Thank you for your comments. While I acknowledge that “micro-mobility” (a term that I am not a fan of) should not be ignored, it is beyond the scope of this article, in which I zoomed out and tried to address the structural problem of car-culture that undergirds so many of our cities worldwide.
Yes, electric bikes and scooters may have some role to play, but it is far smaller and insignificant than the larger problems that we face. With proper investments in public transportation to address shortcomings such as accessibility, availability, convenience, reliability, private/corporate interventions such as electric bikes and scooters will not really be needed. In fact, it is the e-scooter and e-bike sharing startup companies that are fighting against investment in public transportation, as they are vying to be an alternative to them and are seeking public subsidies for the “solution” they are offering, as you are claiming. They do not present any sort of “transportation revolution,” to use your words. The only we can achieve such a revolution is to completely throw out the status quo and envision a whole new paradigm, one that is hopefully not dictated by private/corporate interests.
The main people that benefit form “micro-mobility” are the owners and investors in these companies and services. Having lived in cities where electric scooters have been forced on its citizens and are strewn haphazardly across public sidewalks, I can tell you that they are nothing but an eyesore and a huge annoyance that get in the way pedestrians, not to mention all of the accidents and crashes that have happened because of them.
I wonder if you are the owner of or if you work for a “micro-mobility” company that sells e-bikes or scooters, as it appears as though you seem to have something to gain financially from advocating for this term. I have found that this term is attempting to offer not a solution, but a mere convenience for people who do not feel like walking or riding a manual bike. The term is largely just marketing to falsely convince people that there is a problem when in fact one does not really exist. It was the automobile manufacturers (mainly GM) that convinced cities to decrease funding in public transportation so that people would buy more cars to avoid using poor public transportation, and now companies like Uber and Lime and Lyft are attempting to do the same thing by trying to be alternatives to public transportation.
What’s more, for many of the e-scooter and bike share programs, for example, the people who run around at night to collect all of these vehicles and charge them are badly paid and terribly exploited, much like the drivers for the ride-hailing companies.
For e-scooters and bikes to be a viable option, they should work together with public transportation (rather than against it), and they should be publicly managed along with the trains buses that makeup any transportation system. As part of public infrastructure, they should not be masquerading as a public good when in fact they are making a select few very rich while hurting the planet and making peoples’ lives worse.
And what about all of the people who cannot ride a bike or scooter?
It would be a sad world if instead of having to rely on cars like so many people currently do, we would still have to rely on e-bikes and scooters to get around. This is far from any real “transportation revolution.”
P.S. Your point about solid-state battery technology is well taken, but it must be pointed out that these batteries are not widely in use yet. In addition, one of the favored materials used for the solid-state electrolyte for these batteries is lithium (in the form of lithiumorthosilicate), as well as other resource intesive materials like sulfides, glass, and ceramics.
