Urban Mobility in Modern China by Dennis Zuev

Author:Dennis Zuev
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Photo 4.5Home-charging . E-bikes are charged in one of the central residential quarters in Shekou district in Shenzhen . The ground floor provide an advantage, but it is common to see the cables flying from upper floors and being left for charging the vehicles in rainy weather, March 2016

The battery is the most important element in enabling journeys of different groups of users. While the battery life extends for two years, the two-wheeler often stays with the owner for much longer. Express delivery couriers need to charge the battery every day. Family journeys of on average five km per day require one battery charge per week, e-bike taxi riders possess two or three batteries that are charged every day and swapped.

A distinct way of living with battery charging is demonstrated by e-bike rickshaws (see more in Chapter 5), which differs from normal users and supposes possession of several batteries that are swapped and charged at home while one is in use. As one of the key informants in Shenzhen explained, ‘we don’t charge when we work, one or two extra batteries at home and we swap them when the battery is dead.’ The battery life also determines the extent or range of the journey that e-bike rickshaws would be willing to perform. None of the interviewees in Shenzhen travelled more than 15 kilometres one way, which meant 30 kilometres return trip back to the usual base, depleting the vehicle of a third of its battery power. On the opposite side, an e-bike journey is more often a short dash, rather than a long trip. For instance, e-bike riders that provided the ‘last mile’ ride serviced a particular district, and were likely to stick close to home, where they swapped their battery . The battery was the main component that limited the work range of an informal e-bike transportation service; a situation similar to the EV taxi drivers in Shenzhen , who refused longer journeys, and even the lucrative trips to the city airport, due to technical limitations. There were also other practices of coping with work range and battery charging . An e-bike rickshaw in Chengdu, Sichuan province, explained, that instead of having two batteries he had two e-bikes, each having a large capacity battery and thus instead of swapping batteries he could simply swap the whole vehicle. In this particular case, the rider was working and living at the factory compound, having ample parking space for his two scooters and free charging facility for them.

The knowledge and competence related to charging is comprised of many aspects, such as safety: one has to be aware of elementary impacts, possess knowledge of one’s potential range, the length of the journeys that can be undertaken or indeed the suitability of different chargers for the particular kind of battery in a bike. The fast public e-bike chargers are not installed for profit but for complementing convenience and are valuable for their accessibility and ubiquity.

While knowledge about the charge and the battery , as

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