E-scooters

What happens to the batteries after they are dead though? Landfill or are they rechargeable/recyclable in any way?

a question worth asking Tesla-bros as well

I have converted my cargo bike using aftermarket kit, its fine but I know what I am doing

The toxic chemicals in them need to be disposed of, and they wreck havoc on the environment if not done correctly.

Also very cheap ebikes/scooter you will need to pour the chemical in the battery and then charge it.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/escooters-seized-london-roads-police-christmas-crackdown-retailers-b969114.html

^^ Thanks for all the info about batteries, Ed and jj72.

The plan for the cars is that once they are no longer suitable for use in cars they will get moved to uses where energy density is less critical. (No idea whether this is actually happening or what happen when they are totally useless)

Basically batteries are an environmental nightmare, both in construction and disposal, which is another reason why electric cars aren't the solution...

What happens to them after they're no longer suitable for uses when energy density is less critical tho.

I guess we just lob them into the nearest canal.

We send them to a third world country for "recycling".

At the moment some of the car manufacturer are now investing in making their own recycling facticity for their batteries (Volkswagen for example), however the problem is whether everyone else will do the same thing.

This is a good move and will hopefully remove one of the main incentives people may have for using e-scooters:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/e-scooters-banned-tube-underground-parsons-green-fire-b969837.html

The usual questions as to whether it's enforceable, and by how much it'll really reduce e-scooter use. For instance, if they're legalised, which Government corruption will ensure they will be, there might be storage facilities at major stations, so that their use might still be encouraged despite the ban on taking them on Tube trains. Still, every little helps in trying to avert one of the worst public health disasters since the invention of the internal combustion engine.

There was an e-unicycle fire:

The committee was told by TfL safety chief Lilli Matson that the e-scooter fire, and another incident with an electric unicycle on October 26, had raised “real safety concerns” .

The unicycle had been left on a Jubilee line train and was moved into a staff building at Stanmore station for safe-keeping. But it “spontaneously combusted” and staff had to flee.

I assume that must mean one of those with a gyroscope à la Segway as opposed to a proper unicycle.

Doesn't this say that the vast majority of the scooter use replaced walking?

It replaces journeys that would have been walked if people could have been bothered. But people seem to have made more journeys. So does it mean they walked less? I don’t know.

It’s based on a self-reported survey in a tourist area and locals were deliberately excluded, and only relates to rental scooter usage. I don’t think you can usefully extrapolate to general scooter use anywhere else.

Isn’t it worth keeping an open mind here and looking at the emerging evidence of harm or benefit rather than jumping, Daily Mail fashion, on freak incidents and cleaving to conspiracies? If policy makers took your line, cyclists would have to wear helmets and pass a test at this point. The jury is still out on e-scooters, but they look like a lot of fun to me.

I wholeheartedly support e-scooter, the biggest problem is the battery/motors, which more often than not make them more like a moped than an E-scooter.

Ebikes have gone through regulations and now have a standard, but nothing much been done about escooter.

I agree, we need some regulation, and fast. Both in terms of usage and manufacturing.

Ebikes have gone through regulations and now have a standard

But probably the majority of ebikes don't follow those regulations, it's only useful having a standard if it's enforced.

But probably the majority of ebikes don't follow those regulations

Don't agree with this. Most do comply with the regs which are pretty clear re EAPCs. Check. Gov site for info.

The DfT are working with various stakeholders on escooter regs with support of many road safety orgs. Prediction is that with 1.5 years private escooters will be legal with clear specs and regs.

As an aside interesting use of e-scooters to look at general risk hot spots https://www.micromobilitybiz.com/dott-completes-trial-with-see-sense-to-find-road-safety-risks/amp/

I guess there may be more that do comply and you don't notice how many there are because they are just like normal bikes. There's definitely a lot out there that don't comply though, they're pretty obvious as they are freewheeling along at 15-20mph. The vast majority of food delivery riders seem to be on them.

There is a standard for E Scooters, EN 17128

This is what is used in every other European country where they are legal and hence can be regulated as opposed to the UK where a 25kph scooter is just as illegal as a 60kph death trap.

TfL announces safety ban of e-scooters on transport network

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2021/december/tfl-announces-safety-ban-of-e-scooters-on-transport-network

Transport for London (TfL) has announced that all privately-owned e-scooters and e-unicycles, including those that can be folded or carried, will be banned on London's transport network from Monday 13 December.

Just watched a vid on the kings cross fire of 1987 caused by a discarded match, too much old grease in the escalator, poor understanding of trench effect at the time of construction and standard british attitude of "its not on fire yet, so it'll be fine". So TFL will be rightly very worried about loads of lipo battery bombs being carried about on the network. Deliberately caused a Lipo fire once to see what would happen, the answer is, it catchs fire very fast, explosively so and reigns down burning chemicals all over the place. Even outside with a decent wind the smoke burns your eyes/throat/lungs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzM6O0mV5DA&t=800s