Electric Bikes: The Stars and Stripes of Transportation

What if every household had an electric bike?

Editor’s Note (also the author, we’re a small shop); Today is the 4th of July, which we sincerely hope means that none of our American readers are anywhere close to an electronic device. In honor of the holiday, today’s post is lighter fare than our usual missive, and not meant to be taken completely seriously, unless it is. Happy 4th and see you on Thursday. 

Your writers have spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating electric bikes, generally in the context of asking why the idiot teenagers riding them on narrow paths are so unfamiliar with the concepts of bells, signaling their intent to pass, or helmets. Yes, we would like them off our lawn. Still, in between dodging suspiciously silent wannabe mopeds, the climate technologists in us are forced to ask…. What if the US government bought one for every household?

There are 124 million households in the US (at the end of 2021, the last year for which data is available) per the US Census Bureau, which own an average of 1.88 cars per family, per the US Dept of Transport. Let’s call that 233 million cars, which is a lot, considering that exactly zero of them seem to know how to merge out of a roundabout. 

The US government plans to spend an annualized average of $66bn on roads, highways, and bridges over the next five years, per the CBO. Some other data; The average passenger car emits 4.6 tons of CO2 per year, per the EPA. One ton of high-quality carbon offsets can command a price of $300, per the World Bank. The average American household spends over $5,000 per car per year (fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc), per the US Dept of Transport, and increasing GDP per capita is a really good thing which drastically lowers government spending on social safety nets, per every economist with a brain. 

Last one; Rad Power Bikes (the top selling electric bike maker in the US), sells its product for between $1,500-2,500. Let’s call it $2,000 on average, for which one could purchase a tricked-out cargo bike, explicitly marketed as a car replacement. 

Before we get torn apart in the mentions, note that we do not advocate the end of car ownership, especially given the existence of long commutes, the American roadtrip, and winter. Instead, let’s assume that the 1.88 goes down to 1, or perhaps 1.25. 

Our readers are wise, sophisticated people, as evidenced by their superb taste in climate-tech newsletters, so we trust we don’t have to draw them a map. Sometimes, making a drastic impact on climate is as simple as the government using its vast purchasing power to leverage the technology we already have, financed (and this is completely hypothetical of course), by the creation of a carbon-credit government bond available for sale on the open market. Or something :)

Get to peddling.