (and plow operators). Either way, it impedes drainage, which makes such a re-design more complicated than one would naively think.
One-way streets can also be annoying on a bicycle. Either because they make navigation difficult; or if they remain bi-directional to cyclists, because the drivers aren’t expecting that, which adds some risk. But depending on the nature of the street and its cross-streets, it can be okay.
Narrowing is conditional on street parking not being allowed; otherwise the “dooring” or backing-up risks are too worrying.
There’s quite a nice miniature traffic circle near me, with a tiny garden in the middle. It’s small enough that cyclists in the middle of their lanes can continue going straight (after a stop sign), and pedestrians can walk between the corners as usual. Chicanes that are similarly “permeable” to narrow traffic are fine too.
I’ve seen some amusing research on “fake” traffic calming features. It turns out that a painting that gives the optical illusion of a speed hump or raised intersection is surprisingly effective, though I wonder whether the effect will persist once people know it’s fake. Good for cheap experimentation, anyway.
I can think of some example where my bicycle route is pretty good, but other cyclists still don’t know about it, and end up coming up behind me after I’ve parked and am walking along the “stroad”‘s sidewalk. One might think with phone apps and such, actual signage wouldn’t be important, but it really is (nevermind the cyclists riding along a street with both hands on a phone and nothing touching the handlebars).
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“Narrowing is conditional on street parking not being allowed; ”
Depends on how it’s implemented. If you combine narrowing, one way, and diagonal parking then you get a narrow, slower street with more parking (or the same parking with wider spaces and less risk of dooring your neighbor), and since nobody remembers how to back up without them anymore your backup camera works better because it’s actually pointed in the only direction traffic should be coming from.
I’m a fan of two-way cycling even on one-way streets, but as a cyclist I know that in that situation I have to be extra vigilant of people not expecting me to be coming from the wrong direction. I exercise the same mentality I do on my motorcycle every day, and I ride like NOBODY can see me so that I’m not surprised when ANYONE doesn’t see me. I’m also a fan of small traffic circles and roundabouts and wish a high percentage of traffic lights were replaced by them. Maybe if we finally hit a certain critical mass of them our drivers would actually learn how to use them. Seriously, people, using your turn signal properly in a roundabout is not rocket-surgery.
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You… haven’t used junctions much, have you? The amount of times that I, as a pedestrian, have had to stop in the middle of the street to allow a car to pass that I thought was going in the opposite direction because the numpty behind the wheel apparently didn’t know where the correct stalk was located. How those muppets ever passed their driving tests, I shall never know.
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“because the numpty behind the wheel apparently didn’t know where the correct stalk was located.”
That was the point of my sarcastic comment. People are willfully ignorant idiots. It’s sad because roundabouts are almost always better for everyone as long as everyone actually does what they are supposed to do AND the intersection isn’t designed stupidly. To that end, most of the intersections should include raised crosswalk/speed humps with pedestrian islands and flashers, but most of them don’t.
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Raised anything in the road (sleeping policemen spring to mind as the best example) are highly damaging to both vehicles and the road surface even if used as designed (i.e., vehicle driven over them slowly), resulting in increased use of materials for both, causing a greater negative impact on the environment.
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“Raised anything in the road (sleeping policemen spring to mind as the best example) are highly damaging to both vehicles and the road surface even if used as designed (i.e., vehicle driven over them slowly), resulting in increased use of materials for both, causing a greater negative impact on the environment.”
*Citation needed. The only damage happening to vehicles is probably caused either by idiots that lower their vehicles without putting them on airbags or by idiots driving over them too fast. Either slow down and don’t do stupid things to your vehicles, or buy a vehicle that can hit them doing 70mph like I did. I mean, that wasn’t the intention behind the purchase. It’s just a side benefit to owning an adventure bike.
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You know the damage potholes can cause? A sleeping policeman acts like two large potholes. I’d like to see something from you that proves otherwise.
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Ok, personal experience here. I avoid potholes. I hit speed humps doing 70mph regularly just for funzies. They are not alike.
