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Electric Bicycles Surging In Popularity
gollum123 writes "An accidental transportation upheaval began in China, where an estimated 120 million electric bicycles now hum along the roads, up from a few thousand in the 1990s. They are replacing traditional bikes and motorcycles at a rapid clip and, in many cases, allowing people to put off the switch to cars. The booming Chinese electric-bike industry is spurring worldwide interest and impressive sales in India, Europe, and the US. China is exporting many bikes, and Western manufacturers are also copying the Chinese trend to produce models of their own. From virtually nothing a decade ago, electric bikes have become an $11 billion global industry. In the Netherlands, a third of the money spent on bicycles last year went to electric-powered models. Industry experts predict similar growth elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany, France, and Italy, as rising interest in cycling coincides with an aging population. India had virtually no sales until two years ago, but its nascent market is fast expanding and could eclipse Europe's in the next year. In China, electric bicycles have evolved into bigger machines that resemble Vespa scooters. These larger models are causing headaches for global transportation planners. They cannot decide whether to embrace them as a green form of transportation, or ban them as a safety hazard. Some cities are studying the halfway measure of banning them from bicycle lanes while permitting them on streets."
Ah, yes, the transportation planner, one of the modern evils, who uses dubious logic to impose brain-dead transportation priorities that do wonders to destroy the planet...
Doesn't quite work when it's "like a Vespa" ;-)
I have a mental image of Howard from "Big Bang Theory" on his scooter, with Sheldon in a pink Helmet screaming and clinging on for dear life.
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Two of the many reasons this may not catch on in the US:
One is drivers. I ride a (nonmotorized) bike to work twice a week. It would sure be nice if drivers here in the US showed that they had some clue that cyclists exist. This morning I got to deal with a woman who decided to pull her car over into the bike lane so that she could talk on her cell phone. On the way home, I got a teenage girl eating a banana while wanting to turn left in front of me without signaling. Other fun experiences include people swerving around me and cutting me off because they're too impatient to let me get across an intersection, and people yelling at me because I'm not in the bike lane (hey, sometimes cyclists do need to turn left, and in any case the law says that cyclists can ride in regular lanes).
Another reason is weather. US weather has more extremes than Europe. There's a reason that all the early colonists from England died of tropical diseases.
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As someone who spends a week each year in Shanghai, this is nothing special. These bikes are nasty rusty things. Often found in shades of silver and brown with broken seats and bent baskets. The owners don't understand the concept of pride in their own possessions. I find this behavior quite foreign to me, but I suppose that's because I'm an American. In short, leave-it-out-to-rust is the Chinese motto.
Oh, and for all you living in Shanghai, could you PLEASE for the love of God, change your moped brake pads? That high pitched squealing makes my ears ring :-p.
Life is not for the lazy.
Considering them like a motor vehicle is halfway between what and what? It's like people try to copy the the most witless bit of prose from the entire article.
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)
I know a guy who, after a trip to China a couple years ago, decided to start up an electric bike business in Portland, Oregon which is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the US. He originally wanted to import the bikes from China, but due to trade restrictions, he couldn't bring in bikes which he could sell here for $US400-600 and instead had to fill his new shop with US and European models that cost 3 to 5 times more.
He did his research, so it wasn't like the Chinese bikes were painted with lead and made by slave labor or anything. Anyone have any idea why electric bikes would be on the import no-no list?
Green transportation?
I live in Shanghai. Yes, there are a lot of electric bikes here. Now guess what will happen to the toxic batteries here.
This is not a solution (yet?)
Some cities are studying the halfway measure of banning them from bicycle lanes while permitting them on streets
It's simple, really. Bicycle lanes exist to protect bicycles which travel slower than the rest of traffic. If you're assisted by an electric motor, there is less of a speed differential with traffic, but now you'll be a hazard to all the bicyclists yourself, since you'll be traveling much faster than them.
I can't wait for the first dooring of a moped rider in a bike lane- maybe drivers will start to take "look in your mirror before you fling open your door" seriously because it'll be in their best interests, both in terms of personal safety and damage to their car; a couple hundred pounds of metal and rider will at the very least bend that door pretty far forward, I'm guessing.
As someone who has been doored, it REALLY sucks getting doored because some stupid asshole can't take 2 seconds to look in their mirror before they open their door. The worst part isn't flying over your handlebars, or getting your hand permanently fucked up from getting pinched between the handlebar and edge of the car door at +10MPH with 150lb of momentum. The worst part is hitting the door and having that throw you right into the traffic lane and get hit/run over by a car, truck, or bus. It's not the door itself that kills bicyclists- it's getting hit/run over by the traffic that was just behind them. Yet another reason why bicycle lanes in the US, which are sandwiched between parked cars and traffic, are almost worse than nothing at all. In Europe and elsewhere, bike lanes are completely separated and often run nowhere near the road- they're a separate network.
Also, there is a special place in hell for all the hipster retards riding their 70's-era mopeds (Puchs seem to be the most popular.) In our part of town, there's at least a couple of them zipping around in their tight black jeans and flannel shirts, leaving a contrail of blue smoke which is so bad to ride behind and breathe, one has to pull over and wait a minute or two for it to dissipate. They're putting out 50 times the pollution of the SUV next to them, just to save money on gas and look cool.
