The problem with talking about “bike advocacy,” especially “cycling” paths, is that they’re not very inclusive.
They don’t get to the heart of the E-Transport Revolution, which is using electric motors to enable unlimited choice. I’m waiting for some grandpa in an exoskeleton to run over a kid on the Atlanta Beltline who is out walking on his phone. I won’t have long to wait.
But the topic here is complexity, not diversity. Marco Fioretti has a great article out on e-scooters. Rented scooters are proving impractical because people don’t respect them. They toss them aside like trash. It’s true owners can find them using GPS and have them picked up. But that doesn’t solve the consumer’s assumption the scooter has no value.
Montreal offers a solution, regarding e-bikes, that can be applied to scooters. Offer stands with plugs in key locations that make finding one, dropping it off, and re-charging easy. Charge a refundable deposit, paid when it’s returned to the stand. The deposit is what matters. Maybe someone has a reason for leaving a scooter by the side of the road. But the deposit can pay to pick it up and return it to service.
Then Marco gets into scooter design. A scooter can be just a board with a stick for a stand. It can be made light enough to take onto a train, and flexible enough to be road-worthy. I’m now seeing neighbors use scooters around MARTA stations. But I took one for repair a few weeks ago and was shocked by how heavy the thing was.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Reduce Complexity
Marco also has something to say about Electric Cars, similar to what I said here. They’re needlessly complicated. He notes they often use electronics for things that can more easily be handled manually, like door handles.
I have a story about that. Our 2022 hybrid is in the shop today, for the sixth time this year. This time it’s the thermometer. On our car, the thermometer is connected to the car’s heating and cooling system. If its reading is cold on a hot day, you can’t use the air conditioner, and vice versa. Since my wife is driving later this month to a hot place I figured I’d get that dealt with.
We’re facing a $650 bill, because our dealer says our car’s battery is going bad as well. This follows a $1,200 bill to replace the car radio, which was a lemon, and various other visits for various other purposes. We’ve put over $10,000 into repairs on the car in just two years, and this is supposed to be a simple, cheap, reliable Corolla.
In fact, when I go to the dealer later today to pick up my 2022, I’ll be driven in my daughter’s 2003 Corolla. It still works great, with 140,000 miles on it. All we had to do with it was change the oil and the tires as they wore out. I doubt there are even $5,000 in repairs on it.
Guess which car gets admiring glances as it rolls down the street?
The Point
The point Marco and I are trying to make is that electronics offer wonderful opportunities for up-selling, but also for building nonsense that can dramatically raise the cost of ownership. There are entire categories of this, as Marco notes. There are gesture controls, voice controls, duplicated services, and on-screen menus that are more distracting than the physical controls they replace.
Some of these “new” services are being installed not just for proprietary advantage, but to the advantage of marketing partners. If I must use your services or, worse, your partner’s services, to drive your new car, what’s the point?
I’d rather have a scooter. A folding one.
