You know the tide is turning when Arval, one of the key players in car leasing and corporate fleets in Europe present their performance of first 6 months of 2023 with a photo of an electric scooter (instead of a car, or even an electric car 😉).
Love this story about Baala Manikandan, who rode his electric motorcycle 6,727 kilometers across India traversing uneven terrain in all types of weather (with temperatures ranging from 45º to -15º Celsius) – in just 22 days!
The best part? Manikandan says he spent less than $5 USD to charge the bike during the entire trip.
@ChrisMcCahill We can Change The World just by expanding protected-and-connected bike paths to accommodate more #MicroMobility and #MiniMobility. I'll check it out, thanks!
"[S]pace and time coordinates gave rise to the concept of [life paths]...geometric representations of...movement...conditioned by predictable regularities and organizing principles. [This gives rise] to a vital dance shaped and bounded by physiological needs, personal decisions, cultural context, and environmental conditions."
#Micromobility is increasingly a component of mobility tools, including shared systems. In their paper, Daniela Arias-Molinares, Juan Carlos García'Palomares, Gustavo Romanillos, and Javier Gutiérrez use space–time cubes and GIS tools to uncover micromobility patterns.
Leveraging massive amounts of data from #Madrid{s shared bikes, moped, and scooter systems, to identify location clusters with similar behavior in space and time in terms of micromobility departures.
Had a great time with friends participating in our community's first ever Slow Food Cycle event! We visited local farms and bought veggies and fruit, freshly baked bread, gourmet mushrooms, and fancy cheese, had a picnic at a one of our neighbourhood cideries, and finished the day by meeting more friends at the local beer farm. Organizers expected 70 participants and almost 400 signed up. 💪 🚲⚡ ✌️
Sometimes #nyc gets things right…
Like starting investment in e-bike infrastructure:
Out-of-apartment & Safe battery charging stations out side of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA: public housing) buildings.
Small but important start to mitigate risks of 💩 battery (rebuild) shops in the market in the US right now:
NYC needs safer charging infrastructure before bad-battery fires undermine emobility in NYC.
Have to agree, micromobility only makes sense due to the car-centric mindset many (including me) have. It makes it seem like more of an accessory to a car or even more of a toy. Looking at it now, I could see how the term may actually discourage people from trying it it out or even viewing it as a viable option.
Sometimes people see the solar panel on my trike and say something about wanting a #solar car. Let me just run the numbers here, just off the top of my head:
My #ebike - a big cargo tricycle - weighs a few hundred pounds (including me and whatever I'm carrying) and travels 10-15mph. I can go around 50 miles/day if it's sunny, and maintain a steady charge entirely from solar power.
A car probably weighs about 10x that and travels an average of 4x as fast.
Also, I usually provide around 50% of my trike's power by pedaling, which you don't get in a car.
So you'll need 10x4x2x the amount of solar panels I have on the trike to keep your car going at normal car speeds for 50 miles per day, which means 80x the solar panel area I have on the trike. If you only need to go 25 miles most days, you could get away with 40x the solar panels.
My trike's solar panel is about 3x4 feet (12sqft). Our hypothetical solar car is going to need between 480 and 960sqft of solar panels. At about 6 feet wide for an average car, that means your car needs to be 80 to 160 feet long. The average car is around 15 feet long. Our hypothetical solar car could be half the length of some city blocks.
Carrying enough solar panels to keep a car charged is somewhere between "difficult engineering challenge" and "downright absurd".
This isn't just about the implausibility of solar cars; it's about the absurdity of car design in general. Cars use an enormous amount of power for what they do. Electric cars may be an improvement over gas cars, but they are still incredibly inefficient.
(I say "part of" because here's a whole other essay to write about the safety of a vehicle that's so heavy and so fast, but I'll save it for another day.)
I keep thinking back to this Microlino at Fully Charged Live. Reusable water bottles became acceptable, being vegan is now cool, and so is wearing vintage clothes. So who is going to step up to the critical task of making small cars fashionable? The trend towards giant SUVs is ludicrous, incredibly wasteful and dangerous, and bad for our cities. If you must use a car, it should be as small as possible. Where are the micro-car visionaries/influencers? WE NEED YOU. #cars#SUV#climate
Apparently the first time ever that Finnish car and consumer technology magazine TM (Tekniikan Maailma, lit. “The World of Technology”), largest of its kind in Scandinavia, reviews a cargo bike. They tried new Riese&Müller Load4.
Important to note that they literally picked one of the more expensive models on the market. There are many capable but more affordable alternatives.
A @pinoy#cycle rickshaw with an interesting handle bar. This is the most popular #CargoBike design in the #Philippines. Used for cargo (in this case, delivering bottled water) or taking passengers for #MicroMobility.
This isn't the first time i've seen this mod, so I suppose it's more comfortable than traditional #bicycle handle bars on a tricycles?
I can see how its height looks comfortable for the biker.
This slick-looking solar-powered electric scooter never needs to be recharged (electrek.co)
A new generation of e-scooters with solar panels means never needing to plug in. Is the trade off in weight and size worth the added flexibility?
Opinion: Why We Should Stop Using the Word 'Micromobility' — Streetsblog USA (usa.streetsblog.org)
Have to agree, micromobility only makes sense due to the car-centric mindset many (including me) have. It makes it seem like more of an accessory to a car or even more of a toy. Looking at it now, I could see how the term may actually discourage people from trying it it out or even viewing it as a viable option.
Here are the coolest e-bikes and more we saw at Micromobility Europe 2023 (electrek.co)
Micromobility Europe 2023 returned to Amsterdam with all of the most interesting e-bikes, e-scooters, and other personal transportation.
The Role of Electric Bikes and Scooters in the Micro-mobility Revolution (citylife.capetown)
The Role of Electric Bikes and Scooters in the Micro-mobility Revolution - CityLife