micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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That's the "can get a good used car" comparison the author makes right off.
Those electric Urban arrows are a dream, but run around 6-7k in every bike shop I've seen them in.
Sure, but if you’re going to use it as a car replacement it doesn’t really make sense to get some cheap piece of shit from AliExpress. The car it would be replacing wasn’t going to a be a cheap Chinese PoS either, right?
Cars are way more convenient in America. It's not a good thing, but it's true. Youre going to have a very hard time convincing people that would be willing to use a cargo bike but who are are on the fence that they should buy a cars worth of cargo bike at the outset.
Adoption of cargo bikes are much likelier in the $1500 range than the $7000 range. You're already asking people to step away from their comfort zones and the norm in American society. Asking them to "spend a used car" to do it just makes it way, way less likely.
The author also acknowledge the operating cost would be significantly different right at the get go though. Used car tend to break down pretty soon since its, well, used. Some part will soon need to be changed, adding fuel cost, fluid change, tyre change, brake pad, it will very likely cost you 50% more than the asking price in 2 years or so, and more in the subsequent year.
But you also get a car for that cost, not just a utility bike. I love these Bakfiets style front cargo bikes and really hope for more US adoption, but our nation was built for cars and fighting that will take decades. Cars have way more overall utility and comfort in America.
I'll say too that used cars are a crapshoot. I once bought a $700 car that I put $800 into and it ran for years without further issue. Ongoing costs like gas and oil are real, but the immense utility makes them feel negligible. Even with those costs, that thing far beat the Urban arrow over its lifespan, and nearly beat even this meh bike in the review. I could have put two bikes in it and a couple of people to boot while going 70+ mph on a highway, a feat no bike will ever match.
We should all shift to cargo bikes, preferably these high utility/high safety front loader styles if we can. We should also advocate for infrastructure changes to make them and others like them more viable. That's the ideal, but if these bikes stay at 7k, getting people to actually buy and use them even with those infrastructure improvements is going to be a big, big challenge all on its own.