Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 20 2020, @12:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the pretty-blue-right-now dept.

How green are dockless e-scooters?:

Dockless e-scooter companies have for roughly two years touted their devices as not only convenient but also a win for the environment.

But a growing body of research suggests that the scooter craze may not be as green as advertised.

To change that, experts say, companies such as Lime, Bird and Wheels must manufacture more robust e-scooters while riders need to increasingly use those devices in lieu of driving. According to studies, many people are cruising around on e-scooters as an alternative to cleaner forms of transportation, such as biking, walking and taking the bus.

Still, experts say the fast-evolving industry has the potential to revolutionize urban travel and significantly reduce planet-warming emissions.

"It could be huge for sustainable travel," said Juan Matute, deputy director of UCLA's Institute of Transportation Studies.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @01:14AM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @01:14AM (#945587)

    They have scooter emissions exactly half that as a car. Sure maybe if you can fit 8 people in your car, fact is most cars are driving single occupancy

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @02:27AM (15 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @02:27AM (#945610) Journal

    There's a graph? All I see is a photo. 4 black guys on little wheels, and 2 lazy-ass crackers sitting on big wheels. Racism, LA style.

    I suppose that if I played with noscript, I might get an article, and a graph - but why bother? If LATimes can't write a decent web page, it's probably not worth reading.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by deimtee on Monday January 20 2020, @03:08AM (14 children)

      by deimtee (3272) on Monday January 20 2020, @03:08AM (#945633) Journal

      The graph is an image about halfway down, Grams of CO2 per mile
      Car 414
      Scooter 202
      Bus 82
      electric bike 40
      pushbike 8

      From TFA

      The life-cycle analysis for scooters took into account emissions created by everything from manufacturing to shipping to disposal to the gas burned while workers drive around searching for scooters to charge and repair. According to the findings, more than 90% of emissions were from building the devices and shuttling them around by car.

      It's a hit piece. Somebody doesn't like dockless e-scooters. If you were going to include all that then you need to include cars driving around looking for parking spaces, the CO2 cost of the lycra for the MAMIL and shipping the coffee beans for his latte, etc.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday January 20 2020, @05:10AM (7 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday January 20 2020, @05:10AM (#945669)

        I have to question this too. As you said, they probably don't count all the emissions made by cars while they drive around in circles looking for a parking space. And are they correctly assuming that the car has 1 person inside too, as is usually the case? Furthermore, are they assuming a car, or a big-ass gas-guzzling SUV? Ford isn't even selling cars any more, only trucks and SUVs, because that's all most Americans buy now.

        As for buses, are they using faulty assumptions here too? Are they assuming shitty old diesel-smoke-belching buses that are 1/4 to 1/2 full, and idling in traffic most of the time (and then spewing diesel smoke into the airspace of nearby pedestrians and cyclists, giving them cancer)? Or are they assuming electric buses that are completely full all the time, which would be great but is certainly not reality in most American cities?

        As for the CO2 cost of Lycra for male cyclists, don't be ridiculous. It's absolutely nothing compared to the CO2 cost of all the fast-fashion that women buy, wear once or twice, and then throw away. A typical male cyclist probably only has a handful of cycling outfits at most, and uses them for many years; it's just like most other men and their clothing: they buy only a few pieces and wear them until they have holes in them.

        Anyway, I agree, this sounds like a hit piece. Has anyone looked at how the rise of scooters has impacted the taxi industry in those cities? And even there, are they counting all the emissions from taxi drivers leaving their cars idling all day? And are they discounting the taxi driver himself as a passenger, when calculating emissions per-person? (After all, a passenger doesn't care about the driver getting transported from A to B, only the passenger(s); the driver only exists because we don't have self-driving taxis or JohnnyCabs yet.)

        • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday January 20 2020, @06:22AM (2 children)

          by deimtee (3272) on Monday January 20 2020, @06:22AM (#945691) Journal

          As for the CO2 cost of Lycra for male cyclists, don't be ridiculous.

          It was a joke. I was trying to come up with ridiculous things to add on to the carbon cost of the other things on the list. I thought shipping the coffee beans for lattes was worse.

          --
          If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:10PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:10PM (#945860)

            You really crushed it. Have you considered a career in explaining failed jokes?

          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:06AM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:06AM (#946621)

            I realize it was a joke; I was using that as an opportunity to trash women's wasteful spending habits on clothes.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @06:45PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @06:45PM (#945912)

          > Ford isn't even selling cars any more, only trucks and SUVs, because that's all most Americans buy now.

          A self fulfilling prophecy.

