Powered Bikes: Protect your Wallet and your Planet

Pollution, fossil fuels, and increasing gas prices. That’s an ordinary car, what Americans have used so extensively for decades. Should we continue to do this, and eventually fuel could be $10 per gallon and the sea levels will rise. We have started to use hybrid vehicles, such as the original Toyota Prius, which has 51 MPG and is of intelligent design, but is not enough. As a member of the National Summer Transportation Institute (NSTI) at the University of Vermont, I have learned extensively about energy for transit. We took a field trip to see various electric cars at a showcase of the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation. We saw some EVs, which were able to travel quite some distance (e.g. 100 miles on the Nissan Leaf) on a full charge at a 95 MPG equivalent. However, I also took a thrilling ride on a bike which has a very small electric motor allowing it to go up to 20 MPH without pedaling! The electricity they use to travel several hundred miles is roughly the same amount of energy as a gallon of gas. The ride was also hard to resist, and I would certainly recommend it for getting to work if it’s too difficult to pedal, like if there are hills. Go green!