Environmentally speaking, isn't this a step backwards from a regular bicycle?

Surprisingly, e-bikes have a smaller environmental footprint than pedal-only bicycles. Not convinced? Look at it this way, a human-powered vehicle is using the human metabolism to convert food energy into work, with a conversion efficiency of about 25%. Now look where that food energy comes from. In North America and Europe, the food is grown with the aid of chemical fertilizers and machinery; it is then transported, processed, packaged, transported again, sold, transported again, and finally cooked before consumption. In the end about 10 times more energy went in to producing the food than is actually stored in the food itself. The net effect is that for every unit of human energy expended on a bike, about 40 times that much was consumed!

By comparison, with an e-bike you are taking primary energy from the grid, storing it in a battery at between 60-80% efficiency, and then converting it to work through an electric motor with roughly 75% efficiency. That's a lot more direct than the human route. Once you take into account the energy to manufacture and recycle the batteries, e-bikes end up consuming from 2 to 10 times less fossil fuel energy than their human-powered equivalents!

What about emissions from non-electric 2-wheel vehicles?

Gas powered motorcycles, even small ones, are more polluting than Hummers. These rather surprising facts, summarized in a June 2008 in the Los Angeles Times, entitled “Throttle Jockey”, reports the average gas-powered motorbike is about 10 times more polluting per mile than a passenger car, light truck or SUV.

From a study by the California Air Resources Board comparison of emissions-compliant vehicles, an alarming level of emissions spew from on-road gasoline motorcycles and scooters. In California, such bikes make up 3.6% of registered vehicles and 1% of vehicle miles traveled, yet they account for 10% of passenger vehicles' smog-forming emissions in the state.

As with other passenger vehicles, there are technologies to offset motorcycle emissions, such as catalytic converters, but those technologies tend to be too big, too heavy, or too hot to fit on a motorcycle and work as effectively as similar systems on larger vehicles that have more space to accommodate them.

That's why the EPA and the Air Resources Board are more lenient on bikes than they are on other passenger vehicles. Not only are motorcycles allowed to emit more than cars, they are also tested at lower speeds, which pollutes less.

If you want to truly make a difference, consider the VoltRider™ electric bike as an alternate transportation for the times when a larger vehicle is not required.

Electric vs. Internal combustion

Advantages of electric…
All electric vehicles produce zero emissions at their point of use. An electric motor is, on average, 400% to 600% more efficient than an internal combustion engine. Electric vehicles are also very efficient. They have to be. A pound of battery has 1/100 of the energy of a pound of gasoline. On average, a 30 mpg internal combustion vehicle uses only 5% to 10% of the energy of its fuel, whereas an electric vehicle converts 70% to 80% of the battery's pack into propulsion, for the same mile.

Noise pollution is also an advantage of an electric vehicle. Because motor vehicles have combustion motors, they tend to be loud and obnoxious. On the other hand, electric vehicles do not have this combustion motor; thus they are extremely quiet.

The world is more than ready for electric vehicles. In fact, electric motors are used everywhere. Electric propulsion is not a new technology. The modern locomotive is diesel-electric; its diesel engine-generator supplies the electricity to power the electric motor drive train. Electric motors also power elevators, industrial assembly lines, ventilation and air-conditioning units, refrigerators, blow dryers, washers and dryers, computers and printers, CD players and tape decks, and pumps. Ironically, an electric motor is also needed to start an automobile's engine. Wherever silent, efficient, reliable service is needed, you will find an electric motor at work.

Disadvantages of gas-powered…
Unlike electric vehicles, motor vehicles generate more air pollution than any other human-made machine. This air pollution, or toxic mixture of chemicals released be motor vehicles, is recognized as a major health hazard. According to the American Lung Association, this air pollution kills between 60,000 people and 120,000 people in the United States each year and costs $93 billion dollars in medical bills.

Another major problem of motor vehicles is its unsafe nature after its life dies out. Automobile junkyards, which litter the American landscape, contain thousands upon thousands of old broken up vehicles. From such junkyards are the problem of oil, lead, and battery acids, which enter the ground and the chlorofluorocarbons which leak into the atmosphere. However the lead in the batteries of electric vehicles is in a very stable form, unlike the trace amounts of lead in even unleaded gasoline and since electric vehicles do not contain oil or chlorofluorocarbons, they do not risk contaminating the area.