> I’ve lost count of how many times good sounding government programs turn out to be lame once you read the fine print.

This is certainly true. Not sure if the one we had in Norway a few years ago can be classified as 'lame'. But it did more harm than good I think, as electric bikes became associated with a government subsidy for the rich. Most of the money went directly to the richest areas in Oslo (which are the richest areas in Norway probably). The subsidy gave buyers of electric bikes 5.000 NOK (~$500), but bikes were hard to come by and very expensive at the time (2016), so only the rich got on waiting lists for bikes and swooped up all the subsidies.

Source (in Norwegian):

https://www.aftenposten.no/oslo/i/O3Vl/el-sykkelsubsidier-gi...

The same thing happened/is happening with electric vehicle subsidies: it's essentially a 4000€ gift to the rich that can afford a 70k€ car.

What needs to be done is:

(1) End subsidies for electric cars, and give them for e-bikes instead. With the 4k on a 70k you're barely making a dent, and you can use it instead to give e.g. 5× 800€ subsidies on 1000-1500€ e-bikes.

(2) Lump sum instead of percentage. say 800€ on a 1000€ bike or 800€ on a 5000€ bike.

(3) Give the money directly on the purchase instead of returning it later. This latter mode essentially blocks out people who don't have the money upfront. With solar panels this is especially grating: in my country you can get 85% subsidy on solar panels, which is just ludicrously efficient (I installed mine for ~500€ 6 months ago and they have nearly paid themselves back). But for that to work you need to have >5k€ lying around that you don't mind only being paid back in the end of the year! That excludes ~80-90% of people, according to statistics.

Here is an even better plan.

Instead of subsidizing e-bikes, install bike infrastructure. Because bike infrastructure helps literally all people on bikes, including e-bikes. Because lets be honest, for most things you would use a bike for, normal bikes work perfectly fine and they are available to the very poor.

And such infrastructure would likely also improve live of pedestrians.

The US builds roads far to wide anyway, and thanks to all the work in Europe we know how to build good bike infrastructure. A new federal code for roads, bikes and pedestrian. This could also massively improve road safety in general.

It's even worse in the US! The electrical rebate is against tax collected, so you not only have to have the money to buy (or borrow to buy) an electric car, but you have to have enough tax liability to take advantage of the whole rebate.

Or lease the car and let the car company take it for you.

If it was an above the line credit, I would have highly considered it.

Typically you would need an income of $47,000 to maximize the $7500. And under $150,000 (individual).

Per https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/tax-credits-deductions/dis...

Single (no dependents) is the problem.

The purchasers of the plug-in Pacifica are not usually going to be in that demographic. I couldn't get to the $7500, so the Sienna wins.

Same with net metering: you need to be an electricity hog to get the most value.

Otherwise you just accumulate credit that you may never use. Or you create new electricity use which defeats the purpose (but great if you actually sub pre-existing fuel consumption, if you have it). I wonder if nano-markets emerge where you invite your neighbourhood to charge their stuff at your home or run extension cords around…

Better to have a feed in tariff where you’re encouraging to conserve and produce.

On the other hand, good policies get rich people to subsidize development of new technologies that benefit everyone.

That could be relevant very early in the life cycle of some technology, but e-bikes are far from that. They are a very widely available consumer product that frankly doesn't need support for further innovations.

Batteries are going to get better regardless and even if they don't, the current state of the art is by far good enough for 99.9% of practical uses for e-bikes.

Lots of subsidies in Canada for solar installs but no innovation comes to mind.

We’ve had some Canadian content requirements, but it ends up being the mounting equipment and wiring. We haven’t developed capacity to put together our own core inverter components or panels themselves: too cheap to assemble overseas.

> But it did more harm than good I think, as electric bikes became associated with a government subsidy for the rich.

Ultimately the question is: did the electric bike program meet its goals? If one of the goals was to improve access to transportation for the poor, it sounds like it fell short. If the primary goal was to reduce the use of cars, it may have still been a success. (That said, I do question the commitment of those who had the money but choose not to until there was a subsidy.)

Why is it lame that they had a specific group of disadvantaged people they were trying to target? When governments make blanket payouts (i.e. what the US did during COVID) people complain about the money going to people who don't need it. In this case they had a very specific group, intent, and budget. Isn't this what "small" government is supposed to do?

And the bikes they're trying to encourage people to buy probably aren't the high end ones, or even the mid-range bikes. I'm guessing someone did some research at some point.

Obviously because of how they targeted people and not that they targeted a demographic. 13.5% of the population has access to $300, which is fine but is probably not a the typical market for expensive bikes, and $300 will only get you 5-20% off (not including a helmet).

A lot of these programs are made to sound good on campaign platforms but don’t do much at all IRL

Finding a way to subsidize conversion kits + local shops to do it would be a good way to actually help poor people https://www.autoevolution.com/news/skarper-s-revolutionary-e...

You think poor people living in the banlieu are going to get such bikes they can't even afford to have them stolen in 1 hour?

This was probably made targeting some specific category that isn't the one you're thinking.

Better give some money to people who don't need it than make some overly complicated plan that requires a specialist to access and only targets some friends.

> Better give some money to people who don't need it than make some overly complicated plan that requires a specialist to access and only targets some friends.

