I love my electric bike, and largely agree with the sentiment of this article. My bike has has saved me a fantastic amount of gas.
However, I think calling them the “most climate friendly” is reasonably accurate, but has some issues.
If you’re including the human power, a regular bike is more efficient electrically, using none, but the calculation for climate friendly is much harder.
If you’re not, there are more aerodynamic electrical vehicles that are more efficient, but given their rarity, I can understand why they’re not included.
If you’re not including human power, the other more common electrical vehicles, scooter, onewheels, etc. Are likely about the sane efficiency, but have less environmental costs to make (smaller) and can be integrated into many peoples lives easier.
I think the key part of ebikes though is just how versatile they are that makes them so much more practical for a lot more types of trips than anything you mentioned (although I don’t know what the aerodynamic electric vehicles you’re talking about are)
Ebikes make doing a lot of things you would otherwise need a car for easier. I can’t pick up my kids from school on a scooter or carry as many things on a regular unassisted bike (or at least it would be much harder). Ebikes might not be able to do everything but they can do a lot.
For a society that is so dependent on cars I think ebikes are a real game changer for that reason.
I can use a couple different ways actually. I have a seat that attaches on the rear rack and a trailer that I can hitch with capacity for 2 kids plus a trunk for extra stuff.
Recently though we purchased a front load cargo bike which comes with bench seating for 2 kids and we can get an optional extra bench for a third. We could also put a rack on it and have an additional kid (or stuff) on the back as well. Technically we could probably hitch the trailer to it as well but I think that would get a little impractical at that point since it’s already pretty long so the handling with the trailer probably wouldn’t work too well
I love my electric bike, and largely agree with the sentiment of this article. My bike has has saved me a fantastic amount of gas.
However, I think calling them the “most climate friendly” is reasonably accurate, but has some issues.
If you’re including the human power, a regular bike is more efficient electrically, using none, but the calculation for climate friendly is much harder.
If you’re not, there are more aerodynamic electrical vehicles that are more efficient, but given their rarity, I can understand why they’re not included.
If you’re not including human power, the other more common electrical vehicles, scooter, onewheels, etc. Are likely about the sane efficiency, but have less environmental costs to make (smaller) and can be integrated into many peoples lives easier.
It’s a tricky blanket statement to make.
I think the key part of ebikes though is just how versatile they are that makes them so much more practical for a lot more types of trips than anything you mentioned (although I don’t know what the aerodynamic electric vehicles you’re talking about are)
Ebikes make doing a lot of things you would otherwise need a car for easier. I can’t pick up my kids from school on a scooter or carry as many things on a regular unassisted bike (or at least it would be much harder). Ebikes might not be able to do everything but they can do a lot.
For a society that is so dependent on cars I think ebikes are a real game changer for that reason.
How do you get your kids?
I can use a couple different ways actually. I have a seat that attaches on the rear rack and a trailer that I can hitch with capacity for 2 kids plus a trunk for extra stuff.
Recently though we purchased a front load cargo bike which comes with bench seating for 2 kids and we can get an optional extra bench for a third. We could also put a rack on it and have an additional kid (or stuff) on the back as well. Technically we could probably hitch the trailer to it as well but I think that would get a little impractical at that point since it’s already pretty long so the handling with the trailer probably wouldn’t work too well