this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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I have heard about about those, and they probably could carry as much as a small car, but do they work anywhere remotely hilly? Hauling your own weight up a hill on a normal bike already sucks, unless you're really really good at it. You could add an electric motor to do most of the work, but at some point you just have the car again. Looking at the physics, human power provides maybe 50 sustained watts, and there's only so much you can do with that.
It's a matter of degree. You have to plug in your EV, and on the rare road trips have to plan charge stops. That's it. Getting on a bike is completely different experience, and for the majority of people at least in North America, would require a relocation and complete change of architecture to really fully be possible. And a significant minority would still need motor vehicles for their job.
Can't vs. won't might be an important thing to bring up here. Even if it can and should happen...
A cargo bike can go anywhere a normal car can go. An e-bike is many times more efficient than a car. The argument used in favor of EVs over ICEVs also applies to e-bikes over EVs.
I understand that it is a matter of degree. But that means accepting that the BEV is a compromise no matter what their boosters claim otherwise. And there is room for another level of compromise, where people get out of their cars and into something even greener. If people are to stay in their cars, then we might as well stop pretending to care about efficiency.
Unless you add "but do all the same common trips just as quickly". Then having thousands of watts of power output matters.
I think you need a more exact definition of "efficient" here. If you mean energy efficient, bikes are efficient, but human and crop metabolism is not. If you mean economically efficient, the speed and capacity issues have to be factored in. They both produce zero emissions in their end state.
BEVs are still cars and create massive traffic problems. Cars are not guaranteed to be faster. We cannot all use cars for all of our transportation needs anyways, so alternatives need to exist regardless.
Humans burns calories all the time, even when resting. And you still need to exercise. Might as well power a real bike instead of a stationary bike. So this is a totally silly thing to worry about.
I agree. Energy efficiency would be an odd way to measure it on it's own.
Sure, bikes are nice in their niche, and they will probably be used more and not less in the future. And maybe that's a natural place to leave this.