I personally agree with that. But then it always ending up hurting the politicians that came up with that policy because medias will broadcast 24-7 examples of the few people that received it that did not deserve it. Even 2 years after COVID stimulus, McConnel keeps repeating that people are still so rich from receiving thousands and thousands of dollars and that was responsible for 2022 labor shortage... (for $2000 distributed now more than a year ago)

Yeah that's true. In Italy they gave some money to low income people and I'm sure after the next elections the right wing government that will win will take that away.

They never say how it made people able to avoid joining black market jobs or crime. They just show restaurant owners crying because they can't find (greatly underpaid) workers.

people making under 13K a year are not really buying 6K bikes

costco has a folding ebike that's under 400$[0].

[0]https://www.costco.com/jetson-bolt-pro-folding-electric-bike...

But a 40% subsidy on a $400 bike is only worth $160, not the €4k headline figure.

If you give everyone a no questions asked 100% subsidy, you're gonna have a lot of people reselling bikes that the government paid for.

They'd have to resell them abroad though, the local market would be pretty much saturated, no?

It's not difficult to get from Paris to Barcelona and back, with or without a bike.

If I need to offload an ebike from Paris, I could think of closer countries that would value them higher!

Why would you buy a bike from a reseller for $0 + profit when you can get one the with a government subsidy for $0?

Isn't that true of any subsidy? If 40% of my bike is subsidized, I only need to buy and resell that bike for greater than 60% of the purchase price.

I bet you'd get less resellers, but you'd definitely still get a lot of them.

That is true with any amount of subsidy. And yes, and people can use e.g. welfare payments to buy cigarrettes and booze. That is in itself not an argument against welfare payments.

Yeah but you also have cash from selling your car.

But you get cash from selling your car even without the government subsidy,

If "France is now offering a €4k e-bike subsidy" is 96% the cash they got from selling their car, then it's a strange turn of phrase. It's more like "the secondhand car market is offering a €4k everything-subsidy if you give up your car"!

Total aside...

That bike looks like one of those mini circus bikes that clowns ride

Probably the ones least able to afford petrol though?

You know what bikes are good for poor people. Bikes without electric motors.

Why does it sound good to begin with? Realistically who would trade in their car for a bike? I would imagine it would be young upper middle class urban dwellers. Not people with a family, elderly or people that live in cheaper suburban areas. It sounds like its a wealth transfer from taxpayers to the relatively wealthy.

Because French cities are now planned to forbid cars inside the center. A lot of cities like Paris or Lyon have already planned dates for it to happen. Plus, old city centers tend to not have any garage and the few parking places are very expensive. Bicycle lanes tend to replace car lanes and circulating in car is nightmarish on design.

After getting lost in a few: « what design? »

For example, in my city, lots of 2-way streets are replaced by 1-way with bicycle lane. As there is more 1-ways, you sometimes have to drive in circles to get somewhere. On the weekends, parts of the city that are normally drivable are closed to cars. There is a highway entrance near my workplace. Some months ago, there was a stoplight on pedestrian demand, now it is mandatory even though there are close to no pedestrian there. The cars have now to wait 2 minutes more to get on the highway. I can't think of more for now but there are surely other examples.

We have 2 kids, no car. Maintenance is ~200-250 year in shop, 60-80 when done yourself. Insurance is around 4-7EUR/mo. Every year we do the 'how much a car for the same use costs' and it's an order of magnitude more. We live in suburbs, long distance (>10km) is mostly by bus or train. Groceries are fun with the cargo.

The most annoying PITA stuff are:

- theft. I worry a lot and have to fix the e-cargo on a fixed point everywhere. It's not always easy to find a good parking spot. But we got a long motorbike chain and you get used to it. Get insured though.

- flat tire, in the middle of nowhere... You gotta be prepared and either have a spare 'flat' tube or do the quick repair on the wheel, cause the back wheel is hell (for me) to handle. After a bad experience, now we have the kit (xiaomi portable compressor for <50eur, some spare tubes, some gluestuff, and the right strategy) always handy.

> Not people with a family, elderly or people that live in cheaper suburban areas.

The dutch manage to do it (minus the elderly). Why is it so strange that a 40 year old dad and a 7 year old kid bike to work/school respectively?

Come to the Netherlands and those people are exactly the people biking. The elderly have more mobility and health this way, a cargo bike is a very popular second car replacement, for groceries and kids. And it's not like maintaining a car is cheap and such a good deal for the poor.

But yes, suburbs make a car required for most people outside of Europe, but we have to start somewhere.

I had a coworker who brought an ebike instead of a second car. Probably others would choose to not replace their car with a new one if an ebike made more sense.

A program might ultimately succeed if it invigorates the market - eventually helping to bring down the price of e-bikes. I feel like (home) solar subsidies did that.

We're talking about commuter bikes, replacing a car...a good Speedelec is indeed 6k-10k Euros.

For e-cargos you get good value for <5kEUR. Can't imagine plunking down 6k-10k (yet) on a non cargo ebike. I've tried a lot of the more expensive cargos and it feels some are not even trying to sell an integrated product you can use. Things like unsafe breaks, non-intuitive gear change, front wheel runaway vibration...

> so it’s basically a $1k subsidy where you pay the other $1k for a bike.

And you are out a car?

In the U.S. your insurance obligation will then plummet, registration fees evaporate and I suspect maintenance costs wither as well.

Which is 100% realistic in large parts of France and indeed the rest of Europe.

Indeed, its possible to bike into Geneva from countryside France without showing papers, at least it was. I almost got smoked in a roundabout there, good times.