Well e-bikes are a great way to reduce carbon emissions I am not impressed by their MPGe. My 2019 Kona Electric was track tested to have an MPGe of 321 at 18.6 Mph and I once rose my 2014 Zero 11.4 S electric motorcycle 55 Mph behind a truck drafting and it got about 600 MPGe and driven 20 Mph it could get over 400 MPGe
Congratulations for your great work collecting data, but the whole idea of the carbon footprint is something politically imposed that I will never buy. Trains are efficient because they generate the electricity on board burning fuel, and they are very light respect to the weight they carry. I believe that electric traction is ideal but electricity should be generated onboard in cars, and bicycles also unless you have solar panels and your distances on the bicycle are compatible with your charging rates. We must stop watching TV and start thinking by ourselves. Thinking about future generations leads me to sustain the amount of co2 high enough for green plants never having the lack of co2 indispensable for sustain life on earth, because green plants are the basics of all vegetal and animal life on earth, and currently co2 is dangerously close to zero, at only 0.04% of dry air.
The only thing I see missing from this analysis is that, although yes, people are not terribly efficient, we have a recommended minimum daily activity amount of 30-60 minutes. So, we have to burn those calories somewhere, and might as well be during the walk or bike ride to get where you need to be. Great stuff!
Also, the more you exercise the more efficient you get energy wise thus getting further spending less. The whole question here is but a simple one. From urbanistic concepts which dictate how cities are built, traffic security, easy and fast access to work, to what happens to all the bicycles which are currently being used and would be replaced by e-ones just because some efficiency that may well be minimal depending on one's personal context. It seems to me some level of discomfort is to be expected if we want to try and make a difference. There are peolple who don't have a choice, they absolutely need a vehicle to carry them around. But for the vast majority this is merely a convenience, as most people are not willing to put effort in getting from A to B by their own muscles, be it walking or cycling. They want it easy and fast, and their lives are built around that context. As someone who unfortunately I fail to remember the name said, "we don't want to save our planet, we want to save our lifestyle". The whole mileage/efficiency distortion presented, no matter how numerically accurate it might be, just seems to me proof of that saying.
I know a lot of people who don't use public urban transportation because they find it less convenient. Why? Well, they don't want to wait 5 minutes for the train or bus to arrive. They don't want to walk 10 or 20 minutes to the bus stop nor another 10 or 20 minutes from where the transport drops them towards their destination. That is what I mean by "accepting a level of discomfort". Every time I see someone going down that road I remember Pixar's "Wall-E" fat, lazy humans. Maybe the crazy statistics used to get the carbon footprint should take into account health care and life expectancy for those people, because it's going to cost something down the line.
I'm a 65 year old semi-retired man in hilly SE Ohio. My ebike, a Gazelle NL c8 permits me to cycle for local travel within 1-10 miles instead of driving my car. I couldn't (or wouldn't) do that with a regular bike due to the hills. I don't ride much in January or February due to snow and ice, but average around 100 miles/month the rest of the year. The ebike has more than paid for itself, is fun, and helps the environment. My advice is to buy a quality mid-drive bike from a dealership, unless you have experience working in a bicycle shop.
I take my ebike on my semi truck and ride it in the cities I visit, because it's hard to find parking for a eighty foot long truck anywhere close to anything I'd like to visit. But it's winter now and it's not seeing much use. I've been wondering if mountain bike tires would make it safe in the snow. Any thoughts?
@@joshbobst1629 You'll need fenders, and take curves real slow. Bike will need wiped down afterwards, they get dirty after every ride in snow, really bad in slushy conditions.
I can’t speak to sustainability, but I know ebikes are a lot of fun. My wife never liked to ride until we got her a fat tire ebike with 20 inch tires. The lower height and increased stability gave her the confidence to get out there. Now she loves it! 😀
I’m sure you’re correct, at least in part. The small diameter fat tires are great for seniors. For those with bad knees, an ebike with a throttle is a huge help when starting out.
A joke because of the festivities: A roadie goes to a fat bike rider 'You know I can make the identical journey 10 minutes faster than you on my road bike?' Fat bike rider thinks... '10 minutes more fun time :) '
E-bikes are the most efficient form of transportation. I just wish that communities would build more bike infrastructure so that no one is forced to drive due to safety concerns.
Amen. I take mine on my semi around the country and there are some places that don't seem to have heard of bike lanes. Mostly in the plantation states.
I read similar studies several years ago indicating ebikes are the most efficient mode of travel per passenger mile, and it was for the same reasons. Even not eating locally-sourced food, you get the equivalent of 800mpg. It did surprise me at first, but it makes sense the electrical system is more efficient than I am at converting consumed energy into motion. Thanks for raising attention to both the efficiency and carbon footprint benefits of ebiking!
Yeah, if you're not vegan, you're better off going all electric on your bike from the study I saw, assuming you're not then going to go to the gym after instead. For vegans it's roughly break even (depends a bit on their actual diet).
@@ItsYourBoiUhh That literally is exactly what is being said, walking is significantly less efficient energy than riding a bicycle, and humans are inherently less efficient at converting energy into forward motion than an electric motor. Walking doesn't use a lot of energy and the health benefits are significant enough that I would consider it to be worth the environmental impact, but that doesn't mean that it uses less energy than an electric bike.
I agree with all your points but broken, obsolete e-bikes and batteries become e-waste too easily. The quality is so low and reparability is difficult and expensive. I am a bike mechanic and fix e-bikes regularly. It pains me to tell clients regularly that their 3 year old e-bike needs a new battery and some general maintenance and that the cost could be half of what they paid for the bike originally. They typically just buy a new bike😕
My bike has three years and 15000 km, battery is at 94% SOH. And, believe me, I use it in very harsh conditions (150 kg system+rider total weight, slopes up to 20%). It's a Brose system.
I sometimes ride my e-bike to work, it is 27 miles and it's uphill, 2200 hundred feet. If I rode a regular bike I would have to expend a bunch of energy to get to work. With my e-bike I just use PAS 2 and it is an enjoyable ride and not a workout. Going home is a blast and It hardly uses any battery.
