China's New Craze: E-bikes 397
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?"
Hybrid models (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't see anything in the posted links that said whether they were electric-only bikes or hybrid, but it does look like you can already get electric hybrid bikes: Electric Bikes Northwest [electricvehiclesnw.com]. I would happily buy something like that over a car, assuming I could afford either, which isn't the case anyway...
Here ya go (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, for those not young, not in good physical shape, or just lazy, the electric bike would be great. It would also be good for those who don't work for bike-friendly employers since you can arrive at work without being all sweaty and needing to change.
On another bicycle note, I recently came accross this great short essay entitled, "In Praise of the Bicycle" [wicip.org].
Excerpts:
Its a nice read if you like cycling, commuting via bike, or are stuffed in your car in rush-hour traffic.
I then looked up the stats for the 2003 Tour and Lance Armstrong's winning finish of the 2129.4 mile race in 83h41'12" gives him an incredible average speed of 25.45miles/hour.
While a thoroughbred can run a mile averaging 40mph, a long distance speed record for the Karbarda breed or horses (the only one I could find data on) is 50km at 18.5 mph. Its pretty safe to say that attempting to ride a horse or just entering any animal in the Tour would kill it in a
matter of days if not less.
Go bicycles!
In my opinion, anything that gets people out of their SUVs is a good thing for the world and these things are much better than nothing.
Re:Here ya go (Score:4, Informative)
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:Here ya go (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hybrid models (Score:4, Informative)
Google [google.com] for more if you're interested . . .
Re:Hybrid models (Score:3, Informative)
If you have an independant dealer of "Giant" Bicycles - they can special order it and hand it to you assembled.
If you live within 10 miles of work - you can get your excerisize and arrive at work less wasted than a standard bicycle. - I do.
Highly recommended.
AIK
Tried one (Score:3, Informative)
And personally, I liked it a lot. You just turn on the power
assistance and ride it. There are no other controls.
When you accelerate or climb a slope, the drive kicks in.
You're hardly aware of it. Instead it feels like you're uber-
fit. And when you're up to speed, it just behaves like a
normal bike.
The model I rode was a city bike. I could imagine to buy
one for my mother when she doesn't feel fit enough to ride
a normal one anymore.
A more sportsy
Re:Hybrid models (Score:3, Interesting)
Who woulda thunk it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who woulda thunk it? (Score:2, Informative)
Unless you tell me they are ALL using portable solar power generators to do it.
Re:Who woulda thunk it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Point two - point one notwithstanding, China gets most of its eletrical power ATM off brown-coal (very high sulfur content) which is why in Beijing you really can feel the air burning the the inside of your nostrils on a bad day.
On the local (ie Chinese) news last night, big stories on several chanels about China's eletrical power shortage, with factories having to only run night shifts, cancel big orders and subsequently lay off workers because they don't have the power to operate their machinery. I don't have exact figures at hand, but I believe well over half the population is yet to be connected to the grid.
Chinese diet is becoming westernised and obesity is starting to become common in the population.
A human-powered bicycle starts to look better again. But mainland Chinese are very physical-effort adverse as breaking a sweat is considered 'workerish'. Really! (This is, of course, a gross generalisation and all of my own Chinese friends here are exceptions).
And all that hard breathing of Beijing (or Shanghai, or any city, really) air probably does more health damage than two packs a day. I doubt it is coincidence that major respitary illnesses come out of this part of the world mostly, what with the pollution, the dense population and everyone spitting like lamas everywhere!
My unit leader was saying the other day that when he was a boy there was spring and autumn (fall) in this region but there isn't anymore. And if you can see Venus on a 'clear' night, you are going well!
A bit ecclectic above, sorry, I'm in a rush to catch the university bus into the city for weekend grocery shopping.
Re:Who woulda thunk it? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think that you can make that claim without further analysis. A typical human riding a bike produces ~0.3 HP (~250 W). An electrically powered bike going the same speed would use a similar amount of energy. (Compare this to a car that might use 20 HP to sustain highway speeds; the bike would be more than 60X more efficient.)
At any rate, the electr
Re:Who woulda thunk it? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Not even close to green (Score:2)
Re:Who woulda thunk it? (Score:2)
However, its all relative. This is a better solution than a car, that's for sure.
Re:Who woulda thunk it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Poverty is bad for the environment, since it is a strong inducement to make choices that are cheap in the short-term but expensive in the long run.
No, conspicuous consumption is not green. But being against the waste of resources, especially in pursuit of empty promises of happiness by owning more stuff, doesn't make one in favor of poverty and suffering - any more than being against overeating makes one in favor of starvation.
