"As #ebikes age, they are quickly turning to electronic waste destined for the scrap yard along with old laptops, tube monitors, and old cell phones. That is something the industry needs to be prepared for. I hope there is regulation that will require companies to support these products for a reasonable period of time."
@seachanger
For some reason goverments just can't take the obvious step of requiring the manufacturers and vendors to provide the reverse logistics for every product they sell.
If they can build a logistics supply chain that brings raw materials together as a product and puts it in the buyers hands, they could take it back from the buyer at end of life, and end up with raw materials again.
"A step #ebike manufacturers need to take is to make their bike sustainable for the long term. An (insert sigh here) analog bike could last indefinitely with regular maintenance."
@seachanger I ride pedal bikes and support people riding eBikes to suit their needs. The pedal bike meets nearly all my needs though, and all the things I love about cycling are best exemplified by a pedal bike (such as long-term sustainability)!
So I cheer on the eBike movement because I know it's bringing a lot of people to downsize out of automobiles, but feel no reason to switch, myself.
@ned@seachanger I think ebikes are extremely cool and if I didn't live in an extremely flat city I probably would have convinced myself to upgrade. That said, I have seen it make cycling very accessible to a lot of people including my boomer-aged uncle.
@distinct@ned@seachanger
I own a luxury 12-gear conventional bike, ca 40 years old, and a folding ebike (Qicycle), ca 4 years old. The conv. bike has built in theft protection (by rust), so it will await me at the train station until I will be back (its blessings come @ 2nd sight!).
And the ebike is just fun to ride:
@ 15kgs, it's highly agile, easy to take along, and due to the front wheel edrive it has an all-wheel-drive, that provides it with surprising capabilities off road.
Just fun!
@seachanger I dont know what bikes you buy but mine last about 5-8 years, regular bycicles. You need to change parts but after 8 years parts are no longer produced, braken systems have changed and So on.
I do think its doable building bikes that last 20 years, but that would mean different production strategies that are not common now.
For sure e-waste processing is new to the bicycle market, and I'm sure there's much room for improvement, but also - an e-bike battery weighs about 0.5% to 1% of what an e-car battery does. So, if 50 e-bike batteries going to the scrap yard prevent 1 e-car battery doing the same, that's still a win.
That's for sure something I'll be paying a lot of attention when eventually I do buy an e-bike, as I almost certainly will at some point - how do I know this thing won't become unserviceable if a manufacturer folds?
With all our house's acoustic bikes, any specific part can be long gone from production, I will be able to replace them with something compatible because cable pull, brakes, spoke shapes, all are standard.
how do I know this thing won't become unserviceable if a manufacturer folds
a bike is the sum of it's components.
I bought an acoustic CVT hub, neat device by a company named Nuvinci, it's making noise now and is not serviceable.... Nuvinci was vaporware, but I can buy a CVT hub from another manufacturer. eg: I can stick a HAL sensor throttle from a bfang on a razor scooter and it's going to send the same signal, the plugs might not be the same, the wires might be different colors, but the physics are the same.
So it can, and has has already happened with some vaporware bikes that the company goes under and the bike stops working, but there's also some companies that have become the industry standard.
I'd suggest opting for simple parts from known mfg'ers like bafang, bosch, cyclone... and adapting kits to your riding needs/bike fleet.
@seachanger I don't know the exact number, but some unfathomable large percentage of bikes are not ridden ever again a year after purchase. I am waiting for the chance to buy a late model ebike at a yardage in the near future. Right now they are just a bit to expensive to find in the secondary market.
@seachanger ebikes will have an increasing impact,not only disposal, but also we're seeing them more frequently on pedestrian paths often going fast, weaving among foot traffic. Saw two ladies screaming at an ebiker after she almost ran over their dog, going far too fast for circumstances. Yet our state is about to subsidize ebike purchases. Awesome if they replace gas cars, but let's look at the impacts.
@seachanger some cities with electric scooter and bike rentals scattered about are finding them in strange places, in lakes, rivers, Puget Sound, thrown into into ravines, etc.
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