An electric car has enough batteries and other raw materials to power about 100 e-bikes. So if more than one in a hundred people can ditch their second car because of e-bikes this is already a win. But especially with the advent of electric cargo bikes the number of replaced second cars is much higher. As long as at least some e-bikes replace cars, e-bikes are a giant win for the environment. Cars are just so wasteful compared to everything else.

And yes, normal bikes are greatly undervalued, I have a 80 year old "transport bike" and it is virtually indestructible. I can take one adult passenger and cycle or a ton of cargo and cover a few km without sweat. But I also greatly value my electric cargo bike, especially when shuttling the kids around on longer trips (regularly up to 10km in half an hour, and incidentally for day trips up to 75km). For my commute I use a normal e-bike. Most days of the week neither myself or my wife need the car.

An e-bike replacing a regular bike is a loss but an e-bike replacing a car is a net positive

However, if people switch to an ebike instead of their cars, it’s still a net positive overall.

Your commute is 30 mins by bike, it not everyone’s is… if someone’s commute could be halved from 60 mins to 30 mins by using an e-bike, you’d get all those people in that radius who could bike instead of drive.

Some people can’t ride 30 mins twice a day… 5 days a week… if an e-bike let people go every day, that’s just more people advocating for bicycles/bike paths/hard barriers/infra for everyone.

Also, just making it easier to get into it. People who aren’t fit who wouldn’t even consider a traditional bicycle might consider this. It’s easy and a certain portion of people would eventually get multiple bikes for different purpose.

I used to bike 45 mins to work (7 miles) - we had secure bike storage, showers and a locker room for bike stuff, but again… not everyone has that. If you were less sweaty and gross after biking (that is… less exertion on an ebike), more people would do it.

Sure, I'm lucky to be having a relative short commute (by choice by the way). But on that commute I come across the following (Netherlands btw):

- Teenagers on e-bikes, all of them have a short commute. 20 minutes max.

- Old people on e-bikes going high speeds with balancing issues.

- Big differences in speeds on bicycle paths. 5-10kmh small kids on bikes, 10-18kmh regulare bikes, 24kmh+ ebikes & small motorbikes.

- Bicycle shops that carry 95% ebikes since they are high margin products

- Bicycle shops declining service on regular bikes

- Obesity and lack of energy for people in general

Disclaimer:

- I worked in an e-bike servicing company before, seen how quickly the products go bad

- I've tried e-bikes and found the lack of energy spent by myself a big issue. It brought me from A to B, but it didn't feel like I had been spending energy. Which I think is an essential part of using any product.

This may be a downside for you personally, but more broadly it's the reason why people may replace cars with ebikes.

Normal bicycles are in a stable relationship with cars, meaning that the sorts of people who would replace their cars with bicycles have already done so. There's no new impetus right now that wasn't present 8 years ago.

Ebikes open up the "replace cars" space to a new group of people that it didn't previously apply to.

You complain that these people aren't on regular bicycles. But the option isn't whether these people should be on ebikes or regular bicycles. It's whether those people are on ebikes or in cars. Which do you prefer?

I'm aware that I'm focussing on my specific area here. Which is flat land, low distance commutes. I see people choosing ebikes over regular bicycles. Which I think puts them a step back in health and increases dangerous situations on the low to mid speed bicycle paths.

Maybe this is a location dependent thing. I see you're in the Netherlands; I'm in the US. Among people here riding ebikes, they're not choosing ebikes over regular bicycles. They're choosing ebikes over cars. Regular bicycles were never an option for those people.

I agree that people on ebikes are more dangerous than people on regular bikes.

But they are so much less dangerous than the people in cars. Every car driver that becomes an ebike rider instead is an absolute improvement.

In a location like the Netherlands where cycling is so much more common, I can see how people could swap from a regular bicycle to an ebike, and that makes things worse.

I can understand these comments from a fit single adult. I basically had to give up biking once we had kids. A cargo ebike has been a life changer.

You reveal below that you live in the Netherlands. You live in bicycle paradise. Abundant bike lanes and FLAT LAND.

Until you can figure out how to export the flat land, you're going to need e-bikes if you want adoption of bikes by the masses. Regular people don't want to show up to work sweating or face an uphill ride at the end of the day.