I think a fairer conclusion would be if 4 people are making the trip the car, while not able to match bicycle efficiency, does pretty well. If one person is taking the trip the e-bike is a no-brainer. Hauling stuff other than the person is a different matter.dmacarthur said:6) the bike averages about 70 m/kwh over the 2 trips I have recently measured, probably a fair amount more but almost 20 times the m/kwh of the Leaf. But, since the bike is using a considerable portion of human power to travel, and because the Leaf could easily carry 2 or more people, I conclude that the bike is actually LESS efficient at translating electricity into motion..... but the exercise makes it worth it!
Trivia time. I read an article not too long ago that found that human energy expenditure per mile is the same in conventional bikes and E-bikes. So the exercise is the same per time; the difference is that E-bikes go faster
If the source energy is local and sustainable the inefficiency can be overlooked
dmacarthur said:If the source energy is local and sustainable the inefficiency can be overlooked
because we are organic farmers and grow as much as we can for ourselves (and trade for local meat when we eat meat at all) there are no South American beef guilt issues! Dried beans we buy, to provide the gas needed to get up hills......
I find it amusing to remember that animals are fuel cells -- and lousy ones at that. The synthetic fuel cell has a good 2x efficiency. Animals' only saving grace is that they are not as picky about their foodstocks. And one might argue that when they eat each other, they double the apparent efficiency.
Those things (derailleurs) should have gone the way of breaker points...
Internal hub drives like the Sturmey-Archer tend to break under e-bike loads.
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