Lots of good points Steve. However I had similar sticking points as you, once I saw their numbers laid out. First off, this is a specific use case for a dense city center. I will also add that the problematic traffic congestion for double-parked vans in packed cities is a huge problem today. But I also think about capacity. A full sized van is going to carry more and larger parcels. I drove for UPS and the delivery van size varies. So this is not going to replace Home Depot deliveries. My other thought is the vulnerability of the packages when the last drop-off delivery is being made. The commercial vans are lockable, which is important. Especially if you are parked on a busy street and need to go into an office building for delivery. The CO2 calculation for the EV van looks like it includes the manufacture of the battery pack, and maybe non-renewable electricity costs. But with an efficient EV that C02 number is diminished over time, because little/no C02 is produced after production. Especially if you are using renewable (solar) electricity to power the EV. The price seems very high to me for the cargo E-Bike, along with the maintenance costs. But they do make a good business case when compared to diesel vans for tight city/urban use.

In Europe's cities you see lots of cargo bikes used for last-mile-delivery, e.g. by UPS, DHL, and others. There are even services, e.g. in Berlin, where local shops offer storage room for the big shipping companies, and then deliver the combined parcels (e.g one from DHL, one from UPS and another one) to the end customer / address in one go with cargo bikes. That's the way to go!

The Battery World is undergoing lots of changes. Its going to impact everything, I hope Aptera has the flexibility modify the battery pack design to accommodate these changes. CATL just announced its 'Condenser Batteries' with an amazing 500 wh/ kg. Which means 1000 km range EVs just around the corner. They have also announced the launch of ShenXing LFP batteries which can charge at 4C speeds with a cycle life of 12,000 cycles and an operating range of -20 to +70 degrees of temperature.

Excellent presentation. Being a cargo ebike owner (albeit a short tail) I agree with your and their conclusions.

Seems broadly correct. But I don’t know about “most”. Seems to me this applies primarily to dense urban environments. Other locales, because they’re more spread out, they need lots of vans to cover the region. So you might want to add that qualification to the video title.

Arcimoto Deliverator would solve a lot of problems because it is a motorcycle sized three wheel EV with a large locking compartment for packages. It has a windshield for rain protection and a heater and while the sides are open they do have optional fabric doors if it’s super cold. I believe they have heated grips, or they are easy to add aftermarket. It couldn’t carry the load of a full size van, so it would have to make trips, but I have done deliveries to houses/apartments and I could fit four hours worth of deliveries in my hatchback. The locking compartment is important I think so everything isn’t looted while doing a delivery up in an office or apartment building. I lock up my recumbent trike especially if I park near pickup trucks because it would be easy for them to lift it up in back and drive off

You park a bike in my town not only would the cargo be gone when you got back the bike would be missing too.

Maybe Im just odd, but this seems like it could be a fun, part time job in retirement to help me stay in shape. However, I live in suburbia, with very cold winters. Not sure if it would be practical here. I like the idea though.

As a life long cyclist this brings joy to my heart. I might have missed it but the wear and tear on the infrastructure like holes in roads will be a lot less too. Also this is in Europe where towns are much denser and the roads much narrower. More flexible delivery systems are the way to go. In England they are looking at changing the law so these e-delivery bikes can use a more powerful 500 watt motor. Plus old farts like me are able to keep on cycling (e-trikes for instance) into old age instead of having to rely on cars.

The problem is bad weather. Tough to ride a bike in the snow so you need twice as many vehicles. One for winter and one for summer.

Brussels is more bike friendly than US cities. But maybe this will help change that.

Per mile cost of bicycles are very expensive. I did this analysis comparison to a 50cc scooter 20years ago and the scooter easily cost less to own and operate, about $0.04/mile. That was when I started commuting with a 50cc scooter instead of a bicycle. There is a reason why bicycle messengers use fixed geared bicycles, to reduce cost. For deliveries best is electric van, smaller ones for denser areas.

"We should replace most delivery vans with cargo bikes. " Steve, this title; really? An accurate title would be "We could supplement some delivery vans in dense urban areas with cargo bikes" because that's all that could be done. The routes for vans and bikes would have to overlap as well.

As someone that’s worked as a delivery driver it’s not cost effective. Plus i deliver packages of all sizes. I deliver 10 bicycles to the bike store , a small box next door, two Hello Fresh boxes to the next house. It’s not all small boxes and envelopes. Cargo bikes can work in a very limited scenario. One person can deliver 300 + packages a day in tight areas. Electric delivery trucks make way more sense. AI will probably be doing this is 10-15 years unfortunately.

I would think a delivery service is less polluting because it’s one vehicle that delivers to many people which keeps many vehicles off the road. Furthermore some delivery services are using electric vehicles.

LEV's like some of the brands in Europe are probably more realistic than say a straight up cargo bike. Particularly the ones that have either cargo beds in the rear or enclosed cargo boxes etc.

Amazon contracts with many thousands of eCargo bike riders in NYC.

Nice “filler” until “later in the week”. Certainly lots of benefits, but as already mentioned, might be a bit messy in inclement weather. I’m sure there are solutions, but I could see security (for the remaining load) a potential issue when stopping and leaving the bike to make a delivery to the door.

