Polaris OBark

E-bikes and scooters displace 4x as much demand for oil as all of the EVs in the world.

Link to original article in The Conversation

Link to Ars Technica article.

CrimsonEclipse

I mean, yeah, makes sense.

Most of the smaller mopeds are 2 cycle pollution fests that spew out more crap than an SUV and aren't exactly efficient when measured in miles/gallon/lb transported.

I'd LOVE to see more electric bikes replace cars in neighborhoods built for such activities.

The innovation in this sector is just beginning.

choddo

And there are a LOT more people who can afford ebikes than EVs.

tds101 

NYC is swarming with electric scooters and ebikes. Personally, I love it. The more the merrier.

LeeG

$.02 EVs are neat but they will have no impact on the extraction of oil in the world which is happening as fast as possible.

Smaug1

How do you figure that?

Oil is also used to make plastic and other products, that's true, but if people start to replace combustion car trips with eBike trips, how could it NOT have an impact?

Alan K

Sure, every little bit helps - in a symbolic sense because the bigger picture is fairly grim.
Only about quarter of oil is used by automobiles worldwide currently. Full conversion to EV isn’t realistic even in the US and western countries for a number of reasons that I believe fairly understood.

In the meantime, as the affluence of China and India increases - collectively with about 38% of world population- they will only be using more cars and increasingly larger amount of (not so clean) energy for their industry. I highly doubt that they are actually buying into our hoopla of carbon credit etc which may well be scam for extracting more wealth from whoever gets conned.

choddo

The extraction isn’t the main problem. Setting fire to it is.

I’m not sure I know what the reasons are to think full conversion cannot happen - we won’t be able to buy a new ICE in the UK in 2035.

also, we don’t have a choice.

China are way ahead of the US on deployment of renewables and EVs even though they continue to build coal stations but that will stop. They may already be close to their peak co2 output.

Agree carbon credits are a fudge.

Smaug1

Remember that in China, the government rules with an iron fist; they don't care about getting re-elected or citizens whining about their rights. China at least will be a little smarter about how that is allowed. Already in their big cities, they make it pretty hard to get a license to drive in the city center. It requires winning a lottery. Even combustion motorcycles and scooters have been banned from the city center in Guangzhou. I bet there are similar initiatives in Shanghai, Beijing and other big cities. Only 25 kph (15.5 mph) eBikes are allowed for the commoner in the city center. When I was there 7 or 8 years ago, they were buzzing around on lead-acid-powered eBikes. Most families had one. Now I'm sure they're all lithium. Honda is even making eBikes styled after their classic designs for the Chinese market.

I'm not sure how it works in Indian cities, but they don't seem to have their act together; they're a bit more entitled. (but still not as bad as Americans)

Alan K

From what I understand, India is a class of its own… corruption is rampant, rules are there to be applied when it suits the ruling class and ignored when they are inconvenient. And then there is the well-known mode of getting things done - bribes!

Not much different than here, their democracy also does not always represent the will of people and certainly not what is good for people… they are so easily led by the nose to their own detriment everywhere. Our politicians used race games for getting elected, their’s used religion - simple trick of divide and conquer still works.We selected a vegetable just to get rid of the red one, without any reasonable plan for future of our people and country - and no, promoting and/or conducting wars directly or indirectly is never a good plan for people in any country!

LeeG

Primarily because oil is an energy source and 8+ billion **** sapiens exist because of the extra input oil and now natural gas provided in the last century on top of coal in the previous two centuries. EVs don’t provide energy inputs to do work, they consume energy.
. So lets say a billion people give up their cars, their petrol fueled motorcycles, etc. That would make gasoline cheaper and available to make transportation cheaper in some other venue and increase its use there. Maybe in delivery trucks, farm equipment, other motor driven machinery, military vehicles, etc, Or places where a change in consumption behavior isn’t happening.

EVs are an energy consuming device, it takes fossil fuels to refine the raw materials and construct the parts. If you want to decrease oil and GHG buying an EV is an expensive way to do it compared to cutting out unnecessary use first. Replacing a 3400 lb ICE car with a 4000 lb EV in order to drive the same 15k miles a year is a shell game of rationalization compared to driving 10,000 miles a year. Or driving a 1.6 liter compact car instead of a 4 liter truck. Buying a $4000 ebike to replace a $40 k car, EV or ICE, is definitely better but realistically who gives up power unless forced to do so? I haven’t had a car in 15 yrs but that’s mostly to meet my income and not any altruistic motivation. I use bikes and now an ebike but that’s because I like bikes and have become an old fart where riding up 10% grade with 25lbs of stuff in hot humid conditions aint happening. If I really needed two wheel transport where I am I’d get a Honda 150 in a second.

