It's marginal gains all the way here but genuinely if you're an omnivore the E-Bike might work out more enviromentally conscious
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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traingang
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I have an ebike and anecdotally I've had to change out the tires more often than my normal pedal bike, at least twice as often. Meaning the ebike pollutes more in regards to making more waste tires. Used tires are a huge carbon footprint that often gets overlooked.
The ebike gets more tire replacements because I ride it both longer and faster than the pedal bike, so more wear on the treads. Both my bikes are carbon belt driven too, but if I had normal chain bikes I'd guess the ebike would need its chain lubricated or replaced more often.
Don't get me wrong I love my bikes and they're the only nice things I own besides my cats. But there's a lot to consider here.
I'll point toward my infographic here to show that the squabble between increased tyre consumption between E-Bikes and Acoustic bikes is akin to considering whether oat or wheat gruel is more ecologically sustainable while the majority of your peers sustain a diet of wagyu
It sounds like you're just putting the kilometers on the tires at different rates. Likely, if they're identical tires, you're getting close to the same distances out of them. The difference between them would be that the ebike is slightly heavier and it has more power to the wheel. So there is more scrubbing. But I don't expect it would be much more, because you're also probably running higher air pressure in the ebike tires.
There can also be an element where the power assist prevents the rider from noticing as early when the pressure is getting low which causes them to wear out faster. Being conscious about checking ebike tires routinely can probably extend their life considerably.