Re:Who woulda thunk it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I lived in SE Asia, and I can tell you that the first thing that happens when people start going from poverty to prosperity is they start buying cars and scooters and things. The streets of Ho Chi Minh City are so choked with scooter traffic that if I had been riding a bicycle instead of a scooter myself, I probably would have been overcome by the exhaust fumes and collapsed (and no, I am not kidding).
China, as you may have noticed, is becoming fairly prosperous. Now, people are going to buy faster, more comfortable modes of transportation than bicycles. Which would you rather have them buy? Electric-assist bicycles, which are still pretty green and whose batteries can be recycled (and I'm sure they are; a lot of stuff from the G-7 gets sent to China for recycling, so they have a big recycling industry already in place), or would you rather have them buy a car or scooter and get around with an internal combustion engine driving a vehicle with a lot more parts in it?
You sound like a typical radical environmentalist: calling a good thing for the environment worthless because it's not perfect. By the way, do you use a vehicle with an internal combustion engine yourself? If you do, then you're also a hypocrite for criticizing China for not being perfectly green while they are still greener than you are.
You and the people who modded you insightful both need to get a tighter grasp on your clue before it all slips away.
Green Transportation? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Green Transportation? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Green is the color of Esperanto... (Score:2)
Not green. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not green. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not green. (Score:5, Insightful)
Generating electricity is not green. Once again this is a demonstration of euphoric environmentalists not knowing how things work.
You're right, riding 30 pounds of bicycle isn't any more "green" than driving around 2000 pounds of car.
We'll try to keep such crazy thoughts out of our head from now on.
-Teckla
Green Transportation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Trading in pedal bikes for motor bikes, regardless of power source is not as green as a regular pedal bike. Also, since this is "green" I guess, I would imagine countries like China would adopt them first as there isn't any room for American style SUV's, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Even worse (Score:4, Interesting)
"Bicycles have gone from carrying more than 70 percent of travelers in Shanghai as recently as 1990 to from 15 to 17 percent now, according to the Shanghai Urban Planning Bureau."
Upward mobility indeed.
Re:Green Transportation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it is more green if it causes you to bike to more places, rather than buying a car or taking a taxi. Or if it becomes popular with middle-aged/senior people.
It's not that hard to assume... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's not that hard to assume... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I can give you a few reasons why this will never work over here in the Netherlands.
Here's to the goverment overregulating crap. Cheers.
Green Transportation? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's greener, a bike powered by human-power, or a bike powered by electricity (which has to come from somewhere....fossil fuels, anyone)? I vote human-powered bikes.
Re:Green Transportation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Green Transportation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Green Transportation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
If you consider nuclear power as a 'green' energy source, it's easy. Some do, I'm personally not sure...
If you don't:
1. A certain amount of electricity is from renewable fuels already.
2. The energy conversion efficiency is greater in power plants (about 42%) than in combustion engines (about 25%) and the conversion efficiency of an electro motor is good (about 90%).
3. Waste heat from power plants can be used (for efficiencies up to 60%)
Of course, one has to throw the building energy costs for the power plant, the motor cycle etc. into the equations. And there is bio diesel...
Oh yeah and you have to take into account the fuel logistics. And, and,
Re:Green Transportation? (Score:5, Insightful)
This would depend on where you get your engery from. Humans require engery in the form of food. Food must come from somewhere. Food requires land, soil, nutrients, in many cases livestock. Methane production of a cow for example is pretty signigent. Not to speak of the waste product of humans, which nothing to sneeze at as we are talking about a country with billions of people.
I'm not saying you are wrong, all I'm saying it's not a clear cut equation to balance the effect on the ecosystem between the use of human power and the use of electrical power.
Stigma (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stigma (Score:2, Informative)
It was great.
Re:Stigma (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not just that, but most of the US is very bike-unfriendly. With the exception of California, you either have to fight with pedestrians on the sidewalk, or try your luck in traffic (also depending on local laws).
It's amazing how many drivers almost hit me when I'm riding around on my bicycle. It's not that they're t
Re:Stigma (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, as a pedestrian (when I'm not taking public transit), it's amazing how many bicyclists on sidewalks act rather similar to us as you describe cars acting to you...
Proper marketing will solve that problem... (Score:2)
Re:Proper marketing will solve that problem... (Score:2)
I remember when muscle cars were cool, like my old 1984 Mustang GT with a 5.0 liter engine. Just yesterday some asian kid with mommys honda came driving past me, thinking he was the stud of america. It is all marketing.
Pray god you never run into a tweaked out Subaru (or even a Honda). Your 5.0 is 20 years old - a lot has happened in the meantime.
