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The New Bike Adviser research:
Read FULL REPORT here
The aim of this report is to quantify and better understand the potential of increasing e-bike uptake in the U.S and the advantages that may accrue as a result. Our research arm has used a small portion of the data to demonstrate a very straightforward way U.S states and cities can drastically reduce congestion and deliver environmental and economic benefits.
America’s 276 million registered vehicles make U.S consumers heavily dependent on their cars as their primary means of transportation, generating 551,940 metric tons of CO2 daily, at a 5-mile range!
States like California, Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, and Massachusetts are states that produce the most CO2 for short car trips in the U.S and they are responsible for over half of the country’s total carbon emissions, which is nearly equal to the combined emissions of Croatia, Denmark and Portugal or all of Belgium’s emissions.
Whereas lowest carbon-emitting states in the US for short car trips are Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota, Vermont, South Dakota, Montana, Washington D.C., Delaware, Hawai, and Rhode Island.
Analyzing and calculating thousands of data points from CENSUS and US Environmental Protection Agency, we ranked the U.S states where e-bikes have the most potential to replace car trips with e-bikes:
On a national level, 55% of Car Trips in the U.S Are Less Than 5 Miles. And if Americans replaced 50% of their short-distance car trips with e-bikes, we would save 273K metric tons of CO2 every day, which is equivalent to the carbon sequestered by 4.5 million tree seedlings grown for 10 years.
Washington D.C, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Ohio are the top 5 states for e-bike potential with >57% of their car trips being up to 5 miles.They could benefit the most from e-biking due to their relatively short-distance trips that could be switched from cars to e-bikes.
Switching from cars to e-bikes, these states together would save our country 2,753 metric tons of CO2 every day at an 8% adoption rate. This is equivalent to CO2 emissions from 334 million smartphones charged.
Washington D.C has the highest proportion of short-distance trips in the US: 64% of trips are less than 5 miles. If only 8% percent of these short trips are replaced with e-bikes would save DC 137 metric tons of CO2 daily, the equivalent amount of CO2 released by 150 return flights from London to New York.
It’s no surprise that large and heavily populated states rank lower in the list, but they’re also the country’s hotbed for CO2 emissions. Targeting the big polluters will help generate greater CO2 savings. While California (ranked 21st), Texas (25th ), New York (ranked 16th) have lesser 0–5-mile trips (55%,54% and 55% respectively) than DC or Rhode Island (both over 61%), they are states famous for their love affair with cars and products of high CO2 emissions.
For instance, California leads all fifty U.S states in CO2 emissions from transport. In fact, at 51,370 metric tons of CO2 emitted by cars every day in California, D.C doesn’t even come close. If only 8% of car trips in California were to be replaced with e-bikes, our country would save 4,078 metric tons of CO2 every day, enough to power 496 million smartphones. This is almost equal to the combined CO2 emissions saved in D.C, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Wyoming and Ohio together.
To review the full Bike Adviser E-bike Potential in the U.S report, including complete rankings of states that produce the most CO2 for short trips, states ranked by e-bike potential & CO2 we could save, please visit: https://thebikeadviser.com/how-much-co2-can-ebikes-save/
Bike Adviser is a bike-related web publication which is in a dogged pursuit to showcase the beauty of cycling and to get more people hop on two wheels. The goal is to deliver the world’s best biking advice through meticulously curated posts and detailed buyer guides. We do this by working closely with our team of experienced riders and writers who just have a knack for providing all the information you need when buying cycling products.
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