So sure people can impact fuel supply by changes of behavior, the pandemic dropped consumption a huge amount, 10%, and it’s creeping back up, but a few people changing behavior here doesn’t mean it changes the behavior of a few people over there. Another pandemic that kills off a billion people would definitely drop consumption but that reflects the point I’m trying to make. A drop in consumption will come from a drop in consumers or significant increase in price where people are forced to reduce use.

And here in the USofA the federal fuel tax has been unchanged for 30 yrs, we cannot even make road users pay fully for infrastructure.

So sure, a 60 lb ebike, 30 lb touring bike, 250 lb scooter all use less energy/fuel than a car. And if the price of fuel in your country was high and incomes were not people would be doing just that. The kicker here is that wealthy countries like ours fuel use has leveled off while other countries with subsistence level energy consumption are more than willing an able to consume what extra we cut out.

john m flores 

Replacing every single gas-powered car with an EV will certainly have an impact, but a society where 95% of adults need their own car to function is simply not sustainable.

mpetry912 

this was a good share Polaris OBark

it seems like it's all about vehicle weight. A 4000 lb EV takes much more energy to accelerate than a 200 lb ebike.

And the auto manufacturers, at least in the US, are focusing their EV products on very large vehicles that maintain a high profit margin

which means big motors, big batteries, and ultimately big energy generated somewhere to power those vehicles.

the ebike is a great solutiion for getting groceries or running errands. I would say the big limitation on uptake is infrastructure and prevailing road / traffic environment

sadly many american cities are so car-centric that ridiing an e-bike is just not an option for most people.

that said I think anytime people are getting out of their cars, well that's a good thing.

/markp

Alan K

Unless our society is fully restructured such that distances between homes, work places and shopping areas for routines necessities are drastically reduced, e-bikes or any sub-100lb machines just wouldn’t be practical.

Kabuki12

I ride vintage road bikes normally . My wife has bad arthritis so she rides an electric assist Townie . You have to pedal , no throttle. I recently broke my hip and had to have surgery so I was off the bike for a while. When I wanted to get back to pedaling and see what my leg and hip could do , I raised the seat and rode around our industrial park on it just to get reacquainted with cycling. It was great . I then started making local deliveries to my customers. I can see the attraction for some folks who commute and those who just want a relaxing ride. I see so many of these and as long as people ride them safely , I don’t see a problem . I have a feeling they aren’t going to disappear any time soon.

Polaris OBark

Roads, highways and other car-unfriendly infrastructure are ongoing taxpayer subsidies to the auto industry and fossil fuel industry for the most part. If those subsidies were immediately switched over to supporting non-fossil fuel vehicles, including e-bikes, it would instantly become much more "practical." For example, if e-bikes and electric trams were supported, and private gas-powered cars were taxed into oblivion, the problem could be solved rather quickly. There just needs to be the political will to do so.

Alan K

Perhaps you are a little young and full of zeal, in real life where large number of people are involved, nothing can be done instantaneously, nor it should!
You are describing a scenario that even a hardened dictator would find difficult to successfully implement.
Im not disputing how the fossil fuel energy industry manipulated the system in their favor. If sensible plans can be formulated that satisfies the needs of majority (not just you and three of your friends), they can be translated into action if we have leaders in government who value public good over their personal greed. If and when these things happen, it will still take at least a generation of time.

Polaris OBark

That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me since I turned 60.

I am not an optimistic person, so I fear you may be right. The consequences of waiting at least another generation, however, are potentially terminal.

storckm

Does anyone have any thoughts about hydrogen fuel cells? They're expensive currently, and we don't have refueling stations, but they don't have the charging time or the environmental costs of the lithium batteries. They seem like a better solution than batteries. (Although the biggest problem is the way we've built our cities around the automobile in this country.)

late

Hydrogen could potentially be used in large applications. But for a bike or car, there is too much of a chance of a fire. The fire is invisible and ridiculously hot. They are trying to extract hydrogen deposits, in Europe, as we speak.

Polaris OBark

I'm a professional scientist, and am not influenced by anything other than the objective data. Unlike you.

Having comically failed to dismiss me as too young to have a valid opinion, you now think I am too stupid to have a valid opinion?

I am. Consistent with your two failed, cliché assessments, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

storckm

Is the flammability of hydrogen more of a concern than that of lithium batteries or gasoline? I've messed around with hydrogen gas from electrolysis, and it wasn't too easy to ignite.

StanSeven

I did some thread cleanup. Political content is prohibited in threads as everyone should know. That’s because political discussion in cycling threads quickly derail conversations. Let’s keep the thread on track please so it remains open.

Thanks,

Stan

Thigh Master

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EVs = lithium… the mines already apparently being fought over, divided up into cartels, etc. How long do EV and e-bike batteries last? How do we recycle and recover the materials?

Polaris OBark

I think there is still a lot of room for improvement of batteries, but if one is worried about the (admittedly) negative environmental impacts, e-bikes are going to have a lot less of a negative impact on lithium battery resources and disposal than EVs with huge batteries.