          There are Americans who want the smaller vehicles sold elsewhere in the world, but the manufacturers will not sell them in the US, and sometimes will not sell them within all of N. America.

          I wanted a low-cost, high fuel economy small car. The best (available in the US) by those measures, at the time, was a Toyota Yaris hatch. But, the only Yaris I could buy had the engine that in the UK was sold as the performance option. The UK had a smaller gasoline engine and a diesel option. Each got much better mileage than my Yaris with the performance engine. I bought what I could.

          Small pickup trucks is another place where the US sucks. Nissan still makes a small pickup (the size of the early '90s hard body), but you can't buy it in the US. Only a mid-sized thing that uses the same production line as their full-sized truck is available in the US.

          Maybe just removing the billions in subsidies* to the fossil fuel industry would be enough to raise the pump price sufficiently to get sane vehicles into the US. In addition to ending subsidies, an additional tax that would bring cost at the pump up to the true cost of burning the fuel would be best (no more parasitic privatizing of profits while externalizing costs). With fuel costs reflecting true costs, the gas guzzlers would disappear off the roads in no time, and sane vehicles would fill the showrooms.

          *Per IMF, direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015:
          https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA2019089.ashx [imf.org]

          • (Score: 2) by sfm on Monday January 20 2020, @09:08PM (1 child)

            by sfm (675) on Monday January 20 2020, @09:08PM (#945973)

            "I wanted a low-cost, high fuel economy small car"
            You forgot to add RELIABLE

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:07AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:07AM (#946122)

              > "I wanted a low-cost, high fuel economy small car"
              > You forgot to add RELIABLE

              Nah, I considered a Fiat.

          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:14AM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:14AM (#946624)

            >Small pickup trucks is another place where the US sucks.

            You can blame that one on the Chicken Tax [wikipedia.org].

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by qzm on Monday January 20 2020, @11:20AM (4 children)

        by qzm (3260) on Monday January 20 2020, @11:20AM (#945742)

        No, its not.

        The reason the e-scooters look so terrible is lifespan, which is disastrously low.
        Believe it or not, they dont just pop in to existance, or grow on trees, their manufacture (like cars) creates a pile of emissions.
        Unlike a car, which has an average lifespan in decades, these things apparently have lifespans in weeks or months, depending on model.
        Therefore it takes hundreds of e-scooters to replace one car, but its worse that that.
        Cars generally do a LOT of miles, escooters do not, so the multiplication factor becomes even higher, because emissions per mile is what matters.

        So, you end up with thousands of escooters per car - that that destroys the greenness (is that a word?). The tailpipe emissions dont even get a look in.

        Now, the OTHER problem which they bring up is usage - escooters are being used to replace walking mostly.. or subway/bus trips occasionally.
        So, they dont even remove cars from the road, they replace walking.. hence their contribution fo carbon emissions is positive, not negative (ie: they create more).

        And lets not even get in to the massive injury impact they are having.. Hell, they make motorcycling look safe.

        Now, I am sure you enjoy zipping around on them, ignoring all road laws, free to operate them drunk, etc, etc - however that doesnt actually make them GOOD, it just makes them fun.

        • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 20 2020, @06:47PM (3 children)

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday January 20 2020, @06:47PM (#945915) Journal

          And all of that is true of the eBike, too. So, why is the eBike 40 but the eScooter 202. If anything, the scooter requires fewer resources because it's smaller.

          • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 21 2020, @01:53AM (2 children)

            by deimtee (3272) on Tuesday January 21 2020, @01:53AM (#946116) Journal

            A month is a ridiculously short lifespan for a scooter. If he's correct in that, then that would explain the difference. A privately owned e-bike would be expected to last years.

            The question would be what kills them in a month? Batteries, motor, wheels, or frame? Whichever it is needs beefing up a bit.

            --
            If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
            • (Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:49PM

              by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:49PM (#946347)
              Being left outside in the rain continuously.
            • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:09AM

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday January 22 2020, @02:09AM (#946622)

              The question would be what kills them in a month?

              Perhaps the fact that they aren't privately owned? But then again, bike-share bikes have been around even longer, and those don't seem to have such short lifespans.

      • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 20 2020, @12:44PM

        by TheRaven (270) on Monday January 20 2020, @12:44PM (#945768) Journal
        I didn't RTFA, but I read a similar piece a few months ago. The scooters are intended to last two years, but people don't take good care of them and the average lifetime is a little over a month. A car has a large energy cost of creation, but that's typically amortised over a period of years and a few hundred thousand miles. A scooter has a much lower cost, but it may be amortised over only a hundred miles.
        --
        sudo mod me up