is something not used the most eco friendly option?

What is and isn't used comes down to the person, so it's pretty hard to factor in. Certainly in my city most bikes I see people out and abouton are not electric.

Depends. If you ride a lot, ebikes are actually more eco-friendly, because electricity is more carbon friendly to produce than the extra calories you'd eat.

There's an interesting blog post about this topic: https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/blog/climate-impacts-biking-v...

Your theory is worth discussing.

While in an absolute instant sense energy use might win for the machine, you probably forgot to factor in the lifetime cost of the production of the machine's components. I do not blame you as such a task seems exhaustively daunting, and we only ignore it for the people because who would be heartless enough to think that way? (probably insurance agents, lawyers, and such...)

There are also pros and cons to the different elements. Exercise on a bike might have a hard to measure benefit compared to an e-bike. On the other hand adoption pressures and increased hygiene needs are more positive and negative side effects.

According to this article, ebikes do produce fewer carbon emissions than conventional bikes overall, while considering manufacturing costs:

https://www.bikeradar.com/features/long-reads/cycling-enviro...

Judging by people's waistlines they're already eating the extra needed for the cycling, they're just not cycling.

According to COVID-19 and Obesity: The 2021 Atlas[1], the figures for the UK are:

- 63.7% of adults are overweight i.e. BMI >25kg/m2 (2016)

- 27.8% of adults are obese i.e. BMI >30kg/m2 (2016)

[1] https://www.worldobesity.org/resources/resource-library/covi...

Obese people won't get on a bike, though, because it's too big of a step. An ebike is a decent gateway into weight loss.

Exercise is for health, diet is for weight loss. The overlap exists but is minimal. Exercise activity hermogenesis (often known as EAT, ironically) is usually estimated to be around 5% of total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).

I wouldn't be surprised if the obese people in question started to exercise and actually increased their food intake to match.

That's assuming you'd just eat less, instead of eating the same and burning it off at the gym. Or getting fat.

An ebike ridden 10,000 km a year beats a bike ridden 2000 though.

How are you making that comparison?

Do you mean an ebike ridden 2,000 km for errands and 8,000 km for fun; vs. the 2,000 km for the bike, for errands, but no biking for fun? That is, are you implying that the ebike is a lot more fun than a regular bike?

Or are you comparing 10,000 km on an ebike; vs. a bike ridden 2,00 km and some other personal vehicle used for 8,000 km? That is, are you implying that a human-powered bike means people will overall use worse forms of transport?

Or do you mean something else?

I think the implication is that commuting longer distances (20km+) is doable on an e-bike.

My commute is 10km (300m uphill) on a regular bike, but I have access to a shower. If I didn't, I don't think I could do it on a regular bike.

In general, it's able to displace longer trips (other than biking for fun) than a non-electric bike.

> In general, it's able to displace longer trips (other than biking for fun) than a non-electric bike.

Exactly.

Since converting to an e-bike, I am using it 4x as much. Especially in the summer, it changes from a sweaty trip to a pleasant one. Those tips would normally be public transport.

10K sounds a bit ambitious, but myself and a friend are on track to exceed 3K.

This whole discussion is splitting hairs -> out of a single electric car, you can make 150 ebikes.

A good ebike battery is 0.5 KWh, a an electric car is ~80 KWh. An electric car might weigh 1500 KG and an ebike like 15.

So really it seems the conclusion should be that the ebikes are overpriced and they should cost $500 if their productions was automated like production of cars is.

I think they mean that you could end up using an ebike in situations where normally you’d use a car or some other form of transportation.

What confuses me is the leadup is about getting an ebike, vs. an ecar or emotorbike. Not about getting both a(n e)bike AND some other more ecologically damaging form of transport.

10k km a year on a bike means riding it for more than an hour every workday. Not a lot of people willing to do that, i think. If that were truly the breakeven distance (i know you didn't really say that) ebikes would be screwed in terms of ecological impact.

That’s half an hour to work, half an hour back. Not outlandish, if you compare normal commutes.

Assuming 250 work days (50 weeks * 5 days), that's 40km/day.

I don't think most people bike at 40km/hour.

Across a year, that averages to 27.4 km per day, biking each and every day.

If done in an hour, that's rather faster than my average biking speed of about 16 kph.

I said more than an hour. I think an hour on a bike is something most people can stomach easily, but it gets annoying fast once you go above that.

I did 50 minutes each way in LA, from Santa Monica to El Segundo. I loved it, except for the parts with cars.