Electric Scooters part 2

Interesting fact 2: there are already 10 million electric scooters on the roads in China and there is no reason to believe that this dramatic shift will not continue in the future.

The European market is opening up and there is no reason that Canada and America should not follow suit. The main reason that they are so popular in China right now boils down to one essential fact: they are a lot cheaper than their gluttonous counterparts. They cost less to purchase, to fuel and to maintain. In addition another obvious benifit within crowded cities is that they have no tail pipe emissions which is easy on the nose and the lungs and much better for everyone's health.

One of the common things that I hear 'nay-sayers' say when the topic of electric vehicles comes up is something to this effect, "Sure they don't let out any air pollution when you are driving them but then you have to charge them off your house, where do you think that energy is coming from... it's probably from a coal powered plant. It is putting just as much CO2 into the air as me driving my car!" I wanted to know the truth on this point so this is where I focused my research this week. I found a very useful article that has tonnes of information specifically on comparing electric scooters to other forms of transportation in China. If you want to check on the info first hand @ http://www.scribd.com/doc/1960031/Electric-Bike-Use-in-China-and-Their-Impacts-on-the.

This extremely informative article points out that the key fact that should be considered is the Environmental impact per person per kilometer over the lifespan of the vehicle in question. Here is the meat and potatoes on the issue of overall CO2 emmisions (this means taking into consideration the CO2 produced in the power plants that are recharging the bikes through powering the home):

Car=> 306 grams of CO2 per person (pax) per kilometer
Bus => 48.4 grams of CO2 pax/kilo
Bicycle => 4.70 grams of CO2 pax/kilo
Electric Bike Model 1 (BSEB) => 22.08 grams of CO2 pax/ kilo
Electric Bike Model 2 (SSEB) => 30.44 grams of CO2 pax/ kilo

Clearly, not only do the two different models of electric bikes vastly outperform the common car in terms of environmental efficiency (they produce ten times less pollution than your standard gas driven motor) but they are also significantly these harmful to the environment that public buses. In fact the only form of transport shown to be less polluting in this study was the good old trusty pedal bike (my personal favorite).

The article goes on to outline other elements of pollution and the electric bike follow the same trend in all of the categories except for one. This is the area of lead pollution, which the bikes produce when their batteries need to be replaced. This is mainly due to the fact that older lead batteries are being used in the bikes that are being produced in China right now. With advances in battery technology, which are currently available (the new lithium batteries are amazing) this issue could be address and improved upon (and the efficiency of the bikes would most likely be greatly improved as well). One additional significant fact should also be noted with regards to the pollution for charging units like this coming from a coal burning factory; it is actually a very good thing to have that pollution centralized, because as carbon capture and storage techniques are improved isolated sites of pollution such as power plants can be dealt with whereas individual tail pipe CO2 is sent into the atmosphere indiscriminately, in the middle of the most populated urban centers of the world.

Basically it seems to me that there is no reason for everyone not to be purchasing and hopping on electric bikes. In fact I'm amazed that there is not a massive back order list for them in Canada and America right now.

Here are some sites with E-bikes for sale!
http://www.e-ride.ca/ (in Vancouver)
http://www.daymak.com/ (in Toronto)
http://www.greenwit.com/ (for North America at large)

Think about it... gas guzzling cars should be put where they belong... in museums!