LeftieBiker said:
if you are going to compare the CO2 emissions of a cyclist and an EV driver, then you have to factor in the manufacturing and lifetime parts and energy costs of the bicycle and the EV. This changes things a bit...
You could pose the question in those terms, if you wish.
However, my basic premise here is that there is already an EV sitting on the drive. Is it better to use that, than to take the bike?
Beyond that, the question of whether to consider whole-life costs in
that particular comparison then returns to what I consider the central fallacy of
all efforts towards 'energy efficient vehicles' - does the person really need a vehicle at all? And if so, why have societal developments lead to them
needing a vehicle? It is clearly not
essential for homo sapiens to survive without motorised transport, nor even bicycles!
One could therefore argue that it would be 'energy/CO2 saving' if we moved back to a time when there were no vehicles at all. Some green/lefties/religions do, indeed, advocate exactly that. I'm not proposing this, but to say that few cyclists with a driveway and/or a garage* have only their bicycles for transport. But those cyclists that do own an EV (because the bicycle cannot serve all their needs) and who eat meat for their cycling energy will produce more CO2 if they use their bicycles for a journey they could otherwise use their EV for.
*(The question is moot if they have no place to charge their EV.)
However, your question
does become more significant if, for example, there are two road users in a household - should they have two EVs or one EV and a bike? If they can share and get by with using the one EV when it is essentially needed, and the bike at other times, the equation changes and the EV's embedded CO2 does then become significant in that choice.
The reality is that the person who said cyclists are CO2 polluters when they ride
is correct. I don't know if he alluded to
how polluting they are. I don't object to them being 'CO2 polluters' because very few leisure pursuits do not cause some sort of CO2 pollution and it is relatively little.
I was just pointing out that the energy source for a lamb-burger eating cycle-user is 10 times more CO2 pollution for using the cycle than the energy source of an EV driver in France when using the EV (and about 3 times more than the energy source of an EV elsewhere in Europe). I don't feel a need to justify the significance or otherwise of that statement in the context of every other way of arguing it, merely that it might come as a surprise!