Image description:
Text: Amazon’s electric cargo bikes have arrived in DC.
Image: A four-wheeled vehicle that appears to be a cross between a bicycle, a go-cart, and a mini-truck
Response text from high t alpha shemale @gluetaster: that’s not a cargo bike man that’s a loopholemobile
the fucking bike helmet
Electric truck.
Ahh, a western Took Took!
How to test if it’s actually a bicycle:
I propose a simple ontological test by law enforcement. Simply steal one. If the police treat it like they do bicycle theft, it’s a bicycle. If the police treat it like it’s an auto theft, then it’s an automobile.
If the police take the theft of one of these seriously, like they would a car theft, then point to that as justification for why they should be regulated like autos and banned from bike lanes. If the police treat it like bike theft…well…there’s a lot of valuable materials in those loopholemobiles…and the police clearly aren’t taking theft of them seriously…so…well the problem will solve itself.
Looks like a useful vehicle. Whatever else people decide to call it is their problem, not the driver’s.
The shit us Americans will do to not just fucking use Kei trucks like the rest of the world.
I work at Portland State University, which is embedded in downtown Portland. They have small maintenance trucks that go on street that have many traits in common with Kei trucks. They are too small, slow, and unsafe for a freeway, but are perfect for carrying cargo around campus. I am unclear why there is a carve out for those trucks, but not for Kei trucks.
A lot of it has to do with well-intentioned but stupid regulation.
The auto companies in the 2000s started calling everything a truck in order to get around fuel economy standards, so in 2008 the EPA announced that beginning in model year 2012, standards would be based on vehicle footprint instead of vehicle classification.
Notice how all the small trucks stopped being made after 2011? It’s because small cargo vehicles suddenly had to somehow have better fuel economy than a sedan.
It’s also why trucks have gotten stupidly big over the last 15 years. As standards increase, they can just make the footprint bigger.
Kei trucks can’t legally travel in bike lanes.
Pretty sure all that bullshit is so they can use bike lanes, hence the helmet
Meanwhile in Germany:
I visited Hamburg (number of years ago), and I couldn’t believe how much worse the bike lanes were compared to my pretty car-centric city’s bike lanes (Melbourne, Australia).
A bike tour through Italy opened my eyes to this.
There was no usable bike infrastructure at all, most of the time.
One of the campsites we went to was only accessible via a 4-lane road with dividers.
But drivers crossed all the way into the other lane to pass us. At one point, a driver stayed behind us and put his hazard lights on when passing wasn’t possible, then gave us a thumbs-up when he could pass safely.I’d rather share the road with drivers like that than have German bike lanes and German drivers.
Of course I’d much rather have Dutch bike lanes and Dutch drivers.
See what? I can only see red looking at this. Bastards!
That’s a keitruck without regulations.
What? you don’t like corporate-exclusive keitrucks?
Amazon: Kei for me not for thee
Nope, I don’t like corporate-exclusive keitrucks that skirt laws and regs. Keitrucks are the designed result of regulations.
Keitrucks are the designed result of regulations.
So exactly as this “cargo-e-bike”… especially designed to work within the existing regulation for cargo-e-bikes.
That is a stupid assumption to make and even more stupid that you’re trying to defend Amazon. It has 4 wheels, so it literally isn’t even a bike. This is obviously an attempt to cut some corner, probably trying to save on gasoline and shove more responsibility to the workers who aren’t being paid anywhere near what their labor is worth.
Having to actually defend Amazon is the bad part.
Having regulation that makes small(-ish) electric vehicles with certain speed limits count legally as e-bikes is exactly how you get efficient small electric vehicles to be used for the last mile of deliveries instead of stupid trucks.
That’s how Kei cars and trucks were established: special regulation for vehicles with limited sizes and power not counting as normal cars so being exempt from certain requirements, paying reduced taxes and insurance etc.
I don’t think there’s necessarily anything corporate-exclusive about these; you could probably commission your own if you wanted.
I don’t really see how this doesn’t count as a motor vehicle, though. Be interesting to see what the ‘assist’ speed and power limits are.
I looked up what constitutes an ebike in my state and it has to to be 750w or less motor and limit to 28mph with pedal assist. Has to have a front light and rear reflector like a regular bike. If you can go 30 or more on an ebike, its considered a motorcycle and you can be pulled over and need registration, insurance, license. This thing is gonna end up with many states adding vehicle weight limits.
28 mph is 45 kph and about twice the speed at which assist is required to cut out in Europe.
This thing needs weight limits and its speed halved. There should also be a momentum limit on speed times weight so a heavier vehicle has to go slower.
