China's New Craze: E-bikes

lawrencekhoo writes "I was in Shanghai recently, and found to my surprise that bicycle crazy China is now electric bicycle crazy. Electric bikes were everywhere, and outnumbered normal bikes on the road. You could even buy them in the department stores. Basic models sell for about 1200 Yuan (about US$150), and more elaborate scooter-like models for up to 5000 Yuan. Apparently, this craze has been building up for a few years. Something like it is even happening in parts of the US. According to one user, electric bikes are popular because they're cheap, and can take you all around town on one charge. Who would have guessed that China would lead the way in green transportation?"

Comments

Re:E-bikes?

[NeMon'ess]

The e-bike has pedals so the rider can add power. Scooters do not have pedals, be they for children with roller blade wheels, or electric/gas models. The definition of moped: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=moped
sa ys it has pedals and is powered by a gas engine.

So they're either electric bikes or electric mopeds. I think the design and appearance would be the deciding factor of what to call them.

Here ya go

[YrWrstNtmr]

Giant LaFree. Does exactly what you want.

I test rode one, and personally, I don't like them, except if you really need it.
They're heavy (80lbs), slow, expensive.

I can go farther, faster on a regular bike.

Re:Here ya go

[adamfranco]

In this later post I worked out the efficiency numbers for cars, to compare them with bikes, the results:

Car: 66 Calories/km (45mpg)
Walking: 0.75 Calories/km => 88x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg)
Biking: 0.15 Calories/km => 440x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg)

(note, the above assume that the numbers in the linked article for people, are in nutritional "C"alaries = kilocalories, instead of SI calories. If they are SI, then the bike is 440,000x more efficient than the car.)

Re:Hybrid models

[HoldenCaulfield]

Electric assist bikes or add-on's aren't uncommon.

Google for more if you're interested . . .

Re:Green Transportation

[THotze]

You're right about a lot of your points... all of it, in fact, but the question is always, not where does it begin, but, where does it end?

I used to live in Beijing, eons ago by Beijing's standards, in the late 80's and early 90's. Beijing's growth might have very well outpaced the Internet's. But when I was there, we had a lot of white furnature, and a housekeeper to keep it clean... one day she was sick following her weekend... the white furnature was BLACK with soot. I honestly don't know if things have gotten better or worse, but I'd suspect that they've gotten worse. China's economy is still coal powered.

The interesting question is who's buying these bikes, why, and what cultural impact they'll have. As pointed out before, its probalby people that are jsut starting to see wage growth, meaning that they're getting e-bikes to replace the human-powered variety, and that these require more electricity, which requires more coal, etc.

But bikes had long been part of Chinese culture. More than just being a mode of cheap, fast transportation, they were handy. They're easy to secure, they can fit in small places to store. it means that building planners didn't need to accommodate big garages and parking spaces, useful when you've got such density as there is along the coastal regions of China and inland to Beijing, where most economic growth is taking place (and therefore, where people are more likely to have money for e-bikes).

in this context, the shift from bikes to e-bikes is a small one, as they meet all of the conveniences of bikes without any major new hastles. (Most consumers, anywhere, have yet to make the 'big picture' association of energy usage == pollution == hastle for everyone, including me.) Now, this means that it postpones the growth of large numbers of cars for a while as people get these instead, perhaps delaying any shift to (as many) big garages, parking lots, etc.

That way, it could be a good thing. RIGHT NOW, its true that it looks like these e-bikes are just a stepping stone to bigger cars... but what if the 'e-bike' phase lasts 20-30 years, as it very well might? By this time, perhaps cars won't seem as desirable, or at the very least, will be less polluting. Additionally, coal plants can be MUCH less polluting with proper design/retrofitting than you'd expect. There was SOME evidence, of which there has been a partial refutation, that its possible to reduce CO2 emissions to almost nothing with a highly efficient deisgn and a method (using some sort of ceramic device??? can anyone inform?). In this way, perhaps China could be one of the first nations to benefit from economic growth without all of the eventual environmenal hastle. If China were to pollute at say, North America's levels, the planet'd get baked like a garage band on a lazy Saturday night, and that'd hurt the Chinese economy both directly and indirectly. I'd say that within the next 10-15 years, China will start retrofitting existing plants to pollute less. This is especially true as they start to get a skilled labour force that hates pollution and is costly to replace when they die young from inhaling half a kilo of coal dust every day. Not that the massive growth of Chinese cigarette sales is helping that any.

This *might* turn out to be an indicental step that prevents it, by postponing the onset of cars and keeping the 'bicycle culture', even if its currently powered by polluting coal plants.

Sometimes, we get lucky, unintended breaks. This could be one.

Re:Who woulda thunk it?

[dlakelan]

You have to consider the MARGINAL food requirements of a human, since the basal metabolic rate will be burned regardless of whether you're on a bike.

Since the BMR for an adult male is approximately 2000 Kcal and riding a bike around at a comfortable pace for 2 hours a day on flat ground costs maybe 250 Kcal according to the data quoted above, what we're talking about is a 13% increase in food consumption. Since healthier people are generally lighter weight and happier, and therefore do not overeat as much, it's possible that a person who bikes for transportation eats less total food than a person who doesn't depending on the rate of overweight people in the relevent populations.