Aloha Steve, Interesting show for me as I'm shopping tadpole upright trikes at this time. These commercial units are really pricy. I just saw Addmotor's new tadpole trike for $2,000. It seems much heavier than the SixThreeZero's tadpole trike and (surprise, surprise) it's $2,000 as well. Of course my dream is to go to the GreenSpeed factory and redesign their tadpole unit for older folks like myself. Thanks for the math course. I used to do this for gas tax hikes vs 12 minutes a day postponement because of road problems. 12 time 5 = one hour a week. 50 hours a year. Washington's gas tax is currently 50 cents a gallon. We average almost 500 gallons of gas per hear. What's a weeks vacation worth to you?

Some parts of Europe sure. States? lol you live in the IE and know how unfeasible that is going to be. Steve getting a little fanciful for the reactions.

A better video title would be "We should replace some delivery vans with cargo bikes" there are many places when E-bikes would not work AT ALL, and the current video title turns people who live in such places away from watching the video. Edit: This is one of the main reasons I am interested in the Aptera, where I live there is only car infrastructure and nothing else. Its extremely inefficient. Aptera has the ability to bring efficiency to places where efficiency is otherwise impossible.

I just got back from three days in the center Brussels. I wasn’t looking for these delivery bikes, but I don’t remember seeing any. I did see some food delivery bikes, but not package bikes. I could see first hand how they would have an advantage. Hopefully they are coming soon.

Yes. Cargo bikes are pretty cool. I really want to build one on a 48 volt system, but I don't have that money yet. My current EBike still needs a new frame and wheels.

Cool! I would just want to make sure companies put at least half of what they save on vehicle maintenance toward employees' medical needs for these extreme endurance athletes.

As someone who’s dad was a delivery man for decades in Ohio, I have to say this is a poor idea for most deliveries

Yes, we should. Heavy delivery vans, and public busses are destroying asphalt roads in my hometown of Boulder CO.

Nothing like wet packages in the winter, and frozen delivery people

Ideally it would be beautiful. Realistically, there are problems. Cargo bikes should not lane split. People operating cargo bikes for delivery companies would be injured by distracted drivers. Worker's compensation insurance would be expensive. Thieves would target cargo bikes. Insurance would go up. Cost of delivery would go up. I agree with the idea of using cargo bikes for delivery. There may be specific locations where it would work.

What about porch pirates? They would love unattended packages on bikes

Unfortunately, most U.S. cities lack the infrastructure to support bicycle commuting in general. It’s unsafe to mix cars and bikes anytime the cars are traveling more the 25mph. If we did have the infrastructure, cargo bikes would be a great solution. I own one and use it when it’s safe to do so.

Calirnia dreaming :p

or we could use horses and carts. . .

Disappointing that they compared cargo bikes in Brussels to vans in other cities. The bike performance depends on the bike friendliness of the city (which is an argument for bike friendly cities, not for vans), so it would be more convincing if they had data for vans in Brussels. Why didn't they, I wonder?

Sounds like cities like NYC aren't built for cars OR bikes if they have that much trouble finding parking.

Try getting a delivery to the family farm with a cargo bike. Also, my son delivers for Amazon. He is expected to have 60 stops completed before his noon lunch break. This is how Amazon keeps delivery costs low. How many extra drivers would Amazon need? Do we have enough young people (it is very demanding physically) people willing to work such a job? Do you really think people would want to pay the high cost of delivery if cargo vans were replaced with bikes? At least when it is raining he can get out of the weather.

Smart! Even smarter… autopilot recumbents to get full-body workouts and hire Peloton, Planet Fitness & similar customers. Get paid for your workouts! (Only 1/2 kidding)

Without curb cuts you couldn't roll it up on sidewalks and would still have to park it on the street.

Batteries for E-bikes are still very weak. A 50% improvement is needed urgently.

The worst part about this is for the workers because what if it gets hot cold or starts raining? Not exactly fun.

Cargo bikes are narrower than vans. . . The wide wheel base will limit passage.

I’d love to see this in the US, but it won’t happen. They’d get robbed like the food delivery robots.

"Kale" ya no thanks, I wouldnt trust any of their metrics.

You want walkable cities, then you fill the walking paths with huge cargo bikes. You assume most packages are small but even one large delivery could fill the entire bike. The bikes pictured are as long as a car. Weather. You would have to have a fully enclosed cargo hold to keep from ruining or at least making soggy every single package, every day. Sure, this method could work in very limited areas of the busiest cities, when the weather is great. That's an exceedingly small percentage of routes, a small percentage of the time, and is utterly impossible if that route ever has a handful of stops with large orders . Further, are they really assuming one cargo bike versus one cargo van? This isn't mail! This is office supplies, mail, residential item delivery, flatpack furniture, who knows what! You have no idea how much exercise cargo can delivery drivers get. They don't need or want more. Just take a look at those little mail trucks we have everywhere. The amount of walking they do and the volume of cargo they carry just delivering mail to neighborhoods is far in excess of the capacity of a cargo bike, and they most certainly do not just carry mail. They will ruin all the cargo every time they have to lift that cargo lid in the rain. Come on with this silliness. Electric is the answer, not cargo loads far in excess of the capacity on anything on 2 or 3 wheels.

Is Aptera sleeping?

it's almost June of 2024.......................

..........waiting for Aptera to announce the start of starting production.

Not an Aptera Owner Club.....................

HOW LONG IS THIS GOING TO TAKE!?!? - King Julian

..............still no debt deal................................

Aptera to maybe start production in 2026....................