Please help metamoderate.
Hey, bicycle, electric bike, and moped owner here. And I don't mean scooters like your Honda Spree and Vespa PX. I mean moped. Your Puch Maxi, your Vespa Ciao, your Tomos LX. It's so interesting watching the moped revolution of the late 1970s in the US come alive again in even fuller force in China and other Asian countries today. We Americans could save a mighty lot of gas if a lot of us switched to two-wheeled transport; and I get the feeling that at some point it might have to happen yet again.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6o-g7YeC4Q - Something about 120km/hour (75mph) seems pretty cool to me. Imagine what you'd think if you were in a car on the interstate and you got passed by someone on a mountain bike. Even though I believe the US states have legal limits at 20mph most everywhere and 30mph in California.
In an age when most of us could do with more exercise, not less, and could reduce energy usage not increase it - these seem like a bad idea. It will be interesting to see if the percentage of people who are obese in either of these countries increase in parallel with the switch to electric bikes.
I've been to Amsterdam, spent a few weeks there, and you'd be amazed at how few people are fat in that city - a lot of which can be contributed to the fact the ride everywhere. Compare that to the US, Britain, and even Australia - and it's quite the difference. America of course wins the prize - so if anything you guys need more incentive to ride pushbikes, not less.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Almost every Japanese senior citizen rides one of these... surprisingly fast. They're expensive too there, like $700 dollars. Also, they don't lock them up because generally in Japan people don't steal things.
I like this news very much.
Although I'm not a huge fan of bicycle riding myself, it's good to see people able to find inexpensive and efficient transportation. It won't work where I live (not urbanized enough), but it's an excellent solution for big cities, which is where most of the fossil fuels get burned anyway.
As a bicyclist (and driver. Remember that- most of us who ride our bikes ALSO DRIVE), I find it very difficult to sympathize with your viewpoint.
When is the last time you read, "motorist killed by bicyclist"? Bicyclists always lose in car-vs-bicyclist.
Now, look at the face of cyclist road deaths: Kylie Bruehler, orphaned when both her parents were struck by a truck. Go on, LOOK, Mr. Self Righteous. Look at the face of a 7 year old girl as she buries her parents. Look at her grandfather walk down the line of hundreds of cyclists who showed up to honor them.
Do you know what usually happens when a motorist kills a cyclist? Absolutely nothing- and this case is not the exception but the rule. Time and time again the cyclist community fumes when another person is struck simply because the driver wasn't paying attention to where they were going, the police call it a "terrible accident", and the driver walks off without so much as a manslaughter charge.
Please help metamoderate.
Where I'm at, COSP always force you to go to a Fire Department to register your bike. They said so, so it must be law right?
I sold my $600 mountain bike so they would leave me alone, and I bought an older steel-framed bike for US40 and painted it a mix of paints so it looks old and rusted to blend in with dirt and bushes. Haven't been harassed to register it yet, because I look like a hobo now. I swear America has 75% of it's citizens working surveilance in public service and government jobs that have nothing better to do but prey on another's productivity.
Trying to fit these things into traffic in a crowded area is tough. New York State classifies such vehicles as follows:
So New York State makes a clear distinction between a bicycle and anything with power. (Segways are handled somewhat differently, but are limited to 12.5 MPH. New York City prohibits them on sidewalks.)
Realistically, once you pass 20MPH, you have most of the risks of a motorcycle, and may as well get one.
I'm glad you used sound reasoning and solid argumentation and did not resort to baser things like guilt-trips and emotional appeals. Well done, sir.
Sure, because the parent I replied to had sound reasoning and solid argumentation when he said that most cyclists on the road are lawless jerks- and implied that they deserve what they get, or that drivers shouldn't be responsible for hitting them. Also, I think it's pretty logical and good reasoning to say, "When is the last time you read, 'motorist killed by cyclist'?"
You know what? If reading that story and looking at that picture of that orphan makes a couple of Slashdotters a liiiiitle bit more careful driving (around cyclists or not), then it was worth every mod point.
But yes, I see your point. Unfortunately, when you've been struck by cars twice (both breaking the law, when you were doing everything right), you tend to have a very shore fuse for the whole but-cyclists-are-lawless-idiots comment. Every time cyclist safety comes up in conversation someone has to blurt this out. While I was still in my cast from the first time I was hit, an asshole coworker sat across from me and told the table that cyclists knew that it was dangerous and thus drivers shouldn't be liable. I nearly cracked him over the head with the cast.
Please help metamoderate.
These things are a really really good idea.
1) Power to weight works in favour of an electric bike. 500W on a bike is a BIG gain, on a 4 Ton SUV it's noise.
2) The battery range V distance just works.
Electric cars/motorbikes won't work except as a second or third vehicle simply because most people do drive their car 300km or so now and then. For an electric car that's a beyond there "get me there and back range". For a bicycle 30km return is about all most people would do - beyond that it takes too much time out of a working day.
