Manufacturing, transportation and subsequent charging are not making the electric scooter more environmentally friendly.
Editor’s note: This article is from “Future Car Daily” (WeChat public ID: auto-time), author: compile future car group.
Editor’s note: The shared electric scooter that is rare in China is very popular abroad. According to the shared electric scooter company, these scooters are not only environmentally friendly, but also reduce the dependence on the car and even save on travel costs. Then, can it really achieve zero carbon emissions? The original title of this article is Are shared e-scooters good for the planet? Only if they replace car trips. The author is Jeremiah Johnson, a professor of engineering at the University of North Carolina, who introduced you to the problem behind this issue. story.
Image source: Elvert Barnes/Flickr
The manufacturing, transportation and charging of electric scooters will still require a lot of carbon.
In many cities, if you travel short distances, more and more citizens will choose to share electric scooters. According to the company that promotes the operation of these scooters, choosing to share electric scooters is not only an environmentally friendly option, but also reduces dependence on the car.
In order to more fully evaluate the claims of these companies, it is necessary to consider all the factors related to the environment, including the materials and energy of these scooters, the daily recycling and delivery, and the power consumption of the battery charging.
In this regard, I have studied methods for assessing the environmental impact of products and materials. In a newly published research report, I pointed out that electric scooters may cause more serious environmental pollution problems. However, if the cities can improve the relevant policies and share the scooter company to adjust the current mode of operation, then electric scooters may become a more environmentally friendly option.
The rise of electric scooters
In the city center or around the university campusPeople who live may have seen shared electric scooters. The main purpose of these scooters is to make people travel short distances. These devices are equipped with a small electric motor and a skateboard for single people to stand.
The industry-renowned shared electric scooter company has Bird and Lime. They put these scooters into a fixed range, and the billing method is in minutes. After using the scooter, the user can place the scooter somewhere, wait for the next user to use it, or wait for any work to recycle and recharge.
In 2017, this electric scooter was rarely seen on the road. But by 2018, the number of people sharing short-distance riding electric scooters jumped to 38.5 million.
This device is especially suited to a specific group of people and solves their “last mile” travel problem. In addition, the problem of driving and parking of scooters is relatively small compared to cars. Moreover, its travel costs are also very low.
Zero carbon travel, really?
In the United States, nearly one-third of the greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation industry. In addition, the pollutants that cause fog and asthma are also largely from the transportation industry.
Because electric scooters are not designed to exhaust exhaust pipes, many people intuitively believe that electric scooters are environmentally friendly. These scooters are also selling their products in terms of zero carbon emissions and earth-friendliness.
Screen capture of the phone interface after the user uses the shared electric scooter. The screenshot is realistic, the app tells the user that the ride is over, thank the user for parking and locking the scooter, and emphasizes that the ride is zero carbon.
In order to further support its claims, Lime is committed to claiming that it will purchase renewable energy credits to cover the electricity needs of all its scooters, while offsetting the carbon emissions generated during daily operations. Bird also purchased renewable energy credits and carbon offsets that cover electricity demand and carbon emissions from recycling and delivery.
Environmental claims in Bird’s official website.
However, if you want to consider all the factors that make an electric scooter operate normally, such as charging preparation and delivery to a specific destination, then the phrase “zero carbon travel” is untenable.
So, I work with Joseph Hollingsworth and Brenna Copeland, engineering students at the University of North Carolina State, to study the life cycle. Ways to fill this gap.
Invisible impact
Many electric scooters in the United States are made by Chinese technology company Xiaomi. To further understand the construction materials of the scooter, we dismantled a scooter. After dismantling, we got 13 pounds of aluminum (about 11.7 pounds), 2.5 pounds of lithium batteries (about 2.3 pounds), as well as electric motors and various plastic and steel parts.
The manufacture of these scooters and essential electronic products involves a series of industrial chain processes such as land, smelters and manufacturing plants. As far as electric scooters are concerned, after our calculations, the impact of manufacturing equipment is almost half of the total impact of every mile riding a scooter.
Joseph Hollingsworth and Brenna Copeland dismantled the work of an electric scooter.
However, due to the speed of the global transportation logistics network, the impact of transporting electric scooters from China to the United States is almost insignificant.
The electric scooter company signed an agreement with the independent contractor and entrusted them with the responsibility of recycling, charging and re-delivering the scooter to the designated location.
Under normal circumstances, the staff responsible for recycling scooters are driving their own private cars, stuffing them into their cars as much as possible, taking them home for charging, and then placing them to the appropriate location the next day.
This type of logistics has not been optimized, resulting in an unnecessary drive to find a scooter. And we found that the environmental impact of the staff’s mileage in this areaIt is equivalent to more than 40% of the environmental impact caused by the use of electric scooters.
In contrast, charging an electric scooter actually requires relatively little energy. For example, the power consumption required to charge a fully depleted scooter is equivalent to the power consumption required for a typical dryer to run for five minutes.
When the staff recycles the scooter, especially in some cities that require a scooter that must be fully reclaimed at night, the electricity is basically not fully exhausted. In Raleigh, North Carolina, we found that about one-sixth of the scooters had more than 95% of their electricity after one day of operation, but unfortunately they were still being recycled for recharging.
Other ways to travel short distances
It is worth noting that in quantifying the relative impact of the scooter reactor environment, the transportation methods replaced by scooters must be considered.
Research shows that about one-third of electric scooter users have replaced the original way of car travel, but in fact, users who would have chosen to walk or ride bicycles accounted for about 50%. In addition, about 10% of users originally planned to take public transportation, while the remaining 7% to 8% of users did not have a travel plan at all.
According to our research, driving is indeed more of a problem than the environmental pollution caused by scooter travel. If only one-third of scooters travel no longer choose to travel by car, it will lead to fewer people choosing to walk, cycle or take the bus, which will increase overall traffic emissions.
However, according to our estimation, if the scooter can replace half of the car, it is considered to be beneficial to the environment on average.
Make the scooter more environmentally friendly
In our research report, we also pointed out several ways to promote the sustainable development of electric scooters.
First, design a more time-consuming scooter that reduces the environmental impact of the materials used per mile. Second, further improve the recycling and delivery process to reduce unnecessary mileage. At the same time, companies should also choose more energy-efficient vehicles to recycle scooters. In this regard, each city should also improve the corresponding policies, allowing scooters to be placed on the streets at night, and then recycling when the power is exhausted.
However, for the moment, if you are not replacing the way cars travel, scooters are less likely to make a positive change to the Earth’s environmental problems.
Translator: Ishii Junichi