[sustran] Re: Guangzhou bans electric bicycles

[cherry at berkeley.edu]

Hopefully this doesn’t post twice, I had a computer glitch. Sorry in
advance if it did.

Chinese policy makers in have cited safety, lead pollution, contribution
to congestion and “image” as reasons for banning ebikes in Guangzhou and
trying in Beijing. Electric bikes are very good on many levels. They
provide mobility that is unmatched by almost any other mode and no
tailpipe emissions. They do use electricity from predominately coal power
plants, but even so, the emission rates per km are lower than most other
modes. The human health impacts of power plant emissions in rural areas
are likely lower than tailpipe emissions in dense cities. The biggest
problem with ebikes is lead from battery use. Ebike batteries are about
the same size as car batteries and they go through them rather fast. A lot
of lead is lost during the manufacture and recycling processes, so even
100% recycling wouldn’t fix this problem. This isn’t a problem with
ebikes, it’s a problem with the lead industry and the sooner ebikes
transition into Li-ion or NiMH batteries the better. The ebike industry
might need some regulatory “help” making this transition.

Ebikes aren’t necessarily unsafe, they are simply vulnerable, like
bicyclists. Based on some data I’ve seen, they are no more unsafe that
bicycles and they are much safer than cars. The safety argument doesn’t
hold a lot of water in my opinion.

The problem with most of the policy that is being developed is that policy
makers are not considering alternative modes once ebikes are regulated.
Ebikes are unsafe, dirty, congestion causing
compared to what mode.
Compare them to cars and ebikes win on most metrics. Compare them to
bicycles and they don’t. Most ebikers would otherwise use bus or bicycle,
so the environmental/energy impact difference is small. The big benefit of
ebikes that is not considered is the high levels of mobility and
accessibility that they provide to lower income residents. These impacts
are not being considered.

The point is that this is not a completely green or sustainable
transportation mode, but with some minor improvements and compared to the
future alternative modes as incomes rise- it performs really well.

This is the subject of my dissertation research in which addresses the
above issues. Email me or check out my website if you would like to see
some working papers or preliminary results.

Christopher Cherry
PhD Candidate
Institute of Transportation Studies
University of California, Berkeley
cherry at berkeley.edu
www.ce.berkeley.edu/~cherry
www.its.berkeley.edu/volvocenter