3) If you do get stuck (run out of charge) an electric bicycle is small enough to pick up later with a car. An electric car/motorcycle would require a recovery vehicle (big $$)
4) Cheap enough that most (western) people could afford one as a second or third vehicle. Massively more efficient than taking the car to work where it's a short commute (10-20km) and not a lot slower.
I'd have to say though - to make these work needs either dedicated bike lanes or banning cars from some of the main roads in commute time
I used to ride a bicycle to work - gave it up it was simply too dangerous. (I ride a motorcycle and it's FAR safer than a bicycle).
I really don't see this catching on in the US.
Here in Beijing lots of people (me included) ride electric bikes because it's too expensive to have a car and traffic jams are so bad it takes me 15 minutes to ride to the bank whereas it would take me about 1 hour to get there by car during rush hour traffic. Motorcycles aren't allowed in the center of the city so an electric bike is really convenient for getting around.
Then there's the question of money. I bought my bike for 2,100RMB (about $300USD). This is a little under half a month's salary for the average Beijinger so these things are very affordable especially compared to cars and motorcycles. I supect this is one of the reasons electric bikes are getting popular in places with a lot of poverty like India.
Then there's lifestyle. Here there's no Costco so I'm not hauling bags and bags of groceries at one time. Also I live in the neighborhood where I work so my commute is only about 10 minutes. That's the perfect range for one of these bikes. If you had an hour commute like many people in the US, you'd never be able to take the bike since the average charge seems to get me through about 45ish minutes before I really need to recharge. That's with peddling to help out the battery.
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Take your opinions back.
All a bicycle does is expose peopel to new dangers they were otherwise safe from when in a car. Bicyclists are just another form of pedestrian that doesn't belong anywhere on the same road as a car, and they are a hazard. Bicycling in rain and snow is just your wanting to be like some retards on the Discovery Channel. No doubt you also fly kites in a lightning storm, and consider your opinions more important than another's preferences. Friends of mine have died just from falling off their scooters and bicycles. There is no such thing as a "helmet law" because it fails except in generating revenue to punnish people that are careful or skilled to not need helmets obstructing their use.
That would be a good start.
Please help metamoderate.
....They drop out of Reed ...
and found Apple, now a $50Billion enterprise
All theory is gray
To add a sidecar, look for a remnant or broken bicycle that someone either discards or sells as parts. Best places are yard or garage sales, but you realy need to rummage through the dumpsters in a square mile area at-least once a week.
Try to imagine the verticle pipe of the bicycle frame where the seat mounts into, you need to bend the two horizontal bars to a 90-degree angle or otherwise cut them off to re-weld them at a 90-degree angle. A disc cutter to cut the entire front frame off the rear-wheel would suffice if you have a choice of hardware to hobble it onto your bicycle. You can make a sidecar for someone to sit, or a basket, but the purpose is to just get a 3rd wheel on the ground so you CAN ride on snow without gravity sliding you on your chin and elbows.
It's a shame that bicycle assemblers put so much crap along the wheels that limit what choice of wheels and traction to use. Bicycle Snow-chains need to be custom-made, and that's why you need to use disk-brakes rather than the cruddy ones they weld onto the forks. Goal is to replace brake calipers on the rims to disc brakes on the wheel axles, and consider quick-release rims because only cheap-bastard assemblers use anything that needs a wrench to remove.
There are several known benefits to the electric bike which are pretty obvious. However there are some points which I find a little dangerous. The primary point being that you can often not actually hear these electrical bikes coming up behind you. Often its nothing but the risk of being hit is increased and it does happen. The second issue is where do we charge up these bikes? is there any environmental impact to charging the bikes or is it just going to be moving the carbon from cars in the city to coal fired plants in the rural areas?. I also wonder who is going to get heart disease and other health problems from no longer exercising on a daily basis by riding. Are we all going to have to buy gym memberships to keep fit rather than simple lifestyle changes like walking or cycling?
Look, you condescending fuckhead, I know "the road is not a playground".
In one case I was hit from behind while making a legal left turn from a left-turn only lane, by a guy who went straight, illegally. In the second case, I was doored. The driver flung open her door while I was going about 10-12 MPH, right in front of me. I had just enough time to notice the door opening before I found myself flying through the air upside-down, looking at the cars behind me, and thinking "oh please, may I not get run over."
I had a cabbie make an oncoming left turn straight at me at an intersection, and then scream at me to get the fuck out of his way.
I had a valet parking attendant cut me off coming out of a parking lot- in the process of avoiding him, I went over the handlebars and landed in the road. He laughed.
I know people on a student cycling team who have been out on group training rides and had drivers on side-streets (or making oncoming left turns) drive right into the middle of the pack (with the cyclist hitting the side of the car, usually at +15 mph.) This happens about twice a year, and usually puts the cyclist in the hospital and completely destroys their bike.
Or how about that doctor who was convicted of slamming on his brakes to "scare" cyclists? Two of them couldn't stop in time, and they smashed into his back window. It came out in court that he had a long history of such road rage against cyclists.
It is the job of the more at-risk to protect themselves!
