Yes – electric bikes offer an environmentally-friendly alternative to driving a car, motorbike, or scooter. Whether you ride a regular or folding electric bike, you’ll not only improve your physical and mental health, but you’ll also probably reduce your carbon footprint. When you arrive at the office in the morning on your electric bike, having avoided the stop and start of the morning rush hour traffic, you can be confident that you’re contributing to the protection of the environment. Here are the main reasons why electric bikes are good for the environment.

Zero emissions

Electric bikes help you to reach your destination faster than a traditional bike with the aid of a motor, powered by a lithium-ion battery. The main environmental benefit of this battery-powered propulsion is that it does not emit any harmful emissions.

Air pollution is a significant problem in many of the UK’s cities, but it’s most serious in London. Despite measures taken to help clean up the capital’s air, it’s estimated that about 2 million Londoners are living in areas with illegally high levels of toxic fumes. The most prominent is nitrous oxide, emitted mainly from diesel cars – this noxious gas is damaging to the respiratory system, and contributes to an estimated 9,400 premature deaths every year as a result of bad air quality in London.

An electric bike does not emit any fumes, so riding one will contribute to fresher air (especially in urban areas) whilst helping you to get in shape.

Batteries

All of FuroSystems’ electric bikes use lithium-ion batteries. While there are legitimate concerns around the increasing use of lithium-ion batteries, they are the best option currently available. David Deak, chief technical officer of Lithium Americas and former Tesla employee sums up the situation well – “In the short term, the CO2 footprint from (lithium) hard rocks will be less than ideal – but it is still extremely important in offsetting the CO2 emissions that otherwise would come from internal combustion engines.”

While hydrogen cells might propel the bikes of the future, for the time being, lithium batteries are the most environmentally-friendly alternative to fossil fuels. Our batteries are rechargeable, durable, and have a range of up to 75 km per charge, meaning you can reach your destination without breaking a sweat.

Charging an electric bike

Electric bikes need to be charged regularly to help you whizz around the city streets. Whilst you’re helping to protect the environment just by riding an electric bike, you can further improve your green credentials by making some important decisions on how to charge its battery.

Renewable energy now accounts for around 33% of the National Grid’s total output and is set to increase. Due to the growing demand for clean energy, switching suppliers to a provider of renewable energy is not as expensive as it once was. If you make the jump to a renewable energy provider, you could be powering your bike with solar, wind, hydroelectric, or tidal energy.

A useful tip is to charge your bike overnight – demand for energy generally decreases during the quiet of the night, meaning that the power supplied is usually excess power produced by the National Grid. Using this energy is more environmentally friendly and cheaper than at other times of the day.

A green ride

Riding an electric bike is an environmentally-friendly way of getting from A to B. With zero emissions and a battery that can be charged over and over again with energy from renewable sources, the electric bike will help you to reduce your carbon footprint whilst improving your fitness. FuroSystems offers a range of electric bikes to suit different needs – why not check the eTura, the world’s lightest and most compact folding e-bike, or the Sierra, our mighty electric mountain bike? We have something for everyone!