Sales of electric vehicles are on track to hit a million cars this year for the first time, which is helping cut down fossil fuel usage across America. However, the amount being saved by our slow and steady switch to EVs pales in comparison to the amount of fossil fuels being burned by people making the switch to electric bikes and scooters.
More than 280 million electric bikes and scooters are now in use around the world, reports the Conversation. In fact, there are now more than ten times as many e-bikes and scooters on the road than four-wheeled EVs like cars, buses and trucks. As the Conversation reports:
But these numbers of four or more wheel vehicles are wholly eclipsed by two- and three-wheelers. There were over 280 million electric mopeds, scooters, motorcycles and three-wheelers on the road last year. Their sheer popularity is already cutting demand for oil by a million barrels of oil a day – about 1 per cent of the world’s total oil demand, according to estimates by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Electric bikes and scooters are favoured in places like India and China, where many travellers previously relied on gas-powered mopeds and motorbikes to get around town. Now, they are switching to electric models to replace journeys like trips to the shops or work, and delivery riders around the world are also switching to battery power to cut their gas bills.
In fact, the Conversation reports that at current prices, a 12-mile commute every day, five days a week would only cost around $20 per year to keep your e-bike battery topped up. In contrast, the average car in America would cost you more than three times that much in gas alone. But the switch to battery power is about more than saving a few bucks, as the site explains:
If taken up, electric micro mobility can cut urban emissions. A study of e-scooter riders in the United Kingdom found these trips produced up to 45 per cent less carbon dioxide than alternatives.
US researchers estimate that if e-bike trips expanded to 11 per cent of all vehicle trips, transport emissions would fall by about 7 per cent.
Obviously, while I’d like to tell everyone to sack off their massive pickup trucks and swap them for awesome little e-bikes, I know that kind of thinking doesn’t fly here in the land of the free. So instead, the best advice is to try and swap shorter journeys in your car for one made on two wheels when you can.
If you’re heading five miles to the shop, take your bike. There are loads of e-bikes and scooters out there now that boast storage trunks, space for passengers and ranges of more than 40 miles. So America, go forth and ride your bicycles.
Photo: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times (Getty Images)
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