And then, by extension, the victims (let's not beat around the bush here- "the at-risk", my ass) if they don't protect themselves, deserve what they get? I suppose you tell rape victims that they shouldn't have dressed slutty? Or how about telling domestic violence victims that they shouldn't have made their partner angry? Society does not work by lecturing the victims- we punishing the criminals.
Please help metamoderate.
lets face it fuel cost are a joke these days. i even have looked into a electric moped the model i am looking at goes 60 and has a 85 mile range all battery powered. a street legile model in other words. most of your driving is to work or around town and that little moped would fufill my needs for almost all my driving.and i live in a state that mostly warm year round. my fule burning car would only be driving on long trips or on the freeway being i woudlent dare take anything that small and noiseless on a freeway even thow its legile to do so. i also see alot more gas powerd ones running around hear more and more every year they get crazy mpg abought the same as the eltric model i am looking at but with fuel of course. why pay crazy fule price whatever amount they dedcide to gourge on this year when for a cuple grand you can get a small ultra efficient means to get around..fuled or otherwise. nut any kind of bike has its risk on the road drivers just dont respect bikes at all in the usa why thers so many accidents on them.. .
I've ridden an e-bike in China for years. Let me tell you what I've learned, in a disordered jumble of statements.
E-bikes are fine IFF (if and only if) you live in a compact city. My city is five miles across. If it were larger, (say, Austin-sized) an e-bike would not really be an option. My rule of thumb for battery life is "thirty minutes out, thirty minutes back" which limits your radius of action. An e-bike is a hell of a lot heavier than a regular bike due to the dense batteries. The batteries are in a removable container, so you can take them out and charge them. Let me tell you, it sucks carrying the equivalent of a car battery upstairs to charge every day. When thieves can't be bothered to steal your whole bike, they'll just rip out the batteries. You can charge up directly in the bike, but then you need a safe, secure area to park your bike on the 1st floor, AND it must be supplied with electricity. This is a real deal-killer for most apartments in America. My apartment in China has a special closet on the 1st floor where I can lock my bike up, and the electricity comes from my meter. Let's see...oh yeah you'll be subject to all the nasty weather of bikes, and in winter you really get blasted by the wind in your face (because you can go so much faster than a bike). I've had it before where it was so cold, I could barely see from all the tears streaming out of my eyes. With special bike raincoats, you can get through the rain pretty well, although your feet will get wet, and you need a ballcap to keep the rain out of your eyes. The e-bikes constantly have stuff break on them. I spend $5-10 per month on repairs of various things that break...the last breakage was the rear taillight and the rear brake cable. E-bike drum brakes make an unholy shriek when using them to stop. China has a whole network of dedicated bike lanes that really make using e-bikes a breeze. I wouldn't fancy riding out on the street with cars and bicycles. What else...hmm...E-bikes are a lot of fun to ride around. They zip through traffic with ease. It's nice not having to pay any attention to red lights other than "is traffic coming?" Shopping can be a pain, some of the scooter-like e-bikes have almost no cargo space. The e-bikes that look like bikes with batteries attached usually have bike baskets and other storage paraphernalia. Don't keep anything in the storage for more than one trip, because thieves will just break in and steal whatever you have. Forget using the pedals if you run out of batteries, it's very tiring to pedal the bike, better just to get off and walk the thing. Running out of batteries sucks. You either walk your happy ass all the way home, or get a truck taxi to take you. You do have truck taxis cruising the streets in your city in America, right?
To sum up, e-bikes are fun and great but you have to have a whole supporting infrastructure to make them worthwhile. I love mine in China but I'd never be stupid enough to ride one in America, unless I was one of those young single people who never leaves the inner city.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I live in the netherlands and i almost never see an electric bicycle i think these numbers aren't completly true
You see plenty of them here in Cambridge, UK, but they generally tend to be ridden by the sort of people who would really benefit from having to pedal their bikes...
refresh slashdot...it does the same thing when I refresh sites that stream illegal copyrighted content now why is that slashdot is associated with sites that contain illegal material? This site is just a datamine for the dod isn't it? Cmdrtaco is a commy. Just like our current president.
the way cities are built!
So you admit that a large percentage of your friends are as irrational about diet as they are about traffic laws?
I deplore feedlot cattle farming, overcrowded chicken farms and the like, as much as anybody. But here are some facts for you: (1) Our species evolved to have meat in its diet. (2) It is actually quite difficult to get long-term good nutrition from a real vegetarian diet. (3) There are not enough resources to feed everyone in the world with free-range organic animal flesh.
While a vegetable diet is generally more environmentally friendly, it ignores certain realities of our physical nature.
Now that they are finally starting to develop bulk-grown meat that does not involve killing animals, and is much more efficient than meat on the hoof, maybe these problems will eventually go away. But pretending the problems don't exist, by trying to live on a vegetarian diet we were not built to consume, is simply not realistic.
In many cities in China, including the major cities, motorcycles are not allowed within the city limits, this is one of the main reasons people opt for elec. bicycles though not the only one of course. As the article mentions these bikes are more and more like actual motorcycles while at the same time the driver is not required to have a license. Imagine thousands of "motorcycles" swarming around at high speed without a sound, other than sound of the breaks...