Re:Stigma (Score:3, Insightful)
While I'm not about to discount the social implications of riding an electric bike... but let's not discount the safety implications of riding a bike in general in the USA. Frankly in most of the areas i've lived, it's not exactly safe. You *could* ride on the sidewalk, but the rules of the road state that bikes belong on the street. Streets are often not
And cost (Score:2)
That's not necessarily GREEN transportation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That's not necessarily GREEN transportation (Score:2)
Although I think you can safely count yourself to the 'green' side if you carefully select what you eat, a unconvicable carnivore could maybe exceed the amount of fuels needed to power the electro-bike with the amount to process his/her meat. Maybe. I didn't do the calculations here, but one has to be at least careful.
Green Transportation (Score:5, Insightful)
After many long years of primarily using bikes, they are now charging these bikes with power from coal power plants. Once a billion or so people have these, our green goals will finally be completed and mother nature will be thoroughly defeated.
Re:Green Transportation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Green Transportation (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Too late, they already are (Score:3, Interesting)
"It as a milestone of sorts when Shanghai, China's biggest city, banned bicycles on its largest avenues last month, but also a belated acknowledgment of a change that has already transformed many large cities in China."
"Automobile sales in China, which reached two million last year, are growing at an annual rate of more than 50 percent. The growth of private car ownership has brought with it a car culture that increasingly resembles the American one, but with even worse traffic jams, e
Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Not surprising. Now I would have definitely been surprised if the United States were the one leading the way in green transportation.
leading green transportation? hardly.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So like I said, not exactly leading the green revolution.
Hardly new, but interesting. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again, I can understand why they aren't popular here. Firstly, there's the price tag of EUR 1750 (Look on the site under "Collectie / Electrische fiets"). Secondly... crime statistics teach us that every bike owner has his bike stolen, on average, once a year in this country. And this bike would make a particularly juicy target for thieves.
Electric bikes != green transportation (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not to say it's not a good thing but it's certainly not a panacea at this point. Something else to remember is that internal combustion does not necessarily equal bad since practically all energy generation involves combustion in some form or another. For example, burning natural oils (vegatable oil) is environmentally neutral, since there is no net-increase of carbon in the atmosphere (which means no green-house effects).
The problem is that most alternative fuels such as hydrogen and methane come from burning fossil fuels. Although they burn clean in our engines, they've already caused pollution before we even get them in our cars! This fact combined with the fact that alternative fuels simply don't have as many joules of energy per unit as conventional fuels makes alternative fuels less attractive.
If we can get a cleans supply of electricity (from the sun, for example), then all of my points become moot.
Re:Electric bikes != green transportation (Score:2)
Re:Electric bikes != green transportation (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes it is, in places that have nice rivers, fast streams, waterfalls, and other good things you can dam up. Ontario has quite a few hydro-electric plants, but we still depend on other methods of generating electricity.
I don't think Arizona or Nevada will be likely to use hydro as their main source of power in the near future.
I don't think.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Crazy Bike Drivers (Score:2)
I remember our tour bus almost hitting a couple of bike drivers because they cut off the bus.
Not that I blame the bike drivers, because nobody really follows western traffic conventions there. Its pretty much, drive on any side of the street you want and create your own lanes.
Outside a buddhist temple, I also noticed a newspaper posted on the wall with the picture of a bike driver on the pavement in a
Gas Powered Scooters EVERYWHERE (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm a little worried about kids without licenses driving motorized vehicles around on sidewalks, though they could be safer than those segways that would just tip over if the battery ran out going up a hill
A friend of mine who works for a city transportation planning organization and I were discussing tha they are scrambling to draw up some regul
I was thinking about something else... (Score:2, Interesting)
How is this green? (Score:2)
A regular bicycle is greener than an electric bike in almost every way, from amount of materials consumed to the pollution involved in generating the electricity to power that bike to the horrible chemicals in the bike's batteries.
Where did everyone start getting this idea that anything that is electric is automatically the greenest alternative? Next
Re:How is this green? (Score:2)
Re:How is this green? (Score:2)
Per-capita rate of electric bike (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Japan
2. China
3. Europe
Gross rank is:
1. China (incl. Taiwan?) (500,000)
2. Japan (200,000)
3. Europe (10,000 and over)
according to this US dealer [electricvehiclesnw.com].
Electric vehicles not green. (Score:4, Insightful)
Electric vehicles by themselves are not enviornmentally friendly. In conjunction with strict pollution controls and smart energy infrastructures, they can be. That's not the case in China. They'd be better off with a reliable fleet of diesel busses and subways.
