Bikes are ok outside streets, but pretty dangerous on streets.

Motorcycles are way faster bikes that are mainly for streets. Truly death traps

So if rural people aren’t maintaining their vehicles, what are they doing? Obviously they are and you’re being silly. There are cars that when correctly maintained, have kept running for the entire history that cars have existed.

Great to see you have such an informed take on two wheeled vehicles. The issue with two wheels isn’t engineering, it’s public perception, fuelled by dumb takes like yours. Obviously we have to change what people perceive as viable personal transport.

The solution of two wheels in the EV space is quickly obvious. Most car journeys are a single person. You don’t need a 2 ton box to carry one person places.

When solving for the limiting factors of electric drive systems, you need to minimize resistances. Two wheels is less rolling resistance, less weight, and adding an enclosure, less air resistance. Put the rider in a recumbent riding position and place the batteries underneath, you have an incredibly stable, low friction, light, personal EV that maximizes your effective range while being simple, cheap, accessible. The enclosed nature makes the rider as safe as they would be in a car in case of an accident, and you’re as weather resistant too. Obviously families, workmen etc still need 4 wheels but as I said most car journeys are for a single person. These could be made for two people also.

2 things here.

First, motorcycles have a better fuel economy than cars, but they also produce more harmful emissions than a car because their smaller engines burn fuel less completely/efficiently, and there are fewer (if any) laws mandating tailpipe emissions standards for motorcycles.

Second, with all the entitled morons on the road who consider a few seconds of inconvenience more important than your life, who can’t put down their fucking cell phone, check their mirrors or use their turn signals, I consider it only a matter of time until a car accident happens. Motorcyclists lose every time they tangle with cars, and car drivers are a lot less aware of motorcycles, and more likely to get in an accident with them than other cars. Good luck.

I lived in Heidelberg, with a population density of 1500/km², so about 4x the density of your place. There was a robust bus system, tram system, commuter train system, and then of course Germany’s regional and intercity train systems. There were also plenty of public rental bikes and bike lanes. I could go anywhere in or around the city quite easily and quickly, as well as any other city in Germany (or the EU, for that matter). Trams had a frequency of about 10-15 minutes, rapid buses about the same, the bus stops by my house had a frequency of 20 minutes. There were suburbs up the river which also had phenomenal bus and commuter train access directly to the city and elsewhere.

The American town I live in now has a density of 900/km² and about ⅓ the population of Heidelberg. We just got our first bus last year and it runs in a loop once per hour. The train station was demolished decades ago.

I also lived in Sejong, with a population density of about 750/km², so about 2x your place. In addition to dedicated bike lanes on every major road and very large sidewalks, there was a extensive bus system and a very efficient rapid bus loop system as well. The rapid buses had a frequency of about 10 minutes and could take me to the other side of the city in about 15 minutes. The smaller buses also had a high frequency of about 15-20 minutes, depending on the bus. The train station in sejong is still under construction but it was a ~30 min rapid bus line ride to either of two train stations in neighboring cities to take me anywhere in South Korea.

Some of the other Korean cities with densities somewhat higher than Sejong, like Daejon which is about 2700/km², have really incredible subway/metro systems too.

In Germany, the nearby cities of Stuttgart (3000/km²) and Frankfurt (3100/km²) also had great subway systems, in addition to the buses, trams, bike lanes, and commuter trains.

The commuter and regional trains serve also the purpose of connecting much smaller towns and villages, which are far less dense but still served by good bus systems and such.

I do agree that America has sprawled so much as to make the transition more difficult. But great density-appropriate public transit is possible at low density.

Yes, I was agreeing with you. That was the point of my reply.

can you tell me what year you went vegan? feel free to point to it on this chart.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-meat-production