I've done some light research into e-bike sustainability working on my master's in urban planning, and you really hit all the important high points here, particularly the complicated issues surrounding battery manufacturing and lithium mining. I'm still somewhat skeptical of the mpg figure depending on whether or not you eat local food (how much? 100% local?), but otherwise I personally see e-bikes as a cornerstone in the future of sustainable transportation. I think another key aspect to increased adoption is creating easier ways to get a bike to a shop for repairs and maintenance (and better public transit is absolutely part of that solution). I really appreciate your content and advocacy around e-bikes - I picked up a Gazelle T10+ locally last year and can't talk enough about how much I love it.
I estimated that every day I rode my e-bike instead of driving saved me $10 (cdn) this last summer. With gas prices having fallen sharply, it would be much less, but still something like $5-$6 per day. Although looking out at the snow makes that not likely to happen. So I can fully see some of the economics you are talking about. Bike should be "paid off" by end of next year, with only moderate use.
@@janeblogs324 You missed that I live in Canada, so no not likely. Also I think that was why he discussed investing in infrastructure, to avoid getting hit. I mostly use trails, bike paths and bike lanes.
Other pro to the e-bike when comparing to manual bike is that it is used for longer distances, making the (more poluting) alternatives (bus, train, moped and car) less used. I see that in my personal live: if it wasn't for my e-bike I would take the bus to work more, defenetly causing more CO2.
The bus will generate basically the same amount of CO2 whether you are on it or not. I suspect choosing not to use public transportation is a decision to increase CO2 emissions.
@@tom.jacobs Not exactly, as the number of planes in the air depends on the demand, whereas the number of public transport vehicles in a city is more of a political decision.
@@lsamoa I'm not sure where you're coming from, but I think those are also generally made with the demand [of users/voters] in mind. So somewhere in time taking bus will make them to add one extra on the line. The opposite also accuring: after covid people got on alternatives for public transport ( (e-)bike, working remote) so demand got less, and downsizing of schedule/routes is happening.
Great video! If anything you/Zach are underestimating the top end efficiency potential of eBikes and overestimating the cost to charge them. Many eBikes can break 2,000 MPGe on 100% throttle with zero pedaling. For example an Aventon Solterra has a 345 Wh battery (.345 kWh) that has been tested to go 20 miles on throttle alone. The EPA converts 1 gallon of gas as 33.7 kWh of electricity so to find MPGe for EVs so you take range / (kWh / 33.7) aka 20/(.345/33.7)=1953 MPGe. At the US average kWh cost of $0.16/kWh then refilling the battery costs just 5.5 pennies. If that takes you 20 miles then you're talking nearly 1/4 of a penny per mile for electricity! I think Zach is factoring in human pedaling inefficiency and losses during charging for his number which is probably truer overall, but my 1953 MPGe is the better number to compare to advertised eCar MPGe ratings from the EPA. Oh and for diet food miles matters a lot less than the type of food. For most US far more fossil fuels are used to create fertilizer for the food than to transport it (google the Haber process to learn more about this). Also, this is with a 20 MPH speed. If you drop to 15 MPH both range and efficiency will increase substantially because wind resistance is based on your speed squared. Going from 15 MPH to 20 significantly increases wind resistance, which is the main drag on the bike. Adding in regen breaking or a more aerodynamic setup (like a faired recumbent) could push real world MPGe even higher. For batteries I think cobalt is more of an issue than lithium, because it's more expensive, sometimes mined by children and the main cause of thermal runaway (aka battery fires). Existing lithium iron phosphate batteries (aka LFP or LiFePO4) completely remove cobalt, and so I prefer them. Unfortunately they are slightly heavier than other battery chemistries so the US eBike industry has been slow to adopt them, but they're on tons of eBikes in China. It'd be great if your shop could find a way to import a fully built LFP eBike for sale in America so people didn't have to DIY to use this tech. You can read more thorough analysis on this over at my blog if you're interested. profitgreenly.com/1000-mpge-ebike-to-profit/
Very interesting video. Another aspect of eBikes that is hard to quantify is that the hurdle of difficulty and time is less than a conventional bike, which may encourage more people to use them for transportation over a car. I live in a Boston neighborhood called Roslindale, about 6-7 miles southwest of downtown. 20 or so years ago, I had a commute to the Boston suburban town of Wellesley. Driving there took about 20 minutes. I chose to ride my conventional bike sometimes so I could get some exercise and be a bit greener. However, it was quite hilly and it took me between 45 and 50 minutes to get to work. Furthermore, if I really pushed myself, I would need to take a shower at work. Granted, that most mornings, I showered at home before going to work, so the net time difference was negligible, though it meant that I had to leave home earlier for work. I was a very busy man with a lot of extracurricular activities after work, and the extra time needed to bike meant that I didn't bike as often as I would otherwise like to. If I had my current eBike (Fifield Bonfire 500 touring-style commuter bike), I'm pretty sure I could have cut my commute time to a half hour, significantly lowering the time barrier for my decision of how to get to work. Hills are no longer so arduous. I'm sure I'd have biked nearly every day, saving the car for inclement weather. My point being that a huge intangible benefit of eBikes is that they significantly lower the barriers that prevent us from choosing to bike to work rather than drive.
The benefits to society of cycling are also the health benefits... replacing car trips with cycling trips saves society $$ (largely through health benefits and some emissions benefits), vs car trips which cost society $$. PS great video, a real eye opener and puts bikes (especially e-bikes) into perspective. I got one around 2 years ago to replace my traditional bike and haven't looked back
Thank you for discussion the resource extraction problems of lithium battery technology. As for the efficiency of ebikes vs. non-bikes, I think that can be an interesting thought experiment. However, I have some points of contention: 1. Accurately determining the provence and carbon cost of a manufactured good is really, really difficult. 2. The concept of a carbon footprint was popularized by BP, and is a way shift the guilt from corporate choices onto consumers. To whatever extent our consumer choices matter, our political choices matter more. Bike infrastructure is political. Supply chain tracing is political. Housing is political. Oil is extremely political. If we want infrastructure that supports pedestrians and bikes, we have to do more than vote with our dollars. I would encourage anyone reading this to follow Chris's example and get involved in local and state activism. NYC has legal ebikes because of Chris's hard work and lobbying.