A power limit acts as kind-of an implicit momentum limit, although it can be more limiting going uphill.
We have quite a few companies in Germany using similar vehicles in cities (I can’t compare the sizes here). All in all it’s a positive development. Maybe in this case it’s a way to utilize a legislative loophole, but even then I would say: The loopholed law has a positive impact if the new vehicles are smaller and more energy efficient than the ones they replace.
I think the larger issue is that most places in the US just don’t have bike lanes at all, and the coverage even in major cities is pretty spotty. So routinely bikes end up on sidewalks to keep from getting run down by F-150s. Legally bikes are allowed on all non-highway roads here and have the same rights as cars, but as my grandma used to say “they’ll put that you had the right of way on your tombstone”.
So these things will end up driving on sidewalks. And then people will want local governments to ban bikes from sidewalks and enforce those bans harshly, so bikes will have to enter mixed traffic on busy streets with no bike lanes, and less people will bike because don’t want to risk getting plastered by a pickup, and then the existing bike lanes will get ripped out because not enough people are biking to justify them.
Like, medium sized vehicles like this are great, but, the bike infrastructure just isn’t ready for them here. Better off using a Kei truck for the same type of work.
I deffo feel the same way here. Ultimately it’s probably a net positive, but people who bike there are gonna be piiiiissssed.
Capitalism, uh, finds a way.
Capitalism finds a loophole.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. These have to be far quieter and don’t pollute like cars. That’s progress!
By all means, do criticise Amazon’s treatment of workers and horrible policies in general. And yeah batteries are better than fossil fuels but still aren’t the greenest. But IMO anything that brings the US closer to bicycle culture can’t be all bad. Let’s accept a win when we see it and keep pushing, yeah?
The posts about Berlin and Finland are inspiring, let’s get others there too.
Okay, but what is pictured is a car sized vehicle that is going to be moving in traffic in the same place as cars, while simultaniously having fuckall safety features and no climate control. This is a fucking deathtrap, and just a new way to cut costs at the expense of working class lives. This is not progress, the is sacrificing people for the great capitalist overlords.
I don’t know how fast it’s meant to go, but it looks like it shouldn’t be going faster than 30 kph (20 mph). That is the speed that most city traffic should have. If this helps to make that the standard, that’s going to save far more lives than anything else.
Frankly, it is a loophole mobile unequivocally, but it’s a loophole that I would prefer that the laws change to accommodate rather than the other way around. “Deathtrap” is complete bs inspired by the same propaganda car companies use to justify bigger and bigger dangerous gas-guzzlers.
If we want any validation for this we don’t have to look any further than every other developed city in the world. This is just a more fuel efficient, quieter, more agile, and safer-for-pedestrians way to navigate a crowded city.
i don’t see how these being in bike lanes could possible be a positive
no one is using this to replace bigger vehicles, now you just have both
I get what you’re saying, and I agree it’s technically a good thing. But I have a problem with the fact that as noted, there’s no climate control, and no safety features. This will be on the roads with normal vehicles, doesn’t fit in a bike lane, and despite essentially being an efficient car, there’s no seatbelt. If somebody gets t-boned in one of these, or in any kind of wreck in general with a standard car or truck, they will likely die horribly.
I’ve no qualms with improving efficiency, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of safety for the vehicle operator who is being required to use this for work for likely many hours per day.
I think we could find something to complain about for just about any solution. I’m glad you agree that it’s technically a good thing.
I would be fine if we all drove these (and of course the infrastructure was updated to accommodate)
That is exactly the propaganda.
There’s the classic example that the car safety score is determined by whether the people inside the vehicle survive a crash. That leads to a perverse incentive in which car companies build a larger and more robust car to ensure their passengers survive crashes with no regard for the people they crash into. Since every car company is doing this they have to get bigger and bigger until we get the cars we have today that have to be registered as trucks.
These vehicles might be less safe for the drivers in our world of super-trucks, but they are magnitudes safer for pedestrians. I would prefer every effort to normalize smaller vehicles and I think every vehicle like this that’s on the road means one less pedestrian-killer and an overall safer experience.
From what I read, the reason (at least in US) why we got those big cars was the fuel economy requirements were more relaxed which made automakers who couldn’t improve it enough use it as a loophole.
It’s both.
pickups are also protected with tariffs
These things are at most half as wide as most modern cars so no its not car sized. Its not really bike sized either sure but its not just a car. Actual bikes both motor and pedal variety alreay cope fine in city traffic these are fine as well in terms of safety, maybe not in the dessert but otherwise its alright.
