Pedelecs: Environmentally Friendly Car Substitute – If You Take Care of the Battery

They are everywhere: e-bikes. Whether in the city, in the countryside, or on the way to work – more and more people are switching to electrically assisted bicycles. But how environmentally friendly are e-bikes really? It very much depends on the perspective. Compared to cars, e-bikes offer a number of advantages. They are not only more cost-effective and good for health, but also more environmentally friendly. According to the German Environment Agency (UBA), e-bikes cause only a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions compared to cars.

Fewer Emissions than Combustion Vehicles

The UBA calculates CO₂ emissions per passenger kilometer, which is a unit of measure that describes the transportation of one person over the distance of one kilometer. Emissions from vehicle use, energy provision, vehicle manufacturing, and infrastructure are added together for this calculation. Accordingly, a pedelec generates about 15 grams of CO₂ per passenger kilometer, while in comparison, a car generates around 194 grams of CO₂. Simply put, e-bikes cause approximately 7.7 percent of the greenhouse gases that cars do, according to the UBA.

The crux: According to the UBA, switching from a bicycle to an e-bike only offers environmental benefits if the e-bike is regularly used for trips that would otherwise be made by motorized vehicles. Therefore, switching to an e-bike instead of a bicycle does not offer any environmental benefit, as the mere production of the required battery causes additional CO₂ emissions.