Spot on, on many levels. I’d say if an ebike replaces even a modest fraction of one’s driving trips, it’s a worthwhile investment. For those physically able and mentally tough enough to do that with their traditional non-e bike, more power to them.
I would love to see Bosch and other mainstream manufacturers open their products up to smaller bike builders. I have just started a business in Washington state where I take old bikes that people already own and convert them to front loader and long tail cargo bikes. I am limited with the motors that I can install and while they are reasonable quality I fear for future support and supply as China faces a potentially difficult few years economically. Buying an e-bike is great but taking a bike that already exists and making it more suitable for modern transport requirements reduces that carbon footprint even more. “They say” that the most carbon neutral vehicle on the planet is the land rover defender, because 90% of them are still on the road and not clogging up scrap yards. I appreciate that this conflicts slightly with your core business but there is room for everyone if the big suppliers embrace the small cottage business.
oddly enough, Zach, who is featured in the video runs the small builders program for Bosch in the US. You need to demonstrate that you are qualified frame builder but if so, you do potentially have access to Bosch parts in that way.
Car production and disposal is a minor factor in CO2 emissions. So the fact that a car lasts longer does not compensate in any way for poor mileage. Just look up any LCA you can google.
For me, electric bikes start to make sense when you need them for trips that would be a lot harder with just a normal bike. I love that my cheap normal bike just works and gets me where I need to go, and for the distances I travel it's more than adequate, and also gives me some exercise. But i can imagine that someone who's maybe a bit less fit or who has to climb more hills would greatly benefit from an electric bike.
When you talk of the mpg for walking and cycling, you should consider whether the person will eat more food to compensate. For long distance rides they probably do but for casual walk/ride (eg going to work) any extra is probably negligeable. This was true for me when I was doing it. Your e-cargo bike mpg must have an interesting assesment of what is a passenger. In talking about the societal (economic) cost we should consider the health benefits of exercise and the lack of toxic gases in the environment. Walking and pedalling even assisted greatly improves personal health, indeed I have heard it said that a (regular) cyclist has a cardio-vascular system equivalent to someone 20 years younger. Comparing the cost to health services of obesity and so on that has to count highly. OK assisted riding is less exercise than without, but if it allows it at all or makes slightly longer commutes possible then its a plus. Having got those little niggles out of the way, I have to say I am in favour of e-bikes so they reduce car journeys (and poluting congestion) and e-cargo if they reduce van deliveries.
I went from taking the bus to e-biking to walking, pretty much. And it's hard to explain just now much my knees *don't* hurt anymore, lol. resting heart rate so low that the smart watch thinks I'm napping while I'm actually reading.... Good stuff overall.
@@DFX2KX Hi yes. I didn't need the ebike route because I never totally gave up the bike. I had a blood pressure problem and got back to biking. On my recent 70th birthday I did 38 miles. I have a resting heart rate of 44 and typical blood pressure of 128/70 without any meds. Had I not kept the riding up I certainly would have benefitted from an ebike to get over that "you need exercise but too unfit to manage any" hurdle. Biking is good for us, good non impact exercise.
Another related point is the "adoption of innovation" aspect in e-bikes. A powerful consideration in e-bike promotion is the fact that e-bikes will give a wider spectrum of the population a greater amount of confidence that automobile reduction, or elimination, is possible. That is not so true of other forms of transportation, such as traditional biking and walking. This is crucial because it is the (abstract) virtuous circle we really need to build - the greater the demand for e-bikes, the more politically feasible it will be to build the infrastructure for their efficient and safe use, which in turn will increase interest in e-bikes even more.
Very true. But there's also public transport in that mix. Cities with good public transport infrastructures tend to have less cars as people just don't need them to get where they're going.
Great video. I'm glad you mentioned Zach Krapfl's ted talk. That video mad a big impression on me when it first came out and I shared it with many of my friends. They didn't seem share my enthusiasm for the subject. A lot of folks are not just indifferent but hateful towards bicycles and EVs.
@@fartzilla6727 I agree completely, although the only caveat I'd add is the physical benefits of using a bicycle or even peddle assist e-bike. That I really can't put a price on. I could care less how my vehicle is powered as long as it gets me from A-B in the most convenient and economical way.
@nicholastime1513 My pet theory regarding that is you're a direct threat to 'a way of life'. That's scary for many people and completely unconscious on their part. It's the only thing I can come up with because I've experienced it myself and the anger is completely irrational.
It’s not hard to imagine that over longer distances of riding, when you have to start eating additional food that you otherwise wouldn’t have eaten, that it wouldn’t be a good equation. Especially for sports riders on carbon fibre road bikes. But for a quick 2 mile flat cruise into the town centre, I’m riding my manual Dutch bike. I want the exercise, I’m not eating anything extra, and also because there’s no safe bike parking. And the economic argument is a really frustrating one because people always just look at the retail price and don’t go deeper than that. And also the lack of societal respect that bikes get as vehicles also adds to that problem. When you build the Dutch level infrastructure, people spend more money on quality bikes and maintenance of those bikes. The UK for example is one of the most anti-cycling societies, and therefore it’s no surprise that people here own less bikes, ride less, spend less money on bikes, and don’t maintain them as well as comparable countries where cycling for transport is not such a suppressed concept.
Leave it to nature to be the best at energy efficiency! I switched 7 years ago from a car to a bike and later to an e-bike. I can see the difference in my wallet over the years and also my health.
One thing "Not Just Bikes" talks about is the fact that you can only park a few cars in front of any business. You can fit a lot more bikes and pedestrians. So businesses often do better without cars, especially when you make area a "mixed" neighborhood. Reduced deaths, cleaner air, feeling safer about kids traveling on their own. All these come when you remove cars and busy streets from the equation. My California friends always like to talk about the "freedom" the car gives. But actually when you stop driving and start biking and using the limited public transportation available. You can see how chained down people are by cars and the huge potential freedom you would have with bikes and public transport that is properly implemented.
