Waitrose getting into the bike-courier business

Guys, please don't be so prejudiced about this on so little information. This is for a Waitrose in Dorset. I can only assume that the excellent Dorchester-based A to B magazine, which has long championed use of electric bikes, would approve:

http://www.atob.org.uk/electricbikeadvantages.htm

**6. Clean & Green
**Electric bikes obviously consume energy, where a conventional bikes does not (provided we ignore the environmental cost of growing and processing food - see below). However, the amount of energy used is very small compared to a moped, motorcycle or car. Besides fuel, the only consumables are the batteries, and these can normally be recycled when life-expired. As for energy use, electric bikes typically consume fuel at an average rate of 100 to 150 watts of electrical energy, against 15,000 or so for a car (admittedly travelling faster, out of town at least). In terms of fuel consumption, an electric bike achieves about 800-2,000mpg (280 - 700 km/litre). No other commercially available vehicle can match figures of this kind.
If it's hard to place these numbers in your own lifestyle, think of a 100 watt electric light bulb burning for an evening - that's enough energy to propel an electrically-assisted bike for 20 to 40 miles...

Way greener than cars, without a doubt. Of course, not as green as non-electric pedal cycles, but for Waitrose, it makes perfect sense to use electric bikes in a rural or small town environment, as population density will be much smaller and daily distances accordingly greater. It would be a different case in London, but the link made to London in the article seems to be entirely owing to the writer's imagination.

If the scheme is practicable enough to keep running, it will probably be a success.

If anyone can challenge the A to B assessment on technical grounds, go ahead. I can't and will just believe what they say there until shown otherwise.