First of all, bikes in China are not produced to western standards either technically (safety standards: saw one blow up in flames while parked), fashionably (clunky, heavy, etc) or socially acceptable. Majority of consumers in the US ride bikes for leisure purposes. Some take the stand of being environmentally friendly or dissing long commute times, but basically it's for an image. Biking around with 20+kg of weight is neither comfortable or convenient. Exercise = pedaling and consumers pay for light weight bikes, not heavy electric bikes. When you turn on an electric motor the majority would rather hop in a car with air con/heater/stereo/etc. Then you start to get into infrastructure... originally Beijing was built around 90% bikes and 10% cars, people grew up accepting bikes as the main mode of transportation and this gradually progressed into todays ring road system (huge nightmare with the on/off ramps... other story)... the US grew up the other way with cars being the main method of transportation. On top of that you have the US desire for instant gratification... time = money. In terms of cars vs bikes... cars will always win with consumers focused on faster commute times with less energy. Those that don't see this are in the minority. When gas triples in price this might be another story... but by then cars will likely be electric anyway. I can see some Europeans buying into electric bikes due to the city infrastructure but Americans are built around highways and cars... good luck changing this except in very select high density areas.
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...the Motorist/Bicyclist animosity to each other. Personally, if I'm on my bicycle, I keep to the right as much as possible, and use hand signals to indicate direction/lane changes. I leave plenty of room for faster motorized vehicles to pass me if they want, (unless I'm changing lanes or direction, but I signal plenty in advance to let them know my intentions). On a bicycle, I am 100% sure that I'm obeying ALL traffic regulations, as I don't really want to die. I've never had anybody ride my ass, or yell at me for doing something stupid. When available, I'll use sidewalks, and go at a relatively slow pace to allow for plenty of time to stop/ maneuver for pedestrian traffic.
When I'm in my motorized vehicle, I give the cyclist plenty of space to stop if needed, (and myself to stop if all the sudden he bites it for some reason in front of me). If traffic is clear on a 3 lane, I'll drive in the center turn lane to get around the cyclist at 75% normal speed to give him room. If it's a 4 lane, and he's riding on the shoulder, I'll just change lanes, and go around him while not breaching proper directional lane travel. If it's a 2 lane, (highway), I'll straddle the center line, and get around him as fast as possible. I wouldn't want a car passing within inches of me on a bicycle, so I don't do it to other people. I consciously try and give bicyclists plenty of room to maneuver if it is at all feasible.
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Given the way some of them are thrown together, I'm completely in agreement with the NY view that electric two wheeled vehicles should comply with the same regulations as gas-powered ones. It is not like there are none available.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
"Electrical Bicycles Surging" ... come on, it's so easy... you've let me down, slashdot.
I think people are buying more scooter and mopeds then they are bikes. I'd say it probably wouldn't pay to sell bikes on the internet. http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/ultimate-max-burn-review-free-trial-now-1809994.html
I commute to work every day by cycling (if the weather is decent) or walking (in snow/rain). In my younger days I would cycle on the side of busy streets and the shoulder of highways. I don't do that any more because I've seen car drivers make mistakes (heck as a car driver I've made a few mistakes myself, thankfully none resulting in collisions are accidents) and don't want to die due to someone else's simple mistake.
I can recall reading about an accident on the Trans-Canada Highway west of Calgary, Alberta 20+ years ago. A youth group was cycling on the shoulder, with their group van trailing behind them on the shoulder with its hazard lights on, when a car passed the van and swerved onto the shoulder and killed several of the cyclists. A teenage driver with his friends in the car had been trying to light a cigarette, dropped it, and took his eyes off the road...
More recently a group of cyclists in Ottawa was hit in a similar way with deaths and injuries.
In my car I've been rear ended twice. In both cases I was stopped at a red light, the car behind me was stopped, and then the driver behind me decided to go while the light was still red. I've seen automobile drivers do any number of stupid things, some of which resulted in serious accidents. I don't want to die or be seriously injured when someone makes a dumb mistake in a car while I'm completely unprotected (other than the helmet) on my bicycle.
The painted white line to designate a bike lane portion of a road (or a shoulder of a highway) offers no physical protection against a car driver who makes a mistake. The curb up to the sidewalk is something, but you can find many incidences of cars going up onto sidewalks and killing pedestrians.
I find the best defense to be vigilance, call it "defensive cycling" where you assume that the auto drivers do not see you and/or may turn/accelerate suddenly in any direction. Ride accordingly to protect yourself. Encourage your community to create dedicated bike paths where no motorized vehicles are permitted, those are my preferred places to ride.
Also, while using electric bikes is leaps and bounds cleaner than using a 2-stroke engine for power (single-piston engine that burns gas AND oil, the primary technology of old, cheap, slowass mopeds and the current wave of motored bikes) I do have an issue with calling it "green" transportation. The consumption of dinosaur oil is only being displaced by equally non-green batteries. SLA batteries are still the norm. They are the common low-end of many electric bike products which will certainly sell better than NiMH, Lithium or Li-po batteries due to the cheaper upfront cost.
The granddaddy of green, short-range transportation should aim to implement electric bikes solar charging stations at major destinations.