E-assist bicycles tricycles are very worthwhile and efficient! Electric cars and trucks are a totally non-sustainable, global disaster! It is currently beginning to be realized that electric cars and trucks are going to be hugely destructive to our earth.
Just to add to the Netherlands aspect and why they changed. They steered more towards the bicycle as a form of transport, due to the large number of children killed by cars in 1971. Movement was called "stop children's murders". I just wish more cities around the world would do the same.
Thank you, a really useful and thought provoking contribution. Two observations from me: The carbon content of people’s diets is far more influenced by whether they eat meat (or not) than by food miles travelled. Secondly, the central hypothesis is about necessary journeys undertaken by E-bike, presumably mainly in urban areas. Around here most E-bikes seem to end up on the backs of SUVs being transported into the countryside. Those E-bike off road emissions, if anything, encourage more car mileage not less. But perhaps the owners used to ride high calorie push mountain bikes. 🤔
The combination of human and electric power and the fact you are using them simultaneously and not wasting any of that in that moment is the reason for it. It is genious actually.
Great video. It's important to highlight that efficiency is probably the most misleading factor to take into consideration when it comes to sustainability. Jevons paradox: the more efficient a technology, the more physical resources it ends up consuming on a large scale (here lithium), and very quickly the net environmental impact tilts the wrong way, exponentially even. This happened with the steam machine, with LED screens... and Li-battery-powered tech is heading that way. The only way to counter such trend is to reduce the end technology's complexity. So we should be looking much more into reducing complexity rather than optimizing efficiency. Think electric cars vs. e-bikes. The weight, as you explained, is a major downside of electric cars, but so is the technology's complexity: from manufacturing, to usage, maintenance, and discard, the e-car industry consumes a bucket load of resources. E-bikes on the other hand are much less resource-intensive to manufacture and maintain (not just re: lithium but a whole range of other mined resources), and generate less waste at the end of their lives, because they're lighter yes but also very much because they're simpler technologies. Not sure I'm explaining it well but hopefully you get the gist of it.
Great point you made here, I have been truckdriver several periodes in my life between the 80's en until recently. (retired now) All kinds of developments and obvious very clean engines now, important but otherwise still in need of a lot of fuel. It would be much better to stick to a concept for let's say 20 years, many part can be build in a way that it's easy to refurbish them. Modern trucks look different but are actual still the same. It's even much worse with cars, a grotesk waste of resources. It's all economically driven. However the sanction war against Russia and the destroying of N1&N2 by the US will finish of much of the German car and heavy industry. A stupid and greedy act of war by the US. The advantage is that it helps a lot to destroy the EU and the fight back for free and independent country's.
@Fart Zilla Indeed. That's why at the end of the day, a mechanical bike is more sustainable than an e-bike if you look at it from a mechanical vs. e-bike perspective and in the long term. But e-bikes are to be seen more as a replacement for the car, and there they're much better than electric cars as a viable replacement. And they're also very good for the disabled community (I'm disabled myself and have an e-bike), so this needs taking into account as well.
@@henrykuppens9097 Hopefully it will reduce our dependence on Russian oil and on oil in general in the long run. I'm pro-EU so I'm not with you on that part but that's a discussion for another day ;)
@Fart Zilla Over here in Europe we've been dependant on Russian oil for at least a decade (that I can remember of), probably longer. We also have efficient public transport in metro areas so winter isn't really an issue. But love cargo bikes indeed! Got a folding bike too! Brompton?
If you read 'there is no planet B' by Mike Berners-Lee, he says the same thing. Diet is important. However, it is important to remember that we all need regular exercise, 20-30 minutes is required for health, so if your diet is good both electric and non electric bikes are good.
If dry cell sodium batteries hit the market, then ebikes will be by far the most efficient and sustainable transportation. Chemicals used in sodium batteries (sodium, sulfur, etc.) are much easier to source and recycle than more expensive lithium, nickel and others.
I was conservatively calculating 80x the lithium usage for a passenger vehicle battery over an ebike, but I'm sure it varies wildly over the spectrum of vehicles. Lithium usage increases exponentially with vehicle mass
E bike batteries are usually about 0.5-0.8 kWh. Car batteries are ~50-80 kWh I'd guess 100x the lithium in a car battery assuming the same battery structure is used.
In the early 90's, in school I worked with team on fuel efficient 3 wheel vehicles for "Supermilage Competition". These were mostly bicycle technology combined with small engines, mostly 3 wheelers. Reduction of air resistance and WEIGHT reduction were the biggest factors. Our 'car' got over 700 miles to the gallon. But the winning vehicle got over 3000 miles to the gallon. Montreal to Vancouver on one gallon of gasolene equivalent. The vehicles were single person, and fun to drive. At the time there were no electrical storage batteries with power to weight ratios like we have now. It was so apparent that it is ridiculous to use a 3000 lb vehicle to move a 150 lb person, but also that without group effort you can't mix such a mass difference safely. You do a good job of pointing out how the netherlands has gone a different way. And your video shocked me a bit as I was not thinking of the inefficiency of the human engine. We do have to metabolize and work our systems though. Things do depend on how you get your electricity, some places e-bikes are "coal fired". There also are environmental and social costs to dam building and flooding land for 'green' electricity like we have done in my province Quebec. Another thing I have trouble with is our assumption of ever expanding economy and population being a good and necessary thing. Someplace we have to stop, and I think it better if we chose where rather than let nature determine it. Currently I commute by conventional bike mostly (about 20 -30 miles a day), but really enjoy my homebuilt e-bike for some of it. I made a number of mistakes building it, mostly with not having a complete suspension and some reliability problems. Although I ride all winter deep snow IS a challenge, and the deep cold too. When use my e-bike I have to bring in the battery to keep it warm and is another step to do with cold hands etc. Deep snow is a problem but am probably going to get a fat tire bike for those in between situations. Think a slight problem for our current e-bike situation is lack of standards for the batteries to allow future replacement of the proprietary built in one when they wear out. Also the technology is so new and changing so fast difficult to 'fix' it. Found the comments very interesting too. Especially from the mechanic who makes great point about fixability of poor quality bike and the economies of repair.
