this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Ok, so this article is actually combining e-bike numbers with electric mopeds, and while you might be able to argue that e-bikes somehow aren't electric vehicles because they're partially human-powered, anyone who thinks a moped isn't one can sod off. They are fully motor-driven. They require a license. They have the same road-legal requirements as any other "electric vehicle": turn signals, head and brake-lights, license plate, etc.
Yeah, show me those 2 broken out individually, because I bet you it's far more about mopeds than e-bikes, but of course the article title doesn't even mention mopeds at all.
While I've seen people use "moped" and "motor scooter" interchangeably, that's really a shift in terminology; a "moped" is originally and still can be a "motorized" vehicle that can also be "pedaled". Now, I don't know how often people actually pedal even with pedalable ones, but...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moped
All of the example images there are vehicles that can be pedaled.
Yes, but that is not what are being sold now as electric mopeds/ scooters that account for e.g. the 9.7 million annual unit-sales in China. Fully-motorized mopeds are. Which just makes using the ambiguity of the category in order to lie about carbon offset achieved by e-bikes even worse. The accurate headline would have been to say that electric scooters have likely proven to be far better than electric cars, but instead the author chose to make it about e-bikes.
That an especially important distinction when talking about the US, because electric scooters can already navigate our car-centric infrastructure far better than e-bikes can, which means that we can shift people to those much more quickly than we can to e-bikes (which we don't have the infra to support an explosion of, since they need their own infra), and without the environmental re-construction costs to build that infra that would offset any gains for a LOOONG time.
I get that people wish we could shift to a European-like model of city transit, but we can't without some pretty major tradeoffs (and heavy drawbacks). Electric motorcycles/ scooters are much more feasible and practical for most individual commuters than e-bikes, and electric cars for families. Most people are either not willing, or not financially able, to have both.
Only in some countries.
Even where they are regulated that generally only covers on-road use. If you ride them on private property you're fine, which allows stores to sell high powered ebikes for "private use only"... for about the price of a good motorcycle helmet. No turn signals, no brake lights, a $3 headlight lucky and forget about number plates because there's no way the tyres or brakes are suitable for the weight of the bike even at regular speeds, let alone the high speeds they can reach.
They're not mopeds at all. They're e-bikes with a throttle and excessively large electric motor. And if you ride them to work every day, nobody's gonna stop you. Shit will hit the fan when you run into a pedestrian or car though.