Affordable eBikes made safely of aluminum with brushless hub motor in the rear wheel & a battery pack for example have MPGe of over 1000 and can be obtained for $300 to $3000 depending on motor wattage, battery pack size, suspension, features and other factors.
I picked eBikes instead of bicycles as an example because cars are hard completion for all season all weather use cases on roads dominated by other automobile, SUV, truck and bus traffic. Riding a bicycle in traffic at low speeds when the traffic moving at higher speeds is dangerous to the bicycle rider. At least eBikes with enough power can be pedal assisted up to 28 MPH enough to keep up with cars in 25 MPH neighborhood local streets or 20 MPH school zones.
Consider how China was largely reliant on bicycles before 1975, but now widely embraced car ownership such that many large cities in china have 3+ hour long stop and go traffic jams.
$999 Lectric XP 3.0 an example of a cost efficient well made eBike with user swappable high quality safe battery 10ah 48v, a 500w rear hub motor with 55nm torque, 5 levels of pedal assist, hydraulic brakes front & rear, front & seat post suspension & a plush oversized seat. At 29.29 kilograms or 64 US pounds, it can be folded in half easily to store in the trunk of an automobile.
E-bikes give people with cars a way to get back into riding bicycles like they did as children. Enclosed e-bicycle cars would be even better since they provide rain & wind protection for use in winter or during storms, in snowy conditions with a cabin heater, a blower for cooling when operated in hot conditions, a cabin air filter to reduce soot and pollution exposure from breathing in the exhaust gas tail pipe pollutants emitted by other gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles.
To ride an eBike in freezing cold or winter weather you need insulated windproof multi-layer insulating pants & jacket, gloves, insulted shoes or boots, a scarf or face wrap, glasses to keep your eyes from drying out, and possibly even heated gloves or heated clothing if the temperature are really sub freezing cold. The gear should be water resistant to provide rain protection too. Keep a spare set of clothes in a bag attached to the cargo rack on the bicycle inside a water proof bag, so that you have a set of dry clothes to change into if you get rain soaked while riding.
For most people the eBike will be an addition to cars, so having one that foldable and easily to load into the trunk very useful. Making eBikes less than 20kg means more older peoples can safely lift them into the back of their vehicles without risking a back injury.
Commuting on some dry days without rain, instead of always driving the car, means the eBike can help to get people out of their cars, proving to them that they are not reliant on a fossil fueled vehicle to commute. This means that people with eBikes will start to consider hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric cars that pollute less than ICE vehicles during their operating life. Traction batteries and even the lead acid batteries in these vehicles can be recycled when they reach EOL or end of life.
Meg & I purchased a Lectric XP3.0 eBike during a sale like this one in the image, for $1139 with the long range 14ah battery of 672 watt-hour.
I am very curious to test the towing capacity on level paved trails with Meg when the weather warms up during the spring and summer. Right now it's cold winter weather & only a technology bicycle zealot like me actually willing to commute on an eBike to work & back during rainy winter. Even my other coworkers with eBike only use them during fair weather, not during really stormy full cold rain or on very cold winter days. I consulted them and they encouraged me to start out riding the eBike to work 1 or 2 days per week at first. They also told me to test the route on Saturday or Sunday on the weekend to make sure I am able to do it safely and the battery and power of the eBike sufficient to cover the hilly route required. The hills are extremely steep and windy nearby.
Low Speed Battery Electric Cars
In the Netherlands, in Amsterdam, Meg & I saw some low speed low power electric cars that are smaller & lower mass & only available locally. I am thinking of a fully enclosed electric golf cart also. When a combination of superior aerodynamics, low mass, battery & solar PV we get to the Aptera solar electric that has a CD of 0.13 compared to 0.23 for the Tesla Model 3. The Aptera uses 4X less electricity per unit of distance traveled than the Model 3 because its way more aerodynamic, meaning less of the battery energy needed to energize the traction motor to shove air out of the way of the Aptera's forward motion, or its a very slippery shape. If the driver or passenger has a foot crank like a sitting recumbent exercise bike hooked to a power generator such that pedaling generates electricity to charge the vehicles traction battery, than a human serial battery electric solar hybrid can be made as long as some sky facing surfaces of the vehicles have solar PV modules converting incoming solar light energy into electricity to help keep the traction battery charged.