Interesting topic 👍 During the heatwave in NL this summer we cycled our ebikes in the evening to cool off. We'd been feeling over heated, camping in 38° and the minimal effort ride revived us enough to eat a good meal. On another subject, congrats on your news 💕 Love to see a video on carrying children, and pets. I'm trying to make a DIY dog carrier in the mid position, but it gets tricky with a trapeze frame. The weight/height stability, and being able to touch the ground etc. But we've created something before, we'll figure it out 😁
My 2 cents! I think E-bikes are key to future. However I think re-engineering of these bikes are needed to make them more reliable and more user friendly. I've seen on RU-vid bikes that are NOT forked but have a single arm. Giant bike company I believe is one, others are DIY. One DIY caught my attention as he took a hub and wheel from Mercedes car and made a single arm E-bike out of it. Worked quite well considering it was a car tire. This idea is GREAT. By making a single arm bike with hub on the arm makes removing the wheel trivial with a few bolts. You can have your motor on hub, brake on hub allowing for accurate adjustments that won't be thrown off the next time you have to remove your wheel. Arm could be upside-down shock like on a motorcycle. No need for spokes on wheel and steel belted 5000mile tires. Also in America switch the brake levers to be what is on motorcycles, like in other countries. Also start using motorcycle dimensions for wheels and tires. Let's make biking better with extremely minimal maintenance and consolidation of parts and measurements.
Fantastic video, Chris. I ride my Propel E-BIKES everywhere; my first one helped me realize I could live without my car, so I sold it this past year! I bought my second bike from you, and I recommend your company to most everyone who asks me about my bikes (Nancy Pineda is an awesome salesperson.)
Chris...another great and informative video. Thanks for taking the time to make these and putting them out for all of us to learn more about the hobby we all enjoy doing.
So Chris, thanks for that! When I ride to the gym with my Bullitt Ebike the 13 km one way and back I’ll consume in sum around 350 to 450 Wh. When I go for convenience with my VW electric car I use between 4 and 5 kWh. So clearly a winner here. However, in Germany in the rural towns and areas no infrastructure for bikes really. It is a huge hassle to drive in winter in the dark. For me it is just too dangerous. Second I do have two kids which need to be taken to swimming courses etc etc and they are too tall to fit in the cargo bike any longer. So car it is.
in 1 month, I already ridden 850 km with my homemade e-bike. I think I've already saved a lot of money in transportation as well as a lot of gas gallons.
Very interesting way of breaking down the energy sourced and used. 🤔 but surely the food we take in is not all used for transport, we don’t need to consume much more calories if we ride to work vs if we drive to work, still very interesting… 👍
I was riding my bicycle up a gradual hill, and noted the stream of cars slowing and re-accelerating around me and pondered "are they using more extra energy than me if I had just used my car instead of the bicycle." Also consider the showering electricity on a normal bike vs electric bike. How many extra times do you have to shower the sweat off and the energy used is likely more then the electric bike. Also whether you eat steak which is expensive carbon heavy pedaling energy.
Rest assured: the dominating factor, by far, on the energy used by a car to climb a hill, is the elevation gained, not whether the speed of the car is constant or not. Likewise, even if you are taking an extra shower each day, a) you don't have to take a long one, and b) again the energy used to heat the water is miniscule compared to the energy needed to move a passenger vehicle. And yes, you can improve your carbon footprint by eating vegetarian instead of meat, but most of the energy you consume is just to support your baseline metabolism, so the kind of food you eat isn't really affecting much the incremental calorie cost and carbon footprint of your cycling.
Thanks for reviewing the carbon footprint of E-bikes versus other forms of transportation. I think it's really useful to see how efficient you can get with biking and particularly e-biking! Also though, I think we should be careful not to take these numbers too literally when comparing active forms of transportation (walking, unassisted biking) with passive forms such as cars, trains and even partially passive forms like E-bikes. The main reason is that when people are physically active they not only benefit from going between point A and point B (transportation) but they also benefit from physical exercise. As a result, when people choose active transportation they are likely to gain a lot of health benefits from this physical activity and exercise. This is a good thing, above and beyond any climate benefits by lowering the emissions from transportation. Further, it's not possible to simply compute the efficiency of active transportation from "the number of calories required to walk from Point A to B". This is because many people choose active transportation as a more functional way to get the physical activity they want, without having to put in extra time at the gym. Choosing active transportation is not entirely zero sum in terms of calories expended (hopefully, because most people actually need more exercise!), but it's also definitely not true that when people bike to work that they eat an ADDITIONAL number of calories equal to the calories required to power their bike the full distance. That said, you still can get the same amount of exercise on an e-bike as a regular bike. But it opens up a lot of options to go further or faster and maybe makes biking even more attractive to more people. So I really see a lot of pros and can't see any major downsides to choosing an e-bike.
Fantastic topic, Chris. This is what I've been working on professionally for sustainable transportation reform. It's always interesting to compare things, but a far different way to look at it is to test if a mode is actually something we can pull off under zero carbon. That need for zero carbon is here already, and our global goals are for 2050. If the transportation option you choose reduces carbon, but is still weighs in at 25 or 27 tons of CO2e, then it isn't a solution. E-bikes, electric trolleys, and electric heavy rail is your solution. Even electric buses and electric semi trucks will burn through our lithium battery resources, so the sooner we get back to rail and cycling, the better chance we have of getting to zero. Fortunately, Polestar and Volvo are being transparent enough about the unsustainability of their EVs that we can see how difficult it would be to pull off sustainable transportation, relying on EV cars/SUVs/pickups.
@@markotrieste BP introduced this term I think to shift our gaze away from them and the world they've created for their profit. We're forced to make choices from the selections they offer.