In The Netherlands there are basically two kinds of scooters/mopeds. The 25km/h and the 45km/h variant. ;-)
The 25km/h can ride the bike lanes, but the 45km/h can only ride the bike lanes when explicitly allowed, otherwise he has to ride the car lanes. This has more to do with speed limit then vehicle size. Also, the 45km/h requires a drivers license.
We have a great bike lane infrastructure, but it can be very busy, and the speed difference would not work. The size of Vespas is akward sometimes (I drive one, 45km/h 2-stroke) but not a really big issue.
E-bikes I have seen are primarely the "helper" kinds on regular bikes, although electric Vespa like models are present. They also come in 25 and 45km/h variants.
I kill for a real Piaggio/Vespa electric scooter, and I seriously hope theyll make one soon, as the 2-stroke and even the 4-stroke fuel engines are just so 20 century
Has to be a proper full metal body Vespa, with an extremely reliably engine thou, like I'm used to.
So no, I dont think its a halfway measure, but smart traffic really.
Bikes are already banned from the sidewalks in many places, which makes absolutely no sense...
Bike hits pedestrian - mostly minor injuries or annoyance for both parties...
Car hits bike - high chance of serious injuries or death of the rider...
Larger vehicle hits bike - rider very likely to be killed.
A cyclist risks injuring himself if he hits a pedestrian, a car driver only risks scratching his car if he hits a bike.
A pedestrian can also react much quicker than a car, when the bikes invariably wobble around... And up hill, bikes are frequently no quicker than pedestrians... (conversely, i have encountered bikes breaking the speed limit going downhill).
Couple that with the fact that sidewalks are often far less crowded than the roads, and that cyclists usually ignore things like traffic signals and speed limits... They really don't belong on the roads.
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a cheerful environmentalist superhero
but after the accident, he turned to bitter rants
nowadays superbanana can be found under the highway overpass, yelling at tourists on segways, blustering about the threat of hipster retards, drunk on 100% organic free trade prison hooch
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"and impressive sales in India, Europe, and the US."
Funny, I work at one of the highest-volume bike stores in my state. Do you know how many electric bikes we sold last year? I'll give you a minute.
That's right. Zero.
You know how many electric bikes we sold in the last five years?
One.
So yeah, sales are "impressive."
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...well most of the time. Many folks here in Toronto do the Donut Ride even in the height of Winter.
Forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but is there a particular reason these aren't being called "electric motorcycles"?
Property is theft.
In a reverse manner.
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I like to ride my bike to work. It is about 40 minutes each way. Nice an calm except that 15 minutes of terror while I have to cross the freeway (zero way around) and then safely navigate through 20 square block where the cops fear to even go. No matter how I cut it I must cross at least one freeway (takes about 5 minutes) and if I want to avoid the nasty neighborhood then I must cross two freeways (and travel down the second one for about 5 minutes). The safer route actually adds about 40 extra minutes to my 40 minute route.
This could be solved if the city built a bike path or even a traversalable path along the stream that snakes from near my home to near my work (down town). The city council does not really encourage alternative solutions – the current ‘bike’ paths are rough are composed of a lose gravel/sand mix. Part of the city council’s reasoning: it keeps those darn roller blading kids off their ‘walking’ paths.
The last city I lived in I could roller blade or bike to pretty much every corner of the city. I hardly ever need to use my car. It was great.
To be fair, in Asia people tend to be smaller, and they look more ridiculous on a full-size motorcycle than on a scooter.
I haven't been to China, but in SE Asia there are more motorbikes (scooters) on the road than cars and it works great. It's scarier to drive a car there than a motorbike. I, as a somewhat large white male, may look ridiculous on some of the smaller scooters - but you simply have to choose well when renting.
Even the silliest looking machines I saw didn't look *that* silly with a tiny Thai person riding them, and over there even foreigners look a little silly riding the larger bikes.
Actually, the funniest thing is that they're so ubiquitous that people tend to know more about them than they do about cars. Here in the US, everyone at least knows the difference between the different sizes of cars, and can probably tell a "nice" car from a cheap one. In Thailand, while I could tell motorbikes apart by size and style, I noticed that the Thais have all kinds of ways to classify them and can tell how good one is visually where I could tell no difference. Really, it is not hard to impress girls if you have the right motorbike (which I did, luckily...) as even they can tell.
There are no showers at the office so I just take it easy on the way to work to avoid getting sweaty.
And there, in a nutshell, is why many commuters like the idea of an electric assisted bike.
Then don't peddle that hard. The amount you sweat is related to: how much effort you put in, how out of shape you are, and the difficulty of the terrain (uphill/head wind).
I cycle to work (where we have showers) from April to November in Canada, and besides a rough first 2-3 weeks to get back into shape, I find I don't sweat much when I get in the office. It's usually on the way home in the summer (+ 30C weather) in the afternoon that I'm dripping when I get home. Mornings are fine (at least for me).
But if a little "assist" is what's needed to cut down on smog and traffic, then I'm all for it.
Scientists report that the average weight of the Chinese has begun to spike rapidly as they begin using electric bikes, and eat at McDonald's, Starbucks, and KFC.
