I don’t expect these to really catch on in New England.
Nor in the south.
Americans will not use vehicles that do not heat them in the winter and cool them in the summer.
“I don’t expect these to really catch on in New England.”
They don’t have to catch on with the masses, only the government dictators need to be sold.
I live in New England, and I had a friend who purchased an electric bike.
He wasn’t using it at all, and lent it to me for a week. I had so much fun riding it, I got one for myself, and one for my wife. I purchased the Lectric Bikes (2.0) and an extra battery for each of them.
They are built like tanks. Really strong and tough, though it makes them quite heavy, nearly sixty pounds each. The newer ones are less heavy. They have nice shock absorbers in the front, fat knobby tires that make the ride better, and a wide seat with a shock absorber in the seat post.
I got into an accident last year when I was riding on the bike trail that goes around the Charles River in Boston, and a guy stepped in front of me causing me to swerve and hit big tree root. I was doing about 15 MPH (and had given him warning probably 20 yards before I came on him that I was approaching, but for some reason as I came up he stepped in front of me. I went off the trail, hit that tree root, and flew about 15 feet through the air, landing in a heap. Not hurt, just rash from the dirt on the side of the trail. And the bike had no damage I could see, which surprised me as it fully somersaulted through the air and crashed into the ground. I had stood up on the pedals as I left the trail, so I suspect that helped in some way. But I picked it up, dusted it off, no more than a scrape. That thing, as heavy as it is, is really tough. At my age, that could have turned out far worse. But I am even more cautious now.
But here is the thing: This electric bike is for fun and enjoyment.
Not work.
Not transportation.
Wholly for fun.
Honestly, I stay off the roads. People are too distracted by their cell phones for me to feel safe in any way, and when I do get on a road, I drive extremely defensively, even pulling over and stopping to let cars pass. If I come to an intersection where a car is pulling out, it isn’t uncommon for me to simply pull over far, far ahead of the vehicle so as to not even enter into their decision to pull out or not.
We live near a bike trail. Ride through our neighborhood to get to it. Neither one of us is fit enough to ride a standard bike, though we can.
We fold them up and put them in our car and drive to different bike trails.
We putter along, probably doing 10 MPH, we have bluetooth helmets so we can converse as we ride one in front of the other (not side by side, blocking the trail)
It is nice, a lot of fun. It is something we can do together. We get to ride, feel the wind in our face, enjoy the scenery, and yak to each other conversationally.
I 3-D printed a lockable battery box about two feet long that I bolt to my bike, and carry an extra battery for each of us.
If I go by myself, I can do 60 miles with the extra batteries. When I charge the batteries, I do so in my shed, away from the house.
If we ever got into a gas crunch, I would explore using it for getting around town and not commuting (since I expect to retire soon) It has baskets I can attach to the front and back of the bike if I wished to carry groceries.
But that isn’t why I have it. I have it solely for entertainment.
I purchased it a year ago last November, and since then, I have put nearly 1,200 miles on it. I took my wife on a fifty mile ride on Cape Code, but she won’t do that again. She was uncomfortable being on the seat that long.
And I did ride it in cold weather, into November, and even once in March. But I am in no way hard-core about this. I see people on bikes in January, and still think they have a screw loose.
I admire people my age tooling around on standard bikes, but...it isn’t my thing. My days of humping a bike up a hill are over. Sure, it would be good for me, but so would eating margarine instead of butter and balancing my diet better.
OR Wyoming
Except in beach towns where finding a parking spot can be very difficult in the summer months.
My son used to live walking distance to the nicest beach in NH(Jenness). Many of the locals that lived more than walking distance from the beach had scooters to go back and forth to the beach or popular ocean front restaurants. I could see these battery operated bikes becoming popular for that.
I would consider one IF I was not worried about the battery burning my house down.
I do not even like charging the big battery for my Stihl hedge trimmer and chainsaw.