@@gregburgin7098 I know the story and I am not denying it. Again, does this change anything in the fact that we all need to shift to more sustainable transportation modes and that e-bikes are among the best modes available?
I live in Burundi. A very small country, making our cities even smaller. An ebike that can do 35 to 45km/hr would cause me to not utilize a car for about 80% of my road travel needs. Everything is contained within a 20km radius for of our daily needs. The challenge for most African countries is the price of the average ebike. 😒
How walking has emissions? Is it an estimation of the wear of shoes? Or eating? I also eat when I drive, and my shoes can be worn out from standing on the pedals so long. Walking, (electric) pedaling, driving takes nearly the same effort, although they all have a very different optimal range which is also not mentioned. So, as an engineer, if I would get a result like what you write in the title, I would start over an look where I could make a mistake.
Chris, you touched on this as a cost-savings of using bikes and e-bikes versus cars and trucks, but road construction and maintenance are a huge source of environmental impacts and carbon footprint. Factor in that a 350lb rider + ebike does only 0.00006 times the damage to a road as a 4,000lb car (about a RAV4). Damage increases with mass to the 4th power, so the maintenance impacts and costs really diverge. Damage to walk/ride paths mostly comes from weathering, tree roots, and maintenance vehicles, not the pedestrians or cyclists.
You can indeed say that bike lanes are cheaper than car or truck lanes, but it is not in either or we are going to have to have both so the addition of a bike line kind of isn't going to save anything in terms of construction and space. I'd say it's true too I can accept that to the bike has less carbon footprint than pedaling the bike myself, as was pointed out personal exercise is necessary and it would be most efficient to do that accomplishing something else that one needs to do, instead of taking extra time out of one's life and space and other expense to devote specifically to exercising. You should also be remembered that while you may change from a pedal bike to an e-bike there is still some energy expended by the human involved
I think it’s good that you made this, and it definitely seems correct to say that it’s good to have an e bike or a bike, but I’m not sure I think it’s possible to say for sure if one is better than the other. I think it depends on a lot of factors. Like if an e bike is going to move older people out of cars, it’s definitely greener than a bike in that circumstance because a regular bike can’t do that for (some) older people, so it’s a matter of it being a “bird in the hand”. The reason I sort of doubt the food angle is I think to be healthy we need to get a certain amount of exercise, so unless a person is going to use an e bike and then not go to the gym, etc., the real cost of their food impact on the world is going to be all of their exercise, not just their biking. I don’t think it’s bad to use one or the other, but there are just so many moving parts that assuming one standard amount of exercise exists feels incorrect. The other thing I’m not sure I think is correct is the local food part. As far as I understand it, the real bulk of the transportation impact of food is people picking it up from the grocery store in their cars. If you live in a coastal port city, especially, a lot of food is coming by ship or rail and is probably using less carbon to get to you than the farmers’ market “local” food that came by truck. I think being as plant based as possible is probably the more important factor. I don’t know! Either way I think it’s clear e bikes are near the top of the food chain for good transportation options, so either way it’s a good choice.
Chris, check out the European Cycling Federation report from 2016, "Cycle more often 2 cool down the planet". It has some very usable hard facts about cycling and e-biking emissions compared to other modes of transport.
There is a lot of sense in this video. I saw some tweets a while ago calculating that a Tesla model 3 has lower greenhouse emissions per mile than a cyclist. But they were assuming the cyclist gets the additional calories needed to cycle that mile from an "average US diet" which includes a lot of beef. I'm sure that's true for some cyclists, but for me, I like to get those calories from pizza and beer, and if I wasn't cycling I'm not sure I'd be consuming less of those! But there's no doubt in my mind that an e-bike (even one powered by a coal factory) is the most efficient way to get around.
One of the best analysis's of our current situation across the world. Definitely looking at moving over to an E cargo bike, as my age, knees impact my levels of activity on my bikes and work. This video, shared!
That was not the explanation I expected, I assumed the explanation was: electric bikes have a larger range as a regular bike and walking and are in that way a greener alternative as it is more often a viable alternative for a car.
I drive a Chevy volt (electric car w gas generator for extended range) I drive very little since I’ve started working from home. Probably less than 200-500 miles a month. Just bought an e-bike and can’t wait to replace my commutes on nice days.
Again and again, a personal carbon footprint is nonsense. And offsetting is almost everytime an ineffective business. Also, it should be said that a society with minimal car usage also travels less miles in total, as distances shrink, which means less total energy used. A fact that often gets undermined by the situation is that war is always a gigantic emitter of greenhouse gases. Great that you mentioned that.
My only issue with the ebikes as a viable alternative is the price. A basic ebike costs the same as a motorcycle here in my country. Cargo ebikes are rare and can be bought for the price of a used car. You have also to add the complete lack of security, bike theft is pretty common while motor vehicles are not so much targeted.
All true what you say, but an E-bike uses far less energy as a motorcycle, no vehicle tax and insurance is voluntary. Also maintenance is cheaper. So the operation costs of an E-bike is lower then a motorcycle. Bike theft can be prevented by taking the battery with you inside and use extra locks on your bike. Or buy an E-folding bike, which you can take inside too.
@@mardiffv.8775 Some people can see the benefit, even with our prices... But they obviously create a adoption problem which reinforces the lack of infrastructure, which reinforces the cost of actually riding in the middle of the caos.
Would be interesting to see how eating a vegan diet changes the pedestrian and acoustic biking mpg. It’s way more sustainable than just eating local foods
When I rode 30 miles a day round trip to work for 18 months my food intake was insane and cost more than gasoline I am now LIVING in a farming area in South Carolina and the local food supply of corn , beans, and produce would be hard to survive on its world's most unfriendly bicycle area with most roads having no shoulder and the white line having rumble strips
For the comparison of e-bikes and e-cars, you don't have to compare their energy demand for operation, but the battery capacity. Most e-bikes sell with 500 - 750 Wh, while most e-cars are 50 - 100 kWh. That's a factor of 100-200x, not just the 20-30x mentionned at 8:55!
