this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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Fuck Cars

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[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 4 months ago (15 children)

This is why ebikes produce less CO2 per mile than regular bikes. Even if you're getting your electricity from coal, battery and motor efficiency are so much higher than food digestion and muscle movement.

The ebike starts life from the factory with a higher CO2 cost, though, and it never quite catches up over its expected life.

Both are orders of magnitude lower CO2 than a car (both production cost and per mile cost). The lifetime CO2 cost of an ebike vs normal bike is so small, and the gulf between either of those and a car is so big, that anyone pointing to this in favor of cars is an idiot. If an ebike is what gets you to bike more, do it. Any movement from cars and onto bikes is a huge win, battery or not.

[–] yimby@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Do you have a source on the production CO2 of an ebike? I'd like to see how they calculated the cradle to grave emissions.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 months ago

The blog below cobbles together a few different sources. One is the European Cycling Federation, and the other is Trek.

https://eponline.com/articles/2023/01/13/environmental-impact-of-bikes-and-e-bikes.aspx

[–] pc486@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago

Dr Simon Clark put together a video in 2024 about CO2 and ebikes: How bad are electric bikes for the environment?

He lists 20 sources in the description, so go ham on reading up if you don't want to watch his breakdown.

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