Seriously, I spent two weeks in China in 2007 and I realized why most of the world views most Americans as fat and lazy - we are! I was positively huge compared to 99% of the people in Beijing.
Now I've dropped 30lbs and ride my (pedal-powered) bike to work, and for fun, on a regular basis. I can conceed the benefits of electric bikes vs cars, but from a health standpoint, I suspect the Chinese are going backwards.
Necron69
Toronto barely has winter, let`s see some links from Winnipeg or St. Johns.
There are times I cannot see scooters when block by other vehicles. They and their driver are only four feet tall. Bicycles are more like 5 to 6 feet. Both should have flags for even more visibility.
Indeed -- I caught that error only after posting, and decided that the intent was clear enough not to bother with a followup.
And about as many are aware that a bike (at least in Canada) are legally entitled to an entire lane because that are considered a vehicle under the law. If there is no bike lane riding the curb is a courtesy, not a requirement.
If no one has your back, time to move your back.
At first I get sad thinking of younger folk using electric bikes. But there is a practical side and that is, as many have mentioned, replacing the car for commuting. If an electric bike can keep up a 15 MPH run (much faster and I wouldn't want it sharing bike paths with pedestrians and strollers), you could use it for the 5-20 mile commutes to work. I've been starting to realize just how completely absurd it is that we feel the need for 3000+ lbs of metal to cart us around. Even motorcycles are kind of ridiculous. But an electric bike that allows you to both pedal and ride...that's a decent idea.
I've got a 20 mile commute which is easy by highway, but hilly and 25 miles on a bike. I'd consider it with an electric bike though. But I'd consider it on a normal bike if I could get a bike path the whole way instead of sharing/dodging cars on the road.
One of my favourite things about Oxford in the UK is the fact that everyone seems to cycle around. The fact that everyone does it and it's so costly to park a car in the city made me restore my old bike and I can't get enough of cycling now!
Your assertion might be right if you don't live in a major city. I live in Mexico City, which is a huge monster by all standards. The most efficient transportation medium here is by bike, unless you are lucky enough to ride on the major high-speed urban roads on your way to work, and both live and work quite close to their entry/exit points.
I am by no means an athlete. My average cycling speed is between 20 and 25 Km/h. The city is mostly flat, and whenever I can, I bike to my destination on a ~20Km radius from home. My trips are usually way faster than when I go by car, and slightly faster than when I go by subway. And as there are no major hills on the road, it is not enough effort to make me a sweaty mess.
Yes, my workplace is where the hilly part starts, and I do arrive somewhat sweaty ;-) But not enough to be stinky. Or at least, so I believe ;-)
Riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is way unsafer than riding on the street. Why?
There are more arguments, that's only what I could think of right now.
People from warm places say that all the time. (I used to say it too.) But there's nothing you can wear to make a couple of inches of snow not make you slip and slide.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
A lot of times, the roads are salted in the city so there is no snow/ice except right after a snowfall/blizzard... here is a video of a Donut Ride I took a few days after a Winter Storm dumped inches of snow in Toronto: Toronto Donut Ride, 12 December 2009.
If you search for my other videos under cyclocommuter, you will see that I have been doing the Donut Ride (anywhere from 70-95 kms) pretty much every weekend this winter.
Indeed, although the conditions that have spurred popularity of ebikes in China are not the same as those poised to do so in the US. In China, the trend reflects rising incomes and the switch from regular bicyles to electric-assist bicycles (typically with heavy but inexpensive lead-acid batteries.) In the U.S., growth is likely to come (1) because lots of aging baby boomer knees could use a little help, and the number of aging baby boomers is exploding, (2) because the highest cost component is a good Lithium-chemistry battery, and investments in the electric car industry are pushing those costs down fast, (3) because of the Growth of Green, and (4) because they are just SO much fun. Interested? Please join us at http://electriccyclist.com/
I dunno how people shop for a family on a bike..I've had small 2-seater sports cars all my life and I have to be creative quite often just to fit my purchases into them?!?
Personally, I never have. :) It's just the two of us so far, and when we did have the supermarket just down the street, we'd tend to do fairly minimal shopping trips when biking down. Anything we bought had to fit into our two panniers (one per bike) - that fills up quickly, of course. But biking down for groceries is something I enjoyed and would like to do again - even if it's necessarily just for small trips. We're looking into getting a cargo bicycle for this...
Bow-ties are cool.
Bikes are already banned from the sidewalks in many places, which makes absolutely no sense...
Ever try riding a bike downtown on a sidewalk during business hours? Constantly weaving through dozens of people each minute won't allow you to reach a very high speed, and you run a much higher risk of crashing into someone, as pedestrian movements can be a lot more random and sporadic (i.e. riding behind someone that just stops and turns around, people suddenly exiting parked cars or buildings) than cars, which generally travel in their lanes.
I'd prefer to ride on a sidewalk as much as possible, as getting run over by a pedestrian is a lot less worse for me than getting run over by a vehicle (paying extra attention to right turns and left turning vehicles when crossing intersections). Riding on the road when the sidewalk is empty seems like a needless risk too. Sidewalk-only riding simply doesn't work everywhere, and I'll need to ride on the road sometimes to get to my destination in the fastest possible time.