While local food makes a difference, type of food makes a way bigger one. Cycle on a plant based diet and your footprint will be way smaller than if you use meat to power your ride. Oh and a penny a mile isn't right I think, I can get about 60, miles from a full charge on my e bike which has a 420 watt hour battery, 1kw costs me 34p so 420wh costs 14.2p and that works out at 0.24p per mile. If I charge off my Solar its considerably less. Riding an E-Bike is absolutely the lowest impact way of getting from point a to point b over land.
I told a guy at a bike shop the extra cost of an ebike over a conventional bike is worth it easily because of food costs and he laughed. It’s easy for me to do the math in my head in seconds it’ll pay for itself over 2 years at most. Biking hard to work means extra protein too so it’s less than 2 years. It amazes me how people don’t think at all even for a second like their brain doesn’t work. I told a guy we’re running out of oil he said “we’ll never run out of oil.”
Also, using e bikes (or bikes for that matter) has an enormous benefit in health, if a large part of the population took it, the anual spend in health care for many countries would fall incredibly fast, USA, México and other "fat" countries should be really interested in this.
I think you also have to factor in the creation of roads and signage to the co2 levels, vehicles that need roads must bare some of the co2 levels to create those roads. There are so many factors involved related to working out a true level of co2 and other noxious gasses we pump into the air.
I like the ideas, but the Truck, Civic, and Prius efficiency is waaaaay overstated because it is the mpg of the vehicle. What is left out is the energy involved with drilling, shipping, refining, pipelining, and trucking the fuel to the local service station, which also uses electricity to pump it into your vehicle. Once that is taken into account, it's closer to Truck 14 mpg, Civic 28 mpg, and Prius 32 mpg, roughly.
Very important video. Thank 🐦 you for energy and research. One of the aspects of electrical energy impact is carbon emissions and methane and the site of production. The emissions trapped inside cities have a lot of impact on health... So any ebike or electric vehicle is a big improvement in health.
Great to see a video like this, it helps to make people to rethink about how and why using a bicycle. America should waste less money on geopolitics which they are losing anyway and get serious about restoring their infrastructure. I ride bicycles whole my life, own several different bikes and even two e-bikes (transport and off road capable touring), although I had a car most of my life but got rid of it because it kept on eating away money. People "think" that they need a car, wel you don't. Arrange your life in a slightly different way, and you will never want to own one again. I'm retired (65) and there is no need for me to cycle in bad weather now but I never had an issue with that in the past. I know, I live in the Netherlands, it's small and flat but a great example for big urban area's elsewhere. Especially now we start to have more kind of high speed cycle roads what makes faster traveling and greater distances possible for commuting cyclists. I also like to say, don't buy cheap bikes, a well build bike and also very important the possibility to rearrange parts like handle bars, luggage carriers etc. I have to say also that Germany builds the best bikes. The Netherlands is slowly catching up but keeps on sticking to much to trendy, fancy and design BS. I own a Kalkhoff Edeavour 7B, it looks a bit similar like a MTB and is very capable off road. The same quality as R&M and yes just as expensive. It's only just a few years back that manufactures becoming serious in building real e-bikes. For anyone who want's to have an impression of cycling in the Netherlands, and no it's not me. www.youtube.com/@BicycleDutch/featured
So you think an 85 year old, not very robust, lady, who has never ridden a bike, could do her supermarket shop on a bicycle, or go and visit her grandchildre 10 miles away in foul weather, or cycle to visit friends who may live some way away. All you eco loons appear to be fit, relatively young, which is fine, but totally unrealistic. Of course lot's of people need their cars. I, a keen cyclist, at the age of 90 added an e-assist conversion kit to my road bike, purely to help myold legs on the hills. I ride a bike only for leisure and fitness, and I wouldn't dream of using it to replace my car for shopping, transport, visits and the like.
@@vincekerrigan8300 Thanks for the comment. I only use bicycles because I like to, and no I'm not an eco crackpot. Climate change is a big hoax, the seasons we al experience whole our life's do show who really changes climate al the time. The same guy who burns your skin in summertime.😀 Enjoy the trips on your bike, that's what counts.
Yup! And these numbers are based on environmental MPG (energy consumption) rather than economic MPG (energy cost). If I'm correct, some personal EVs (Boosted Boards are one example) get over 2000 economic MPG in most parts of the United States. kWh for kWh, electricity is usually *much* cheaper than gasoline, diesel, and even food.
The temps and currently icy streets in Mn, the geo scale of the Twin Cities, my guitar and and copassengers all challenge my total reliance on my beloved Gazelle ebike out in the garage. My wife is willing, in milder weather, to commute on our ebike. We easily biked enough in the first two months to offset the building of the bike. Cheering on the rapidly expanding bike infrastructure in our metro. Thanks for the informative, as always, video.
Ok with reference to the idea of mpg for a human on an electric bike, I find it odd that he would factor in solar panels for charging an electric bike, but not for charging an electric car. For sure the bike would be more efficient but using the exact same methods of charging would increase the cars efficiency. Also if you used plug in trains rather than mains, the efficiency of the train would go up if you charged with solar energy. Another thing depends on the methods used to produce the food that we consume, plus the fact that the electric bikes battery wouldn't last that long using present day battery systems. So there seems a few discrepancies in his methodology perhaps.
I contend that it is incorrect that an ebike would be more efficient than a bicycle (or walking) for trips of a reasonable length (perhaps trips within a few miles radius). My experience has been that I eat basically the same exact thing I would anyway, whether I rode my bicycle or not. Most of anything I need is within about a 3 mile radius of my house, so my rides are not particularly lengthy. I could see where maybe if you are talking much longer distances that you would need to eat more to compensate... but even then you should only consider what additional calories were needed over the base recommended for that person. Even when I've ridden quite far (hour there and hour back) I've not observed that I eat substantially more 🤔
This is great. My commute is basically the same whether I go EBike or Subway, but since the pandemic I've switched exclusively to EBike. I've been assuming it's close to the same carbon footprint as the subway. Definitely uses less electricity, but probably balances out with the battery material mining, maintenance and tire/brake replacement needed on my ebike. Either way tho, I do it because it's way more enjoyable than sitting on the subway. Sitting for 40 mins on the subway absolutely drains me by the time I get home. In contrast, on my ebike I come home not too physically tired, and psychologically wide awake, ready to enjoy the evening.