Of course its cost cutting at the expense of some comfort, but I’d much rather have this or any similar aliby cargo bike delivering in my neighboorhood than vans, even electric ones. These things are speed limited and the acceleration is fairly tame as well, the driver generally has a much better view than a van, and requiring the pedal input for forward movement makes the driving a bit more conservative/safe.
These should not be on standard bike paths they are just too big for that, but on pedestrianized/ bike streets these are infinetly better than cars for anyone except for maybe the driver, and on low ish speed limit inner city streets they are also just better than cars.
It is actually progress but its also just companies being cheap of course. I do see them as a genuine city quality indicators here in the EU, if they don’t exist it’s a sign the urban area is either pretty small or just super car centric.
These things are at most half as wide as most modern cars so no its not car sized.
It’s still car sized everywhere else. Cars in America are just needlessly oversized.
People need to remember that just because something is cost cutting, does not necessarily mean it’s worse. A great example is the move away from boxing things that are already boxed. So many people pissed off at it, but it’s just an easy way to be slightly better for the environment
A plus for the climate, a loss for workers.
Yep I would say you’re nailing the “criticize Amazon’s treatment of workers” part. That obviously is in severe need of fixing too.
Would you prefer if that got addressed but they stayed purely on combustion engine vehicles? I appreciate the idealism and in a perfect world we’d have both, but actually expecting both outcomes at once is sadly a tall order…
This isn’t a delivery bike. It’s for transferring cargo. That could have gone in a train or tram and been 100% electric while also not putting lives at risk.
You think the US has trains and trams that reach most neighborhoods? Not by a long shot.
No this is definitely looks like a last mile delivery vehicle to me.
Ok but you have to somehow transport a lot of parcels, right? You need a certain size for that. There is barely any additional volume other than storage space and driver space, so this is about as small as it gets?
Sure, it’s about as small as it gets, at the cost of worker lives. Would it have become that much more bulky to give it at least minimal safety featues, like crumble zones, or doors that can be locked? No. It would however be more expensive for Bezos. He’d rather these workers die, than spend an additional bit of money to ensure their safety.
It is possible to have good electrified last mile delivery, while not putting poor people in literal death boxes, it’s just going to hurt the billionaire’s profits.
Ok I just compared it to the cargo bikes that delivery services use here in Germany, from the first look I thought they were about the same size - and they use bike lanes and are allowed to drive in pedestrian zones, etc. However, comparing them side by side I think the amazon vehicle is in fact a lot larger and probably too big to use a bike lane. In that case, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, yeah. Not sure though if it’s really that unsafe if it can only go 25km/h.
The USPS just got done ordering a custom-designed vehicle built from the ground up for efficient, safe, and comfortable package delivery. It doesn’t look like this.
You mean in the bike lanes.
that is going to be moving in traffic in the same place as cars,
Doubt. Bikers already have to contend with electric bikes, electric mopeds, and electric motos in the bike lanes so you can guarantee these assholes will be there too, especially if the automobile roads are jammed.
Do you know vehicles exist that aren’t mini coopers?
Are these things going to be clogging up bike lanes and making biking more dangerous for people that aren’t working for Amazon? Are they going to have their “drivers” risking their lives on the roads with real cars? Are they going to be out there peddling hundreds of pounds of packages for 8 hour shifts in 90 degree weather? Oh but it’s quieter and less polluting… cool cool cool. The human endangerment is worth it then.
People seem more than willing to throw workers under the bus, as long as they know those delivery drivers are using an electric vehicle that doesn’t take up space or make any noise. Never mind that it’s summer and high-temp records being broken daily, get these guys out in that 98 degree heat so I can get my package delivered right to my front doorstep.
Are these things going to be clogging up bike lanes
You must not be from the US. Bike lanes here are empty, mostly treated as extra shoulder for cars. I’m not concerned about this one bit.
making biking more dangerous for people that aren’t working for Amazon
No, I feel confident that fewer motorized vehicles does not mean more danger for cyclists.
Are they going to have their “drivers” risking their lives on the roads with real cars? Are they going to be out there peddling hundreds of pounds of packages for 8 hour shifts in 90 degree weather?
Except for the peddaling that sounds suspiciously similar to current conditions. That needs to be addressed too, but I don’t think vehicle type alone is sufficient.
DC actually has a fair number of bikers around. It’s not as many as it should, but I’ve biked into and around DC, and it’s not bad. This will easily block an entire bike lane/trail/whatever though. This makes biking more difficult for everyone else, not less.
I would love to see those taking over the streets, but I would hate to see them in the bike lane.
What a great way to make everything worse.
I used to sell snow cones out of something similar when I was a teenager.