SoupIsGood Food
Re:Electric vehicles not green. (Score:2, Informative)
People in China are under tight authority, but they are not "enslaved." As a fellow Chinese (thought from Taiwan) I deeply resent your biased comment, even it only shows how simple-minded you are. While the cost and benefits of the dam is still unclear, it is very irreponsible for a westerner to talk about how bad it is without even knowing al
Stationary generators greener than portable (Score:4, Insightful)
Stationary power plants produce more energy and less pollution than a sea of small movable engines consuming the same amount of fuel. Chinese power plants may pollute more than American power plants, but they both pollute less than mini power plants (automobile/motorcycle engines) designed for size and weight instead of efficiency.
You can eliminate more pollution with $1,000,000 worth of pollution control equipment on one power plant, then you can with a $100 worth of pollution control equipment on each of ten thousand automobiles.
Re:Electric vehicles not green. (Score:3, Informative)
Back this statement up, please. Links?
The 2 main reason 3 Gorges is being built are thus:
1. It will generate vast quantities of electricity, and pull millions of people out of poverty/3rd world conditions.
2. It will control the annual flood/drought cycles that are responsible for the worst natural disasters in china, every year.
I'm not saying it's the ideal solution, but at least i make an effort to understand the problems.
m-
Illegal in the UK (Score:2)
You need a license and it has to have type approval and be taxed and have a registration plate which means you need insurance etc. None of which are going to happen.
say huh? (Score:2)
why is this a form of green transportation? the power for these things has to come from somewhere. and every form of energy production has some form of byproduct which we commonly know as pollution.
what makes one thing more "green" than another has got to be either efficiency or renewablility (which is really just how efficiently we can convert solar power into a usable form energy) I'm leaving out nuclear because I don't
Not green transportation. (Score:2)
Naaah, it's not green transportation, as echoed by previous posters.
If these were replacing cars, yes, I would agree. However, cyclists use legs to power themselves. It also requires energy to make batteries, which also need charging somehow.
Battery production is notoriously chemical intensive and I should think Chinese industry isn't so tight on it's environmental controls.
In addition, instead of cycling to work, they'
How cheap are they to operate? (Score:3)
When I run my window AC unit in the summer, my electricity bill goes up 3 times what I pay in the winter. If that electric bike has to be charged 6 or 8 hours for a 25 mile trip, what kind of cost per mile are we getting? Granted, gas just hit $2.25 a gallon where I live, but my car gets 25 miles to the gallon. Plus, I can drive my car in the rain.
What we need are better cheaper cars, perhaps cars that have solar panels to add energy so a car is not 100% gas driven. And maybe a cheaper source of power, as it seems those who control oil production can put us over the barrel.
Re:How cheap are they to operate? (Score:2)
These are already here. They are called hybrids, perhaps you've heard of them. They have battery banks that are recharged by a generator that engages when you let off the accelerator.
In 10-15 years, there will probably be more hybrids sold than gas-only vehicles.
Re:How cheap are they to operate? (Score:2)
Re:How cheap are they to operate? (Score:2)
Green- WHAT? (Score:2, Insightful)
Power from the outlet requires a generator or plant of some kind, as well. If theym like the US, generate much of their electricity from fossil fuels, all they've done is move their pollution problem to a different sector.
different, but more efficient (Score:2)
It's hardly green (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems as if many self-styled environmentalists (who wear their badge in the form of an all-electric vehicle) are the personification of shortsighted NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). They either don't understand that electricity comes from SOMEWHERE, or they don't care about the pollution, only that it doesn't happen where they live.
Re:It's hardly green (Score:3, Insightful)
Its not NIMBY, so much as an engineering problem. Power plants are few, and easily regulated/upgraded in comparison to cars. Additionally, they are vastly more efficent than car engines that are constrained by the need for mobility. Yeah, it would be great if we could power our grid via wind, solar, tidal power, etc, but getting rid of the little, inefficient, gasoline engines is the first step.
Introducing the e-bike for real men (Score:2)
Viva Thinkmobility & Giant LaFree (Score:2, Informative)
However thinkmobility has tanked their bike lines after Ford went back to regular electic vehicles.
Me, I think they took the incentive money for low emmission vehicles and ran.
Lee Iococca also started an entire new company [evglobal.com]for his bikes.
I think the biggest hold backs to Western adoption of such vehicles
1) Former use of SLA batteries; NextGen LION has just arrived
2) Lack of adequat
"a red china is a green china" (Score:2)
china's not the first but rather a bigger... (Score:2)
Electrically assisted bicycles have existed in Japan for quite some time now (since the mid to late 90's).