There's some points missed there( and note that I'm a bike mechanic, I work on every kind of bikes): electric bikes are heavy, so it has a tendencies to need more maintenance than muscular bikes. 1 brake pads need to be changed way more often since the bike weight twice as much. So you might have to change them 2/3 times when you only need to change them once on muscular bikes 2 transmission tend to be worn out way faster since a lot of people only use one speed and one gear no matter what is the terrain. Now. Most people don't know how to maintain their transmission, and to ride with a dirty chain, and not lubed. 3 tires too, since most people tend to not inflate their tires to te right pressure and not often enough, wich tend to ruin the battery autonomy and life. Which lead to transmission getting used faster too. 4 spokes, if the motor is in the wheels, spokes tend to break a lot more than on normal bikes, they get some "fatigue" way faster. And quite often, people cumulate all of that with putting even more weight on the bike, like a child, more locks And with that you add the fact they have to change a battery between each 3/4 years, to change some parts like the cables, display, or motor, and it's quite expensive. To me, the most efficient way to ride, is with a lightweight bike. Or a fixed gear for commuting.
Your analysis of the bike weight with relation to brake pad consumption is lacking. Brake pads don't brake just the bike, but also the rider. If a regular bike weighs 15 kilograms and an electric bike weighs 30 kilograms, then you have the rider that can weigh something like 70 kilograms. So you're stopping 100 kilograms instead of 85 so the difference is not that small. Naturally you may stop from higher speeds, especially as the electrically assisted acceleration makes it possible to easily go quicker. And that is something that I would classify as the likely culprit for the higher rate of change for brake pads.
@@jjudin well, you add the weight of the bike + the speed, the equation is quite simple, you add more than the double of kinetic energy, that's consumed on brake pads. And if you take into account that cargo bikes are way heavier than normal bikes (some are around 55kg and some a lot more), adding the fact it's for transportation, so you add even more weight, like a child. And as it's a moving mass, you end up burning pads much faster. As simple as that
UNIT OF MEASURE - First let me tell you that I am an engineer too, as well as an avid e-cyclist. I agree with the conclusion of Mr. Krapfl. However I really don't like the MPG metric since it implies questionable assumptions on the equivalence of various energy sources to gasoline. I always use CO2/km*passenger.
This all makes good sense to me. I wonder tho at what speed an ebike gets that energy efficiency. My ebike uses about twice the energy per mile at 22 mph as it does at 14.
In my country the Netherlands an e-bike has a speedlimit of 15 mph/ 25 kmh, speed pedelecs have a speedlimit of 28 mph/ 45 kmh. So keep your speed at 14 mph/ 23 kmh.
Don't "trust someone's ideas" because they are a "really smart guy." Trust their numbers because they showed you the math. Your friend may be correct, but I have also seen a lot of bullshit come off the TED stage.
As someone who owns and uses and E-bike, and also walks quite a lot now. I don't like the whole 'mpg for walking vs ebikes' because humans aren't vehicles, let me explain: 1) You're going to eat food either way. About 1,200 calories minimum just to stay alive. A Ebike lets you go farther on the same additional calories, but most people overeat anyway (I'm no exception, even though I'm not NEARLY as bad as I used to be regarding that). If you want to include health in the mix, there is such a thing as *TOO* efficient. 2) Considering the above, I burn... about 120-130 calories to go across town to the Walmart and back on my Ebike. That same trip nets me almost 1,200 calories on foot (about 14ish miles including walking around the store and anywhere else I stop to warm up because winter). 3) loosing weight reduces your footprint because your base calorie demand actually *drops*. and it drops by a pretty noticable amount. 4) when you toss winter cold into the mix: I can't use the E-bike in this weather. It's too windy from the speed, and I'm not burning enough energy to make the body heat needed to keep up. If I get chilly on foot, I just need to jog a mile.
Terrific video, thanks! So many great points & analysis in a succinct summary. Your personal story is compelling too, oil dependence is dangerous unfreedom & corrupt politics besides sustantially driving the climate emergency - the extrernalized costs of fossil fuels are another subsidy probably not added in but real & escalating. Reducing fossil fuel use & being super efficient (also with lithium, great point) should be the truly conservative view! Everyone in the US please share with friends, neighbors, elected officials. Electric cars are being pushed as the solution, but its not that simple + their weight, geometry, electricity source matter. Cars are so inefficient & space hogging in urban areas & the Netherlands proves that yes build it properly in complete safe networks & they will come en masse. And then consider trading in a personal car for an ebike. Or at least adding a good quality ebike to your fleet if you don't already have one. My e-cargo bike has reduced our driving trips substantially even in this still car-dependent-by-design city.
That was a great, thought provoking video. There is certainly a lot to unpack for each individual. But without looking at just numbers consuming if needed local things locally, including try to keep commutes short certainly is certainly a good take away. While I eat meat once in a while, I think the benefits of a vegetarian or even vegan diet would be worth underlining too. I will keep your video handy, if someone complains about me putting an the ebike in a train.
BATTERY PRODUCTION - Assuming that it takes 80 kg of CO2 emissions for 1 kWh of battery, (source: Erik Emilsson, Lisbeth Dahllöf IVL) and given that a common e-bike has a 0,5 kWh battery, it means 40 kg of CO2 footprint. Let's round that to 50 to take in account the manufacturing of the motor (by the way, is equivalent to the burning of 20 liters of gasoline, i.e. a week of commute by car). Let’s assume that the battery will last 15000 km, this means 3 grams of CO2 per km to be added to the former chapter. As anyone can see, this quantity is negligible.
Walk 0.12 Bicycle 0.85 Elektric Bicycle 2.6 Elektric Public Transport 5.3 Electric Car 64.3 Gasoline Car 85.3 Made up these numers of course Whatever transport you choose, choose wisely.
