Bicycles are the most efficient method of moving humans on the planet based on the ratio of energy required to distance traveled. Bikes are five times more energy efficient than walking and about eighty times more efficient than driving a car.
The introduction of electric bikes (e-bikes) twenty years ago is revolutionizing personal transportation and looks to have a boundless future.
Worldwide, e-bikes in circulation are expected to reach 300 million in 2023, a 50% increase from 2019. The market was worth $17.56 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $41 billion by 2030.
A Personal Testimony
Jim Sandercock lives in Highlands, an old neighborhood in Edmonton, Canada, about 5 km from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) whose Alternative Energy Program he chairs. He lives in a 1951 house that he renovated to net-zero and is a good example of someone who embraced the e-bike revolution.
He was introduced to regular biking by a coworker.
“I thought about it for a long time, but like everybody, I didn't do anything about it,” says Sandercock. “And then one of my coworkers moved into the neighborhood, and he's really athletic, and he says, ‘Hey, let's bike to work together.’”
“Foolishly, I told everybody I was going to do it.” There’s nothing like good old-fashioned social pressure.
So, Sandercock started commuting with a regular bike despite his concerns about being sore or tired all the time or risking his life biking in traffic.
Soon he started researching e-bikes and found a model with big, knobby tires and a throttle for $1,600. He has been e-biking to work for one year now and “loves it.”
E-Biking in Any Weather
“With an e-bike, you've got the ability to dial up and down your e-bike support,” Sandercock says. As a result, he can control how much exercise he gets and then just parks and hops off the bike when he gets to work.
When e-biking on below-zero days, Sandercock wears a camping jacket, a shell, and snow pants. He dials down the electric assist if he needs to generate body heat and dials it up if he’s overheating.
The fat, knobby tires worked fine for Sandercock on snow or slushy rides, but studded tires are highly recommended for winter commutes.
The most important thing “is getting a nice pair of heated gloves,” Sandercock says, noting he paid $100 for some electric battery-powered heated gloves—“a godsend when you're biking.”
Reasons People Become E-Bikers
The most common reasons people choose to e-bike are to save money, avoid traffic jams, and improve health and the environment, according to Mordor Intelligence and other studies.
In Copenhagen, for instance, there are five times more bikes than cars, according to the Cycling Embassy of Denmark. One survey of Danish cyclers found that getting to their destination more quickly was the main reason to bike.
E-bikes can move about 20 miles per hour, compared with 10 miles per hour for regular bikes.
As expected, electric bikes are faster than regular bikes: E-bikes can move about 20 miles per hour, compared with 10 miles per hour for regular bikes, according to TheRoundup.org.
Financially, e-biking offers significant savings over the expenses associated with maintaining, fueling, and parking a car. A 2017 study from the US Public Interest Research Group said families could save about $30,000 over a five-year period if they replaced one of their cars with an e-bike.
Energy Use
E-bikes use electricity, but they get the equivalent of 2,000 MPGe. This is twenty times more efficient than a Tesla Model S, which itself is 3.2 times more efficient than a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle.
E-bikes are twenty times more efficient than a Tesla Model S, which itself is 3.2 times more efficient than a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle.
The driving range of e-bikes varies, but e-bikes with a 500–750-watt battery will get about 20 mi (36 km) of range.
E-bikes use so little energy that it is equivalent to a penny per mile. E-bike chargers generally take up to five hours for a full charge.
E-Bikes Lead to Better Fitness
Research shows e-bikes can increase the amount of exercise one gets. Once people buy an e-bike, they choose it as their method of transport 49% of the time, up from 17% with a regular bike.
And here’s the kicker—the average daily cycling distance increases 400% with e-bike owners from 2.1 km (1.3 mi) to 9.2 km (5.8 mi).
One study found regular cyclists burn about 552 calories per hour, while e-bikers burn 444 calories with electric pedal assistance. This is a 22% difference. However, because people ride e-bikes further than pedal bikes, the calorie loss and fitness levels are increased.
In Sandercock’s case, he says he is burning 18,500 more calories per year than before he bought an e-bike.
Rebates for E-Biking
E-bikes often cost around $2,000, with high-end bikes going for $6,000, according to REI.
For many state and municipal agencies, e-bikes help reduce emissions, increase fitness, and reduce congestion, so they offer rebates to encourage sales. Rebates range from $100 to $1,500 and even higher.
Here is a comprehensive list of programs in the US and Canada. Notably, The Bay Area Clean Cars for All program offers $7,500 to residents for an e-bike purchase and transit costs if they dismantle their old car.
In the US, federal lawmakers have introduced a bill that would offer a 30% tax credit (up to $1,500) towards the cost of an e-bike. A similar e-cargo bike rebate in Colorado issued 4,700 e-bike rebates, many of which went to low-income families.
Safe Biking Lanes
Bike safety is always a concern, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a complete rundown on rules of the road.
Building safe bicycling infrastructure is key to treating cycling seriously and getting more people on bicycles.
Building safe bicycling infrastructure is key to treating cycling seriously and getting more people on bicycles.
Science confirms the maxim “Build it and they will come.” The Mercator Research Institute in Berlin found during the COVID-19 pandemic that an average of 11.5 km (6.8 mi) of provisional pop-up bike lanes were set up in European cities and cycling increased between 11% and 48%.
The City of Vitoria Gasteiz in Spain replaced a twelve-lane roadway right through the middle of the city with a multi-mode marvel of design that now supports cycling, pedestrians, rapid transit, and cars. They called this a “democratic” allocation of space to all users. This combined with other similar actions increased cycling to 12% of trips in the city while car trips fell to just 24.
Bike sharing is now available in hundreds of cities.
As of July 2022, there were 8,473 docked bike-share stations in cities across the US. In 2019, about 28% had e-bikes, and that number is increasing because e-bikes are quite popular among bikeshare users. There are bike-sharing apps to find and rent a bike.
Citi Bike in New York, Bikeshare in Washington, D.C., and Citi Bike in Miami are among the largest operations in the US.
Bike-sharing is a great way to try these vehicles out and discover how much more quickly one can zip around town.
*David Dodge is an e-bike owner who has commuted through the winter. He is an environmental journalist and photojournalist and the host and producer of GreenEnergyFutures.ca, a series of micro-documentaries on clean energy, transportation, and buildings. He’s worked for newspapers and published magazines, and he produced more than 350 award-winning EcoFile radio programs on sustainability for CKUA Radio.