Lowe Vehicle Mass with Lighter Materials
Starting with aluminum, since the cheapest bicycles that are also low mass, are made with aluminum frames today. The wheel axels, bolts, nuts & other parts can be made of stainless steel or titanium with compact strength. Some larger flat thin panels in the roof, floor, doors, hood, trunk lid, dash, can be made of bio fiber reinforced plant polymers that can be biodegraded in high temperature industrial composting, very much unlike fiberglass or carbon fiber. In this way low mass panels that block the wind, cold air, hot air, sun, etc can be made of a renewable or sustainable eco-friendly materials thats also low mass like these brown composites.
Call bio fiber plant polymer composite, wood, oops, I mean wood is a natural composite and every many early aircraft are made with wood & fabric. Imagine that we make a smaller energy efficient bicycle cars out of bioplastics with bio fibers to increase strength. Using magnesium, aluminum, steel, and titanium only where very high strength required. More polymer, less metal also means less energy to manufacture or lower carbon emitted in the manufacturing processes and supply chain, making vehicles that are intrinsically more eco-friendly!
Making a vehicle lighter already something widely done in motorsports with road going passenger vehicles adapted for use in vehicle racing. All the interior plastics, seats, carpeting, insulation, sound dampening, all the stuff to minimize noise, vibration, and harshness or NVH are stripped out and removed to reduce the vehicle mass & to make room for the chromoly roll cage to be installed. Making a vehicle lighter makes it faster at corning in racing. This is why F1 cars are made with carbon fiber, it has the highest strength to weight ratio of any material thats practical to make the F1 chassis with.
Aluminum already the engine metal of choice that long ago replaced heavier iron in automotive applications. Engines from the distance past made of iron are 2X heavier than modern aluminum engines of the same power output. Aluminum also an excellent heat sink in the engine able to transfer combustion heat to the cooling fluid, typically a mixture of water and propylene glycol that the water pump then circulates through the radiator or heater core in the dash for cabin heating in many automobiles. Aluminum also a decent electrical conductor and many wires are made of aluminum, though it's worse than copper, silver, and gold, aluminum much cheaper.
Cheap Efficiency means that an efficient machine, vehicle, appliance or device can be made at low cost in high volume manufacturing, and these savings are translated into lower retail or e-commerce prices. Let's consider a modern Samsung Dishwasher that has a mass of 23 KG made mostly of plastic, vs classic dishwasher made mostly of metal that has a mass of 45 KG & has rollers built into the lower frame rails to make it easier to install & remove. Why make something out of metal if you can make it out of plastics? Plastics are waterproof, electrically insulating, and some are very strong approaching that of aluminum. Some plastic films & fiber have incredible tension strength when made into ropes by winding & braiding & combining them in a coherent organize linear bundle. I can take a typical paper towel, cut 3 strips, wind up each strip into a thick thread, then braid all three, and it make a rope out of paper towel that most people cannot break with their hands & arms. I have shown this to many people over the years, and describe the strength of teams like this. When the ropes are intertwined they share the loads, and many hands make work lighter. In the same way when people collaborate more amazing things can happen!
In the early days of computer the technology development was driven by enthusiasts looking to make the technology better with little or no interest in making a lot of money. In this way information technology made epic strides when networking allowed crowd sourcing collaboration worldwide. UNIX was then contributed into by people all around the world, and the same was true for GNU/ LINUX history. Even today the MacOS and iOS are distant relatives of BSD4.3 fork off of AT&T original UNIX. I use the history of computers as an example of how many people around the world have contributed to software, hardware, and information & communications technologies such that many thousands of people across time and place are collaborating on things that no single person could ever produce, like ASLM's latest EUV machines used to make computer chips or small transistor dense integrated circuits in the SOC of a smartphone, or GPU or CPU in laptops, desktops & servers used to make cloud computer and enable streaming, OTA updates, and SAS or software as a service platforms, plus much more more in social media, e-commerce, information access, accounting, engineering, education & even healthcare. Computer are pervasive and the transistor is the most widely manufactured device ever, and this is increasing as ever more transistors are made in high volume chip fabs around the world operating 24/7!
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