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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A cargo ebike (Aventon Abound LR) is the best thing I've ever purchased, with 3000km of distance ridden in under a year.
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Travel is now fun instead of stressful. My commute is mostly along a bike trail where I get to watch wildlife. It isn't lined with animal corpses like the roads, people are generally nice to each other, and I see a lot more of my city with more time to think about it.
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Every time I leave the house I'm exercising. I'm burning 70% of the calories of a normal bike, but riding more often and further. I don't get sweaty or feel exhausted. When I show up to work in the morning I'm awake from the little physical puzzle on my commute, can work 10 hours in the sun, and bike home just as refreshed.
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No car expenses. My car was under $20k new. Yearly registration is $300, yearly insurance premiums $1200, any minor repair starts at a $500 deductible. I could buy a new good-quality ebike every year for the same cost, and each of those bikes has a lifespan of around 16,000km with the maintenance that I can cheaply/easily do at home. It costs me less to recharge my battery for a year than it does to refuel my car once and I could buy a new battery for the cost of refueling my car 17 times.
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32kmh is fine. In town my transit times are about the same as driving, but then I save time on parking. It's slow enough that I have good reaction times and can watch my surroundings, but fast enough that I can be anywhere I need to in under half an hour.
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No cops. If you get an unclocked e-moto like those Surrons the cops will harass you, but they don't target cargo bikes. I hate how driving my car means so many opportunities to mess up with some minor traffic law, which locally is now enforced by camera too.
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No risk of killing. If I hit someone at top speed I could kill them, but I have way more situational awareness and a much better braking distance/turn radius than in my car. I don't have to worry about potentially killing an animal, or even scaring them with my quiet motor. If I have to swerve and ditch, wearing a full-face motorcycle helmet and skid gloves, it's at a speed that I can walk away from.
If you live in a city with decent biking infrastructure, ebikes feel like the future in a way that I haven't seen since the debut of smartphones. It cut out the most stressful part of my day and replaced it with little adventures that make me feel like a kid exploring the neighbourhood again.
I wonder how an e-bike compares to an electric motorcycle or scooter. They're probably worse because they're so much heavier, require additional (often leather) safety gear, etc, but the added speed has to count for something.
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Anyone have suggestions for a good/affordable ebike?
Not cheap, but the Ariel Rider X seems to be the best you can get for speed/comfort/range. Costs between $2-3k
If you're in the US:
https://lectricebikes.com/collections/xp4-ebikes - This is the cheapest ebike I would buy from the cheapest brand I'd consider reputable. You aren't getting high-quality components but it won't explode and the customer service is good. The XP4 with a 750w motor is a folding ebike (I don't recommend folding models in general because there's a single failure point in the frame. Only get this if you need to transport it up stairs) that will do everything you need a bike to do. I have an Xpress 750 commuter bike and it does the job. They also have a dual-battery cargo bike model with a 250km range, but you'd want to swap out some of the components on it.
https://www.aventon.com/products/abound-lr-ebike?variant=44189242818755 - This is my cargo bike and it's brilliant. I can fit 60kg on the back, the low height makes it super stable/easy to ride, and it has an electronic wheel/kickstand lock. I would also recommend this brand for commuter and mountain bikes due to that electronic lock and higher-quality components than Lectric. The Level, Adventure, and Sinch models are all highly rated.
https://upway.co/ - They sell "used" models, mostly unsold inventory from bike stores. You can save maybe 30-50% of sticker price with a one year warranty through them. Higher quality brands like Tern and Specialized can be bought for Aventon/Lectric prices. They also have a European storefront.
Absolutely avoid anything on Amazon with a gibberish name. 90% of bike components come from China and most companies just relabel generic Aliexpress bikes with generic low-quality components. A good battery might set you back $500, but you have to invest in that or you risk water infiltration and lithium fires. You really want a model with good brakes, tyres, and electronics. Only sticking to the brands they sell on Upway is a good barometer for quality.
I'd also probably start with a cargo bike for maximum utility/safety. Wide 20" tyres with a step-through frame means the ride is super stable even during bad weather. With the taller bikes adding weight to the tail throws off your centre of gravity and makes turning more sketchy. With my cargo bike I can transport four bags of groceries, another adult, two kids, or any random object that I can find a way to tie down. It goes the same speed as my commuter bike so there's never a moment where I feel like I should use that instead. A cargo bike feels like owning a kei truck.
edit: Also, look at the payment plan options and calculate your cost around those. $2000 for my cargo bike seems like a lot up front, but I pay like $180 per month at 0% APR. Being able to get a higher quality bike with a payment plan means saving money and time on repairing a cheaper one. If I had to do it over again, I'd have splurged on a $2500 Specialized Globe Haul or $3000 Tern GSD just to have extreme reliability at the cost of like $50/mo more.
Not in america but close enough, thanks for the write up & recommendations! I'll have to check out that cargo bike, it would be nice to have some options for transporting stuff
Whereabouts on the globe?
I'm in 
, I'll admit I haven't looked around to see what's available
Yeah but the bus is already headed that way whether I get on it or not. I feel like the key metric should be whether another vehicle needs to make a trip
(Spoken as a 
)
I get the gist but "another vehicle per trip" is kind of asinine if you compare bus or train to bicycle
I'm just thinking of it like, the emissions from a private car are 100% of the fuel and exhaust, the emissions from me personally taking the bus are limited to however much harder the bus has to work to carry my ass around, which is negligible.
Anyway nice day for a ride today 
interesting discussion here, but i won't get a ebike due to cost, and for the fact that ebikers are consistently some of the rudest and most obnoxious bikers are the road, almost every day i have to deal with some jackass wanting to pass me in the bikelane without any bell or indication, only to stop at the next redlight. second place goes to the rich yuppies with 'creaking' bikes in spandex that think they also own the road. of course, these are always men.
This is bs, there's no way an e-bike is more environmentally friendly than a normal pedal bike.
E-bike has electronics and batteries that need to be manufactured every 5 or so years.
Besides, you still need to pedal anyway, the tiny 250W motor only assists you a little, at least uphill you need to pedal even if you have a throttle (which unfortunately is illegal in Europe thanks to dumb politicians)
I'm also very skeptical about electric cars, sure, they don't produce exhaust gases, but an electric car only lasts about 5 years or 10 of you're lucky, after than the car goes to the trash because a new battery costs as much as a car, meanwhile a petrol car lasts 30 years. Besides, a big part of the electricity comes from fossil sources anyway with the extra energy loss of converting to electrical and back.