Who was the Urban Arrow parked at Cameron Toll shopping centre today at about 4pm?
Strange how politicians and media are so focussed on electric cars and hardly notice that there is already a revolution under way with e-bikes, without much fuss, subsidies or other state support, and a few millions on the road in Europe already.
In Germany they are everywhere (often you don't notice until somebody who doesn't look like it is surprisingly fast uphills...). I visited Füssen (where the Alps start at the Austrian border, Neuschwanstein Castle etc) two years ago and although most streets were about as steep as the Mound, people were whizzing up and down on bikes. At the railway station you could hire electric bikes, they seemed to do good business with tourists (it's a popular day trip destination for pensioners from Munich, the train takes about two hours and runs hourly).
I can't really see electric cars taking off soon. For most buyers they are, in practice, just cars with many additional disadvantages but no real advantages, they don't make economic sense except in special cases (Norway is a very special case - small population, loads of money from selling oil, and huge amounts of water power that needs to be used).
E-bikes, on the other hand, fill a market niche between bicycles and cars that was empty (*). People for whom a bike is unsuitable (not fit enough, not enough carrying capacity, distances too long, or too many hills) but for whom a car is too big & bulky (cost, parking, traffic jams etc). I'm sure we'll see many in Edinburgh soon.
(*) Well, perhaps motor scooters, but they stink and need a license.
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