Admin freaks out every time I submit a #bike share receipt for $5, but they have no issues with $50 for taxis and $100 for rental cars because they see biking as recreation. We need to normalize #micromobility as #transportation.
What's interesting about Florida is that they are generally suspicious of electric cars, and yet they've got electric micromobility TOTALLY sorted. There are golf carts everywhere. There are apparently even new developments where they have double-width sidewalks with a separate track for golf carts.
The battle against those e-scooters that take out people's ankles is a good one, but the real battle is the battle against those SUVs that take out people' lives.
Practical, low cost solutions always the best in the long run. North America needs to leave the supersized automobile behind. #emobility#Micromobility#ElectricVehicles
#introduction! I'm a pro #guitarist with the band Maggie Speaks. Freelance video editor (indie doc Cover 21: Ignite Chicago, on Amazon). Amateur #photographer.
Electric vehicles are making an increasingly bigger dent in oil use, both globally and in Australia. In 2022, they displaced the use of 1.5m barrels of oil a day. Daily global oil demand is around 97m barrels, so there's a long way to go.
But it is not electric cars doing most of the work. It is e-bikes and mopeds. These #micromobility devices are ten times as common as electric cars globally (led by widespread adoption in #China), and twice as popular as e-cars in Australia. In 2022, electric micromobility devices globally displaced more than four times as much oil as electric cars.
If you've never tried one, consider giving it a go. Most bike shops will give you a free test ride. Personally, getting an #ebike has been one of the best decisions I've made in the last few years and has been one important way of maintaining our household record of never having owned a car.
Sometimes #nyc gets things right…
Like starting investment in e-bike infrastructure:
Out-of-apartment & Safe battery charging stations out side of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA: public housing) buildings.
Small but important start to mitigate risks of 💩 battery (rebuild) shops in the market in the US right now:
NYC needs safer charging infrastructure before bad-battery fires undermine emobility in NYC.
You know the tide is turning when Arval, one of the key players in car leasing and corporate fleets in Europe present their performance of first 6 months of 2023 with a photo of an electric scooter (instead of a car, or even an electric car 😉).
Sometimes people see the solar panel on my trike and say something about wanting a #solar car. Let me just run the numbers here, just off the top of my head:
My #ebike - a big cargo tricycle - weighs a few hundred pounds (including me and whatever I'm carrying) and travels 10-15mph. I can go around 50 miles/day if it's sunny, and maintain a steady charge entirely from solar power.
A car probably weighs about 10x that and travels an average of 4x as fast.
Also, I usually provide around 50% of my trike's power by pedaling, which you don't get in a car.
So you'll need 10x4x2x the amount of solar panels I have on the trike to keep your car going at normal car speeds for 50 miles per day, which means 80x the solar panel area I have on the trike. If you only need to go 25 miles most days, you could get away with 40x the solar panels.
My trike's solar panel is about 3x4 feet (12sqft). Our hypothetical solar car is going to need between 480 and 960sqft of solar panels. At about 6 feet wide for an average car, that means your car needs to be 80 to 160 feet long. The average car is around 15 feet long. Our hypothetical solar car could be half the length of some city blocks.
Carrying enough solar panels to keep a car charged is somewhere between "difficult engineering challenge" and "downright absurd".
This isn't just about the implausibility of solar cars; it's about the absurdity of car design in general. Cars use an enormous amount of power for what they do. Electric cars may be an improvement over gas cars, but they are still incredibly inefficient.
(I say "part of" because here's a whole other essay to write about the safety of a vehicle that's so heavy and so fast, but I'll save it for another day.)
The Foxconn-led MIH Consortium announced that it aims to sell a total of 100,000 electric three-seater minicars a year in India, Thailand, and Japan beginning in 2025. MIH’s vehicle will include swappable batteries #micromobility
Mosey Parker is a bike/dock finder for hundreds of bikeshare networks including New York, Chicago, Berlin, and Paris. More info and Testflight invite at the link below.
Anyone ever replace a front tire on one of those little scooter things? This one looks like it has some sort of side wall damage or dry rot (my guess is the inner tube is also shot). How difficult was it? Was it worth the cost?
Also relatedly: anyone know what the chargers typically go for?
Sorry I don't have the brand name or model at home, I'll have to check at work on Monday.
Had a great time with friends participating in our community's first ever Slow Food Cycle event! We visited local farms and bought veggies and fruit, freshly baked bread, gourmet mushrooms, and fancy cheese, had a picnic at a one of our neighbourhood cideries, and finished the day by meeting more friends at the local beer farm. Organizers expected 70 participants and almost 400 signed up. 💪 🚲⚡ ✌️
A thought-provoking presentation and public comments on #skateboarding for #transportation and designing cities for all sorts of small wheels. Also very cool that #SanFrancisco (SFCTA) now has a Skateboarding Subcommittee.
Love this story about Baala Manikandan, who rode his electric motorcycle 6,727 kilometers across India traversing uneven terrain in all types of weather (with temperatures ranging from 45º to -15º Celsius) – in just 22 days!
The best part? Manikandan says he spent less than $5 USD to charge the bike during the entire trip.
A tip for #skatecommuting or any #micromobility#routeplanning. See if your city has a pavement condition #map. I like to check that whenever I’m exploring new routes. Combined with recent #StreetView imagery it helps you find the good stuff. Buttery smooth vs. busted up makes a big difference.