Electric bicycles as a quantum opportunity for transportational cycling: can e bikes be conquest sales versus cars?

The US has a very homogeneous approach to land use and transportation planning.  It's not very open to heterogeneity in that everyone is supposed to rely on a car to get around, uses are supposed to be widely distant from each other, etc.  

A few of the legacy cities (New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco) are dominated by transit.  No city has the kind of bicycling for transportation penetration common in the Netherlands or Denmark.  No temperate city is dominated by mopeds.

By contrast, European cities prioritize transit (and biking and walking) in their cores, even if the nation (like Germany) is equally committed to roads and automobiles.  They support heterogeneity in mobility because they recognize different modes have a role to play depending on land use context.

Vespas riders in Rome.  Flickr photo by Tony GVK.

Some European cities, particularly in the warmer climes, are dominated by mopeds, that is scooters, which are a great way to get around without the bulk and other requirements of the car.  

You do see scooters in US cities and bicyclists and transit users, but in most instances (not New York City and transit) the mode users are outliers. There are a couple of people, not dozens or hundreds.

In the past I have been both positive and negative about the opportunities presented by electric bicycles.

-- "(Still) tired of mis-understanding of the potential for e-bikes," 2015

My complaint has been a focus by vendors on the core of center cities, which often are flat and the distances are short, plus the big mix of pedestrians, transit users, cyclists, and motor vehicles is complicated, and adding a powerful bicycle to the mix increases the speed differential with people on foot.  

In short, an e-bike at the core of most center cities is overkill.  Regular bikes are just fine.

On the other hand, for longer distance trips, for people as they age, and in topographically challenged areas, electric bikes offer advantages over traditional pedal-powered bikes (myself, I am hoping to make it til 65 or later before I convert, but I do live in a serious hilly area on the Wasatch Front).

Conquest sales: a term from the auto industry: My adoptive father worked for the auto industry, and they referred to "conquest sales" as those times when your make was newly successful in getting the owner of another make to buy your car, e.g., a Chrysler car is sold to someone who owned a Ford.

Can e-bikes become sustainable mobility conquests versus the car?

It will be hard, because our mobility system is set up for automobiles.  But even if 5% of automobile users could be converted to e-bike users, or at least to use an e-bike some of the time, it would have a significant impact on congestion, air quality, etc.

Tax credits for electric bikes.  Denver passed a sales tax to support sustainable mobility initiatives , called the Climate Protection Fund, and it includes a limited number of vouchers--400 per month, towards the purchase cost of an electric bicycle (" Denver’s E-Bike Rebates Are So Hot They’re Gone Within Minutes," Bloomberg).  From the article:

“We thought there would be some interest in owning e-bikes — we just had no idea it would be as popular as it has been,” Rink said. “For those of us who have made our careers in government and have tried to tell people about all the programs we have, we know it's hard to get the word out. This one wasn't hard. People jumped on it right away.”

The Radpower electric bicycle shop on 700 East in Salt Lake City sets up demonstration riding in their parking lot.

The rebate program offers Denverites between $400 and $1,700 off the purchase of an e-bike. It’s been so successful that the city is now increasingly being looked to as a model by the rest of the country as local communities take on more initiatives to reach net-zero emissions targets. 

Low income residents are eligible for the highest rebates.

Massachusetts is introducing a small rebate program.  And a handful of other communities besides Denver have similar programs.

Potential for abuse.  Although it's definitely ripe for abuse.  For example, the UK has a payroll deduction program for bikes, and many people use it to buy super expensive road bikes for recreational use, when the intent is that people use the bikes for transportational cycling.

It's not like people who are using the rebate in Denver have to get rid of cars to be eligible for the rebate.

Flickr photo by zakiakhamad.

Security issues and secure bicycle parking.  In my Reddit feed I'm presented with entries from r/Denver, and some of the newly purchased bikes have been stolen.  One commenter mentioned his heavy duty secure lock set up cost about $300.  

E-bikes, which cost so much more than hybrid bikes, have even greater need for the provision of secure bicycling parking. 

I've suggested that metropolitan areas could create a network of secure bicycle parking facilities, modeled after the Parkiteer system in Melbourne, Victoria State, Australia--Victoria State "invented" transportation demand management.

-- "Bike to Work Day as an opportunity to assess the state of bicycle planning: Part 2, building a network of bike facilities at the regional scale"

Bike gutter/bike trough on the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda, Maryland.

Urban design.  Electric bikes are heavier.  A lot of places don't install bike gutters as a matter of course on stairwells, etc.  They should.  They'll also have to be bigger/wider to accommodate larger bikes.