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
Solution, remove cyclists from the road.
Why should the vast majority of people be held up for an insignificant minority of road users that end up being a danger to everyone else?
I take the bus, so if I get stuck behind a cyclist, 1 person is making 30 or 40 people late. This somehow makes sense to you.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
In December, conflict over electric bike safety and design erupted when a government agency introduced a rule effectively banning large electric bikes from bike lanes. But the response from manufacturers and bike owners -- nearly 10 percent of the population -- was forceful. Less than two weeks later, the rule was suspended.
Waddya know. Enough people speak up, and voila! The big, mean government responds.. in a totally unexpected fashion by some peoples' preconceptions. Okay okay, I'll grant it was probably the manufactures with the clout that had the greatest influence.. but hey, the squeaky wheel..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I got on the road with my ebike in May of last year. I've got close to 3000 miles since then. I live in a city (Pittsburgh) with a lot of hills and my ride is 8.5 miles each way. I have to say that I get to work about 50% faster on average than driving my car. I also save over a thousand dollars a year on parking costs. My daily gas costs in my car were about $2.00. On the bike, it's less than $0.12 per day in electricity (including the half that I charge at work). I estimate the amortized costs of the battery to be about $0.50 per day, though I haven't had to replace my battery pack yet.
Needless to say, I am extremely satisfied with the experience, and I recommend it to anyone who's not afraid to try it. A few things I'd like to point out.
Anyway, I thought I'd share my experience. Ebiking is absolutely a viable and economic means of transportation.
I commute daily 10 miles relatively flat (Except during this *&*_ snow) on a 500W conversion I did using the eBike-Kit. Works like a charm ... I can just about keep up with the young and vigorous (I'm pretty old), get to work in less than an hour including clothes change times, and feel great when I do. Breakeven on the conversion should be in another 6 months ... been riding 6. Highly recommend it.
...time, but in my East Coast city, with it's hills and curves, as well as mix of urban one-way grids and wide blvd's, combined with an at the time 10mi one way communte, I didn't want to chacne arriving at work smelling like Thor, then riding home in the driving rain. Only recently did my lcoal PT (one of the largest in the country) install bike racks on its buses, and it still doesn't allow bikes on trains during rush hour (yes they are that dumb -- they encourage car use, really), so mixed mode only recently became an option. The best option I could see was an electric bike. It would allow cheap, Earth friendly travel, without the extreme exertion -- and sweating.
I looked seriously at electric bikes, but most I saw were either not cheap kits I had to install myself, which I balked at, or prebuilt bikes that were expensive and either looked like circus bikes, or something left by aliens. I refused to look like a goober while riding my bike. Fine for ex-hippies but not if I have to pay for it. So I waited and figured someone would sell something for the rest of us. And I continued to drive my not very Earth friendly European sedan.
While lounging on the couch watching the FineLiving Channel, I saw a piece on a electric assisted mountain bike and perked up. I watched for the next 10 or so minutes a report about exactly the product I'd been waiting for, the Wave Crest TIDALFORCE electric bike. I looked like a real bike with the batteries and motor in the wheel hubs, and it was on a regular bike frame. And better yet it was silent ( or nearly so). I couldn't buy one fast enough! When I went to the website the next Monday at work, the price slowed me down. $2500. I decided to wait a few or 6 months to see if the price went down.
After forgetting and remembering about a year later, I rechecked the website. Apparently I waited too long and the company stopped selling due to poor sales. All products, equipment, and lic. sold to a French company. I'm sure they have no intentino of selling any products in the US. What was worse, the few used and new units still in channels we often selling for higher prices than new -- the cheapest complete bike I found was $2700. Broken and incomplete examples could be had for anywhere from $1500 - $2000 on Ebay. Once again I gave up.
Walmart began selling cheap electric bikes, some as low as $200. I was prepared to pick on up, even at the cost of having to ride around with a brick of batteries on a bike rack, but after waiting a weekend to buy off the website, they were all gone. As if they never exhisted. What gives?
Finally, last Spring, while trolling the web for excitment I came across E+ Motion Systems. They apparenly have resurrected the Tidal Force name, and engineering, added thier own, and are reselling bikes and add-on kits. I happily picked up a kit ( I am a cheao bastard after all), installed it, and haven't looked back. It was as easy as installing two wheels and the connected wire, and done. Reading the instructions took longer than the install.
My bike commute in the morning including putting the bike on the front of a bus (crappy PT that doesn't allow bike on trains) is only 10 minutes longer than driving. I let the bike do almost all of the work going in, so no sweating, and oddly less stressful. Coming home I could actually use the bike path recently finshed, and the out-ride, in the same direction as rush hour traffic, took between 15mins, and 30, depending on whether I pedalled, the bike dragged by fat ass, or whe shared the load. I must say the bike tops out at 20MPH on cruise control, and I know I could push 25 easily pedalling. Not a big issue. I'd have been ecstatic to average 20MPH on the Expressway at the say time of day, or even during daylight hours! Saved gas and wear and tear alone for the summer recouped a good portion of the kit cos