Minor annoyance
About once or twice a week I’ll commute to work on my bicycle, about 25 miles round trip. The rest of the time I take my motorcycle instead. The only things that actually annoy me about e-bikes are the people that just… don’t pedal. Personally, I don’t want an e-bike. I ride a bike because it’s good exercise, but I don’t fault anyone for buying an e-bike to make it easier to ride further or, for that matter, ride at all. But if you’re going to pretend to be on a bicycle instead of an electric dirtbike at least spin the fucking pedals. The other thing that bugs me is bunch of assholes around here with electric dirtbikes, no registration, and blatant disregard for the rule of law. I guess it’s an improvement over the same assholes on two-stroke actual-dirtbikes doing the same thing with absolutely no throttle control (WHAAAA WHAAA WHAAA! Like the throttle is an on-off toggle switch), so I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much about that.
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I’ve read that the average e-bike user actually gets about as much exercise as someone pedalling a manual bike. Less pedalling-per-distance, but they ride farther and have less excuse to not bike on any given day. I guess that doesn’t really apply to people on scooters that are only technically e-bikes, where any pedals are decorative.
In any case, unless they’re actually driving (so to speak) like an asshole, try not to let it bother you. Imagine that they’ve just pedalled 50 km, worked a hard shift, or whatever. Still better than a car.
By the way, one reason why some of those people seem like idiots is because some of them actually are idiots, who’ve had their licenses taken away for idiocy such as street-racing or drunk driving. They can’t register a vehicle, and don’t actually want to be on a bicycle (so, no pretense).
15 years ago, I had very few colleagues who cycled to work, last month my employer opened an extra bike parking because more and more people are cycling to work. and this is in the Netherlands, the country where you would expect the least transition!
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One might not have expected the e-bike transition to affect the American Amish either, but it has. And, apparently, several Walmarts have added e-bike charging stations and extra parking, sometimes covered. The average parking lot at a giant American store like that is a car-based monstrosity, so I’m a little surprised.
A previous employer of mine brought one bike rack inside, to an otherwise unused niche by the employee entrance. That was great for the handful of us cycling in cold but non-snowy weather, because it’s difficult to work a bike lock through giant multi-layer mittens and quite uncomfortable to take them off in that weather. (The cycling itself was fine as long as I kept moving, which made red traffic lights an annoyance I’d pace myself to avoid.)
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Why not? The Amish eschew only unnecessary technology, so if some of them can see how an e-bike is essential…
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Probably the number one reason why people wouldn’t have expected that is that they don’t generally think of the Amish at all. Apart from that, most people don’t understand the Amish (who actually have wildly differing views on technology; apparently, some sub-groups allow cars and computers).
Anyway, the article speaks of groups benefiting from increased independence, and this is one such group.
Wake up and smell the covfefe
Humans have over populated the planet.
Everywhere you look, there is evidence of this and yet we are told the problems are easily solved by doing (fill in the blank). Fast forward, problem remains so let’s come up with another solution that will not work rather than addressing the root cause, over population.
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Then I guess you’ll be happy to know that that particular problem will soon begin to solve itself, as the human population is expected to flatten and then start declining in the next 25-60 years, without requiring an apocalypse.
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“without requiring an apocalypse.”
Lots of billionaire hand wringing about the reduced output of humans in creating new essential workers.
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That’s being addressed, by making it financially non-viable to raise a family during the years in which people are fertile. Lots of people around age 25 are just starting their first jobs, maybe still living with parents, no time to date… it’ll probably be at least a decade before they feel mature and financially secure enough to consider reproduction. Longer in countries such as the USA that leave students massively in debt.
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“That’s being addressed, by making it financially non-viable to raise a family during the years in which people are fertile. ”
For a scary look at one of our possible futures on this planet, look no further than the level of pain South Korea is bracing for right now. It’s already exactly what you’re talking about and there’s a distinct possibility that S. Korea won’t exist by 2100.