• @bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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    271 year ago

    Not trying to be that guy, but do the bike and walking numbers include the energy from the calories you eat, or the energy needed to produce that food?

    • @De_Narm@lemmy.world
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      201 year ago

      I don’t think they need to, most people already eat more food than they need to whether they walk or drive. I’d wager the average person wouldn’t need to change a thing in their diet and would overall only improve their health by walking more.

    • @blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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      121 year ago

      I’ve read that unless the person riding the bike is vegetarian, the ebike actually has a lower carbon footprint than the normal bike. They’re still both far better than the car (ice or EV).

    • @horse@feddit.de
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      21 year ago

      I wondered that too. I imagine it would be very inaccurate to include that as the amount of calories needed would vary wildly person to person. For example, I burned around 2000kcal to cycle 100km in hilly terrain at the weekend, while a friend burned roughly twice that on the same ride.

  • @n2burns@lemmy.ca
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    181 year ago

    I really like this graph because it helps visualizes scale. Sometimes, people knock e-bikes by saying they are less efficient than acoustic bikes. While that may be true, it’s another example of, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” As shown here, e-bikes are literally the 90% solution. I really don’t think it’s worth sweating the potential energy efficiency differences between e-bikes and acoustic bikes. What’s really important is reducing car usage.

  • Turun
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    171 year ago

    Fuck cars, but was it really necessary to compare at such different speeds? Air resistance is a big factor and a proper electric bike can go 45kmh as well. Or the car can drive 25kmh

    • @Phrodo_00@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      a proper electric bike can go 45kmh as well.

      There’s some debate about that. E-bicycles above class 2 (with assistance/drive at over 20mph) are not allowed on a lot of bike lanes, so they’re more like electric mopeds

      • Turun
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        11 year ago

        Yes, they are handled differently in a legal sense. This comes with some small changes to usability of e.g. bike lanes, but in terms of practicality it’s basically still a bike.

        Would still be a better comparison, since this is focused on energy consumption. Or just have the car drive slower, as per my other suggestion.

    • Deme
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      1 year ago

      The fact remains that cars are faster than bikes. Driving a car usually means going faster and hence wasting more energy. Sure, plenty of people deal with distances that necessitate such speeds to be practical in daily life, but that’s a different problem to be solved.

      • Turun
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        11 year ago

        I agree.

        But if it’s a different problem to be solved the comparison is useless from the get go.

        • Deme
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          11 year ago

          Plenty of people drive short distances that could already be travelled by bike or walked. That doesn’t require any new solutions. Reminding those people of how wasteful it is to commute by car is a good way to approach that problem imo.

  • @Bye@lemmy.world
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    111 year ago

    You can make anything look bad by removing the next bad comparison though. Like if a pickup truck were there, everything would look good. Remove the car and add a scooter, windsurfing, rollerblading, and rolling downhill, and the e-bike looks bad.

    • stephan
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      111 year ago

      True, but the comparison in this case seems reasonable nonetheless. I just wish they had included fossil fuel cars, too

    • @n2burns@lemmy.ca
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      51 year ago

      Not really. The F150 Lightning’s efficiency is ~270Wh/km city which means a small EV is only a 50% improvement vs 95% for ebike.

      Also, this graph is helpful given our current situation. Maybe once we’re mostly at the 95% better than an F150 Lightning solution (e-bikes), it might be worth being concerned with energy efficiency, but we’re not there.

  • @thantik@lemmy.world
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    -71 year ago

    Oh yay, just what I want; to be able to go 45km in 2.5hrs and be exhausted by the time I get there.

    • @De_Narm@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Nobody is saying that it never makes any sense to use a car, but about 60% of all car trips in America are less than 6 miles (9.65 km). The scale ends there, hence the less than, but a good chunk is probably only 1-2 miles or less (1.6 - 3.2km), which is inexcusable for healthy adults not transporting heavy stuff like a fridge.

      Source: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1042-august-13-2018-2017-nearly-60-all-vehicle-trips-were-less-six

        • Turun
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          41 year ago

          I was going to write a snarky comment, but instead I’ll try to gain insight into your perspective.

          What disabilities allow you to drive a car, but prevent you from walking, cycling or taking the bus?

          • @n2burns@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            What disabilities allow you to drive a car, but prevent you from walking, cycling or taking the bus?

            To clarify/add to this: walking or cycling also includes mobility devices that can use this infrastructure such as walkers, wheelchairs, and scooters. Taking this to the extreme, the Netherlands has microcars which allow people with handicaps to drive at low speed on bike infrastructure. Some even allow wheelchair user to roll right in (also shown in the video at 1m07s).

            • @HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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              11 year ago

              Taking the bus turns a 15 minute drive into a two hour drive. Because I’m disabled y’all just assume my time is less valuable. Like I said, fuck all y’all that assume cars are the worst option for everyone

              • @n2burns@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                Taking the bus turns a 15 minute drive into a two hour drive

                If you’re talking about your specific situation, sure that might be the case, but it shouldn’t be that way in general. I also avoid taking my local public transit because it’s so bad, with service that’s supposed to be every 15min often 25min late (I’ve personally waited over 40min). However, that’s only with bad service. In a lot of places with good public transit, transit is waaay faster than driving because (rightfully so) they give priority to buses holding 40+ people, instead of cars holding 1.4 people on average

                We’re not blaming you if you currently take a car. I drove to the grocery store last night because that’s the only way to safely get there. It’s the system that’s the problem.

                You also didn’t acknowledge the other mobility options available, do none of them apply to you?

              • Turun
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                11 year ago

                Ah, I see. You are personally affected by the bad transport available at your location.

                Well, good news, you’re already at the right place to complain about bad bus systems. This community is all about making that horrible 2h bus ride faster.

                Once you look into the costs, benefits and disadvantages associated with different kinds of transportation you’ll notice that in order to speed up traffic we need to provide all those terrible car drivers (the other people on the road, not me or you), a viable alternative so that they may finally get out of the way. Some of the people I’ve met on today’s commute really should not be allowed to drive a car. But since you can’t lock people up for driving a car (thank god, because I need one) we really should entice all the incompetent ones to stop wasting everyones time by handling a vehicle on public roads.

        • @bzah@discuss.tchncs.de
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          21 year ago

          I think that’s unfair, in a city for example every equipment made for bikes, like a bridge above a road with lots of traffic or smooth road crossings, make the life of disabled easier too. I’m thinking about wheelchairs, but I guess it’s true even for people who struggle with walking too. And to me, the “fuck cars” Utopia is certainly way more inclusive for the disabled than the current situation.

    • @Katana314@lemmy.world
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      21 year ago

      It’s definitely a bit of a tilted comparison to not include any other alternative forms of transit like say a bus with 12 people on it (divide the energy), or a train with 80 people on it.