2010年 01月 19日 16:32

China's E-Bikes: Less-Than-Perfect Pioneers

Electric bicycles have changed the way Chinese people commute--and drawn plenty of criticism, too.

China's experiment with electric bicycles is worth looking at because it represents the first-ever widespread adoption of an electric vehicle for commercial use. Their explosive development has posed all sorts of challenges, both in terms of regulation and pollution.

It's a big technological jump to cars from the smaller electric bikes, scooters and tricycles on China's streets today. But some of China's e-bike makers are already looking at how to take part in that transition, including Luyuan Group by leveraging their experience in battery technology and electric motors.

The e-bike phenomenon is so big the Asian Development Bank prepared a study looking at their impact on China's environment and transportation. Released last year, the study found that electric bikes are energy-efficient and perform much better environmentally when it comes to some forms of pollution, like the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, compared to alternatives like buses or motorcycles.

'This analysis shows that e-bike emissions, including material production and vehicle use phases, perform comparably to buses and significantly better than motorcycles and cars on most environmental metrics,' the report said. But they aren't perfect.

The biggest problem it found was with lead from batteries. Even though there's nearly a {bfb} recycling rate, because the batteries are replaced every few years, and China's lead industry is poorly regulated, lead emissions are two orders of magnitude higher than those from buses, their main competition.

Luyuan's outspoken chairman Ni Jie contests these claims. He says that China's coal-fired power-plants and coking plants emit far more lead than the battery industry. And he says advances in technology will make the batteries cleaner, especially as alternatives to lead like lithium become cheap enough to be universally adopted.

Chinese regulators have been especially worried about traffic safety problems, an area that the ADB didn't address in its report.

Ni claims that the rising fatality figures for e-bikes mask the truth. He says that e-bikes are safer versus bicycles or motorcycles when compared on a mile-by-mile basis. He also says that e-bike fatalities need to be grouped with motorcycles and bicycles figures. Overall, death rates have fallen for that group, he claims, because riders are switching from motorcycles and bicycles to e-bikes. E-bikes are slower than motorcycles, but more visible than bicycles, so are safer, he claims.

In the meantime, electric bikes are growing in popularity elsewhere, especially Northern European countries that already had a strong bicycle culture, such as the Netherlands, according to e-bike consultant Edward Benjamin.

And they're already making an appearance on the streets of New York--especially noticeable among food delivery.

Shai Oster

动自行车改变了中国人的出行方式，也招致大量批评。

中国的电动自行车试验值得关注，因为它代表着商用电动交通工具在历史上的首轮大规模应用。其飞速发展带来了各种挑战，包括管理方面的挑战，也包括污染方面的挑战。

从今天中国街道上的电动自行车、小型摩托车、三轮车到体量更大的电动汽车，在技术上是一个很大的飞跃。但中国一些电动自行车生产商已经在研究怎样利用它们在电池技术和电动发电机方面的经验参与这个转型过程，绿源集团(Luyuan Group)就是其中一家。

电动自行车现象引起了亚洲开发银行(Asian Development Bank)的关注。去年，亚洲开发银行发布了一份研究报告，探讨电动自行车对于中国环境和交通的影响。研究发现，电动自行车能源效率较高，在温室气体二氧化碳等污染排放方面，其表现比公共汽车或摩托车要优越很多。

报告称，分析说明，包括材料生产和上路使用阶段，电动自行车的排放表现和公共汽车相当，在多数环境指标上面显著优于摩托车和汽车。但电动自行车并不xx。

研究发现的{zd0}问题是源自电池的铅排放。虽然电池的回收率接近{bfb}，但由于每隔几年就要更换，加之中国的铅工业监管薄弱，电动自行车的铅排放比其主要竞争对手公共汽车的排放量高了两个数量级。

绿源集团董事长倪捷是一个直率的人，他对这些说法予以反驳。他说，中国煤炭火力发电厂和焦炭厂排放的铅比电池行业要多得多。他还说，随着技术的进步，特别是随着锂电池等铅电池替代品价格降低后被广泛采用，电池将变得更加清洁。

中国的监管层特别担心电动自行车的交通安全问题，这是亚洲开发银行在报告中没有提到的。

倪捷认为，不断上升的电动自行车致死数字掩盖了真相。他说，按照单位里程计算，电动自行车比脚踏自行车或摩托车更为安全。他还说，要把电动自行车致死数字和摩托车与脚踏自行车的数字放在一个集合里看。他说，从整体上看，这个集合里的死亡率是下降了，因为人们在换掉摩托车和脚踏自行车，改骑电动自行车。他认为，电动自行车比摩托车更慢，但比自行车更加显眼，所以xxx。

与此同时，据电动自行车咨询师本杰明(Edward Benjamin)称，电动自行车在世界其他地方的普及率越来越高，特别是在具有深厚自行车文化基础的北欧国家，比如荷兰。

电动自行车也已经亮相纽约街头，尤其是作为送食品外卖的交通工具。

Shai Oster