Here's Panasonic's [matsushita.co.jp] and one from Yamaha Motors [yamaha-motor.jp]. The reason why it's not fully EV (and hence called a hybrid) is to make it so there's no need for a license as it is still mainly human powered (motor assisted, especially when going up hills and such).
There ain't no completely "green" anything (Score:2)
Green Transportation? (Score:2)
Uhh, until we build a lot more nuclear, solar and wind power plants, electricity in most areas of the world (including the US) still comes overwhelmingly from fossil fuels.
US DOE stats [doe.gov] show that nearly 80% of electricity in the US comes from fossils fuels. And because electical lines loose power do to resistance, and batteries are not perfect, electically driven bike are not very efficient.
The bike is polluting, maybe hundr
Car-Motorcycle Hybrid (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't these little motorcycles we have now get 60+mpg? And they are tuned for speed/acceleration, not fuel economy. So we should be able to get even more than that if tuned properly. The extra weight would drop it down some, but the addition of better aerodynamics and lower resistance tires will up it some as well.
I can't see how this would be anymore dangerous to the driver than a motorcycle is, and those are allowed everywhere. Plus you could drive it in the rain, and feasibly have some storage space inside.
I've been envisioning this for about a year now, and would buy one if it were under $6000, went at least 65mph getting 55-60mpg, were legal on the highway, and had a 7-9 gallon tank (400-550 miles per tank).
My question is if there is anything like this out there, of if I should go ahead and start building one?
This is kinda on the topic, so please don't mod me down to hard!
Re:Car-Motorcycle Hybrid (Score:3, Informative)
funny slashbots (Score:5, Insightful)
Hello! These a) are electric bikes, b) are replacing non-powered bikes, and c) would not even be viable in an industrialized country where the infrastructure is dependent on massive transportation systems.
So please just stop. This isn't even "green", when you compare it to the human-powered bikes that they're replacing, ffs. There's no need to be so zealotrously anti-American; you're simply illustrating your ignorance.
"green transportation" (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but is it really green? (Score:3, Insightful)
Greener != green
What about the lead-acid or nickel-cadmium batteries commonly used in these? How many one-armed, 3-eyed Chinese babies will be born as a result of pollution of these terribly toxic metals?
It will fail in US (Score:5, Funny)
These bikes can carry a rider weighing up to 75-100 kg (about 200 lbs.) Thus, majority of potential users here will be excluded. They would simply break the bike :-)
electric is not "green"! (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to charge up the battery. That takes electricity from the wall. Which comes from a power plant. Which BURNS something, usually coal in China. Really gawdawful brown coal too, not the nice hard stuff we get in the USA and Canada.
Smokestack or exhaust pipe, take your pick. You want to be green, you better pedal it yourself. True, you will be burning sugar and making CO2 while you pedal, but unless you plan on going "back to the land" by stopping breathing on a permanent basis, you'll be doing that anyway.
E-Bikes pollute more than what they're replacing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:E-bikes? (Score:2)
I've heard worse. Kind of like the customer that absolutely insists that the techie slang term for email is just 'e' and uses it to sound "in-the-know", no matter how many times I explain that I've never heard such.
"Just 'e' me."
"I'll be sure to email you, ma'am."
I think I'm mostly desensitized to the use of 'e', though. I was surprisingly calm when I first heard of eMachines.
Re:E-bikes? (Score:2)
Re:E-bikes? (Score:2)
That's right. Who ever said anything about electrical-bay, electrical-thernet, electrical-business or the Jaguar electrical-type uh?
Re:E-bikes? (Score:4, Informative)
s
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.
Re:Language at the site (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Language at the site (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Language at the site (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Language at the site (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm quite happy with it.
I find it to be a marked improvement on the pedal only model - appropriate for my less energetic mid-life self.
Proper paths in which biking were safe combined with access to mass transportation would i think may transportation a community event (think train station as the quientessential town hall of the industrial revolution)
Details - Good bike in the States will set you back $1100. Giant Lite is (a) leader stateside.
There are two modes (Throttle and Pedal assist)
Throttled is less appropriate for kids and pedestrian places.
Pedal Assist is impossibly easy to control since it only amplifies the pedal movements.
Mine is the latter.
Here's wishing for a little more speed allowance - not for me - butto reduce the impatience of the cars behind me on narrow roads.
At this gas crunch time - we should encourage our local law to embrace this option by:
1. Granting higher speeds (-30 MPH perhaps) -
2. special rights of way -
3. efforts to keep the roadside clear of glass, potholes, manhole covers, and gravel from gravel drives.
I suggest we name them Vbikes as a means of resisting the influence of the middle east crowd.
AIK