I’ve always been fascinated by these things. When you think of the relatively miniscule amount of energy it takes for a cyclist to move along at 30km/hr, or an ebiker to move along at twice that speed, it’s absolutely insane that we use 4000lb cars to move us just a bit faster still.
If we were all to drive around in 100lb electric velomobiles with speed limits capped at around 80km/hr, everything would work better. There would be fewer safety issues, road maintenance would become almost negligible, and traffic and parking would be largely solved
Obviously, highway vehicles and towing and delivery would all still be a thing, so this would need a completely separate road network and is basically impossible, but man are cars overkill for getting us from a to b.
Fun fact: Road wear correlates with the 4th power of axle load. Which means a 3 ton pickup truck puts as much wear on the road as 160000 Velomobiles would.
It also means that on any road used by semi trucks, the wear from all other vehicles is a negligible rounding error.
While I get the concept there’s no way their numbers are accurate, 18.6 mph on flat ground on a “normal bicycle” should take less than 200 watts easily
