Coming from a place where I'd bike nine months of the year as my primary mode of transportation, I tried it in the bay area and got hit by a car after a few months. So I got a car, even though I'd much rather bike.
Most trips most people take with a car right now (EV or ICE) are close enough to bike. They are unpopular. There are a lot of disadvantages to explain why.
All the time. Perfectly fine to bike all year. That sentiment is so funny. Before heavy snow days the police and newspapers put out warnings not to drive. But those days it's perfectly fine to bike. Then a few hours later coworkers that drove ti work show up angry about the chaos. If anything, it's the cars that can't handle snow!
A bike ala a Tern cargo bike solves most of a family with kids needs where I live. (disclaimer, I'm not living in a car based society like the US). Then for hauling big stuff or something one just rents one of the share cars in the street for an hour or two.
To be clear, I ebike to work 9 miles each way year-round, including in rain and snow (not a lot of rain where I live, but plenty of snow in winter). I don't have kids though.
But I do live in the US where the city is fairly car-centric, and it is ludicrous to suggest as the person I first replied to did that a cargo e-bike is a full replacement for a short-range electric car like a Leaf. There are large commercial sections of my city that cannot be safely accessed by bike, as the only ways to get there include highway off-ramps that have a 12-inch shoulder, with concrete barriers to the right and cars going 50mph just a few feet to the left.
Few people would regularly bike on such a route with their children. Especially in inclement weather.
I can take care of 70% of my day to day life with my ebike. But for the remaining 30%, a car really is necessary. And that 20% is too frequent to rent, especially lacking the inexpensive carshare services of other countries.
> If a low range EV is enough 100% just buy a bike.
Pretending that a short-range electric vehicle is not useful because ebikes exist is just sticking one's head in the sand and pretending that people unlike oneself and locations unlike where one lives do not exist.
Very rarely actually and I don't have kids. I live in a small city and bicycles are the better mode vehicle for daily transportation. There are many reasons for someone to have a car: travel, heat waves, kids, etc. But the number 1 reason is because it is a symbol of status.
People will buy a car because otherwise they would be a low status male and they want to f#. Note that cars are expensive, I live in a poor country with absurd interest rates, so many are making debts that they will need a decade to get rid of, if ever, just so they can constitute a family.
Here at least car culture is squeezing the middle class into indebtedness and poverty and overcrowding the streets with cars and idiots, not a causal relation but a dangerous combination. Cars are great tools but f# car culture.
