Good for the environment? Maybe not so much

Micah Toll has a piece that references the short life of the e-scoots that takes some of the shine off the promoted environmental woody that is part of their promotion:
https://electrek.co/2018/12/04/superpedestrian-electric-scooter/

He quotes a very short lifespan of the scoots
This coupled with the short range , often 3 miles, as opposed to the promoted range makes their environmental advantage over walking or non motorized options less salient
Disposal costs , and impact are just another part of the costs that the vendors don't assume.

Netflix and Buzzfeed have even created a show called, "Follow This," where episode 3, "Scooter Wars,"
adds to the discussion.

onemorejoltwarden said:

This coupled with the short range , often 3 miles, as opposed to the promoted range makes their environmental advantage over walking or non motorized options less salient

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Absolutely. Walking beats a scooter any day from an environmental standpoint.

However, by replacing cars - especially for "first mile" or "last mile" applications in conjunction with mass transit - they could have a very positive effect.

I would agree that building a lot of EVs that are shoddy or useful is kind of a net loss to the environment.
The 10 tons of bicycle-share bikes in China sitting in multiple lots are a huge net loss to the environment also.

I also see people on this forum abusing and destroying things on purpose and i have to shake my head.

The whole idea of adopting electric vehicles is to reduce wear and tear on the environment. The side benefit is that it's a superior drivetrain, capable of many things gas engines fail at.

Since the environmental toll of EVs occurs during production, an EV should be well designed and bought with the intention of being used long term in order to realize it's benefits.

billvon said:

Walking beats a scooter any day from an environmental standpoint.

However, by replacing cars - especially for "first mile" or "last mile" applications in conjunction with mass transit - they could have a very positive effect.

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I hope that's how it's working in some places. In my neighborhood, dockless scooters mostly appear to be replacing Uber or walking to cover the the "last mile" between easy parking and casual drinking.

If we had functional transit to augment, that would be nice.

How do you stop lazyness and stupidity, mother nature used natural selection we need to emulate that without killing.

You're making me feel I should fix this big Chinese scooter that I gave up on. I can't tell if the hub is good, I'm guessing the controller has a problem. A bit beat up, a few hundred and going 1kw if it works out, hmmmm.

Ianhill said:

How do you stop lazyness and stupidity, mother nature used natural selection we need to emulate that without killing.

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George Carlin had some excellent solutions in mind.

This isn't just a scooter problem. It's the fact that the cost of disposal and production of goods is extremely out of whack with the cost to the environment.

It's quite easy to accidentally harm the environment while trying to save it because of this.

At least someone who buys a scooter is less likely to have a monster pickup truck though.

neptronix said:

This isn't just a scooter problem. It's the fact that the cost of disposal and production of goods is extremely out of whack with the cost to the environment.

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Yes. All those "hidden costs" are a primary reason why efforts at environmental remediation often fail - because people don't see the true cost when they buy something.

If we started pricing things by including all their real environmental and lifecycle costs, cradle to grave, we would solve 90% of our environmental problems in a few decades. Gasoline would carry the costs of the wars waged to protect our access to oil, and the damage done by the pollution it causes. Plastics would include cleanup costs (plus the oil costs listed above.) And yes, even solar would include the cost of any damage to the environment their production causes.

neptronix said:

At least someone who buys a scooter is less likely to have a monster pickup truck though.

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Someone who uses a scooter instead of a car is one thing. Someone who uses a scooter because he knowingly drove his car into an area so blighted by cars that he can't find a convenient place to park, is quite another thing. Where I am, it's hard to tell which kind of scooter rider is more prevalent.