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Canada’s tariff wall on Chinese electric vehicles is deepening dependence on the U.S.
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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Easy solutions to all of these complaints:
Panniers, baskets, racks, cargo bikes if you have very large grocery runs
Wear a rain coat, put fenders on the bike
Wear warm clothes
Go for a bike ride with your friend, or call them a cab if they are not capable of it
Rent a car, take a bus or train, or if you are feeling frisky, do an extra long bike ride there and stay overnight
All your concerns are very easily addressed, but still glosses over the fact that nobody has said that you should sell your car and do everything by bike. Replace the trips you can with bike rides and you will have more joy in your life while also helping the environment.
That only works in the most urban locations. There is no way I am getting anywhere with a bike where I live. Even my horse would be a better choice but also that is impossible.
If you truly live in an area too remote to access any shops or services by bicycle or e-bike, then my post is not meant for you. Most people in Canada live in urban areas and are capable of replacing some car trips with bicycle trips.
Ages ago I used to live downtown. I was biking even less. It’s not safe most of the time. Let alone when hauling stuff. Very few people would actually be able to (mostly) replace a car with a bike. There are also many issues (time, physical abilities etc.) with actual meaningful use of bikes. I am not talking the odd bike ride to get a new book or so. Our country, climate, society and city design isn’t made for lots of biking. Should you bike as much as you can? Sure but it’s not a viable sub for cars.
I do agree we need more bicycle infrastructure but commuting and shopping by bike are very doable for many different kinds of people. I know this because I do it and I see others do it every day.
Most car trips are under 5 km. That is a distance that could be easily covered by bike in about 15 to 20 minutes. I think a lot of people could replace a lot of car trips with bike trips without much issue at all.
You clearly have not ever ridden a bike in winter.
I ride my bike every winter, it's really not a big deal if you wear warm clothes. The biggest issues arise when cities dont plow bike paths
I do have a both a bike and a car. Basically everything I do is better done with the car. Cheaper, easier, faster, more comfortable.
Its cheaper to drive than ride a bike? I highly doubt that. Perhaps you should try an e-buke though. You may find that far easier, faster, and more comfortable than a regular bicycle and depending on where you live, it may be faster than a car too.
Regardless, the point isn't necessarily to be doing the thing that is always the most convenient and most comfortable, the point is making choices that are good for the environment and good for both mental and physical health.
The comment I'm responding to said:
In this scenario I have both a car and a bike on hand. The car's been paid for. The insurance is being paid for regardless of whether I'm using it at any given moment. So the only expense is gas.
"That's still more expensive than driving a bike!" You might respond. To which I counter: is your personal time and effort worthless? How much is an extra hour of your time spent pedalling a bike worth to you? It's worth a lot more to me than the cost of the gas I'd spend making the trip an hour quicker.
The point is people making choices for me.
You go ahead and ride a bike around if you want to. Don't make the choice for me. You don't know me, you don't know my circumstances and priorities and preferences.
Nobody is making choices for you. You make your own choices to drive, I am just saying that you can make another choice that would be better for the environment, better for your health, and far cheaper than buying an EV.
I find the time and effort spent riding a bike to get places pretty enjoyable and I think a lot of other people too do. Plus it means less time needed at the gym. I dont know where you live, but most people live within 5 km of grocery stores, shops, etc. Which is maybe a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, not an hour. I somehow doubt an extra ten or fifteen minutes to go somewhere is going to ruin your day.
The story is literally about tariffs on cars.
Of course I can. I could choose to walk everywhere barefoot. I'm not going to, though, for the reasons I've explained.
I don't spend time in a gym anyway. I am fit enough and I have better uses of my time and money. Most people don't go to a gym.
In other comments in this thread I've mentioned there's a grocery store very close to where I live, it's about 5 minutes to bike there. But I don't, because even when the weather is nice I still need to haul groceries.
So its not a time issue for you? You just dont want to carry groceries on your bike?
I physically can't carry the groceries on my bike. You're making a lot of assumptions about people here.
Panniers? Baskets? Trailers? E-bikes? You already said you have a bike so unless you cant ride it, there are plenty of solutions to that problem
You have no idea how much groceries I purchase.
This whole thread you've been telling me all about what I should be doing with my time, my resources, my life. You know nothing about it but you're keen to tell me how I should live it. Have I told anyone "no, you should ditch your bike and use a car instead?" No. People should use whatever form of transportation works best for them, based on their own needs and opinions.
You've just been listing reasons why you cant ride a bike for anything. Just say you dont want to ride a bike.
Here's the comment where I acknowledge that yes, I physically could ride a bike. I could spend hours out of my day pumping pedals to haul cargo around. It would be exhausting and waste a ton of time but I could theoretically do it.
What else do you want me to do? You seem very free to tell me what I should be doing with my time and effort, what else am I doing wrong with my life that you know better about?
Or maybe my time and comfort is worth more to me than satisfying you, and that's fine because different people have different priorities. Go ahead and pedal everywhere, let neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop you. It stops me. If you want me to bike everywhere then you'll need to offer some kind of solution to those things, the way that cars already solve them for me.
I've just read through this exchange between @Mavvik@lemmy.ca and yourself. It is rather humorous the assumptions being made.
You've said you live minutes from the grocers, then go on to change the argument stating you'd be riding hours a day more than you could drive. Comparing an apple to an orchard is a touch disingenuous. You are right in that it's arduous to do a big shop on a bike. But when living within a stone's throw of the most commonly visited store, you just go every few days instead of twice a month. Being so close, it's hardly a more time consuming venture.
It's all good though, you keep driving. Honestly this post is a poor place to try and get people interested in replacing car trips with bike trips. Though when it comes to a "waste of time", it does bring to mind the difference in life expectancy between the inner city driver and bicyclist.
The grocers are not the only place I go. Today I actually spent two hours driving to and from a roleplaying game I play with a group of friends, for example. I give a lift for one of them, and pick up food for the rest on the way there. This would have been impossible on a bike.
You're being rather free with adding a bunch of things to my schedule, aren't you? How do you know I have time to do a grocery trip every few days? Once again, I have more things going on in my life than travelling to and from a grocery store.
There's no malice here. I wasn't saying you specifically should be making smaller and more frequent stops at the grocery. I was only meaning that's how it's done when not getting such a large quantity of food at once.
Your example of picking up a friend is perfectly valid. That takes a more specific bike set up than something standard with a rack on the back - at least to do comfortably. Beyond teenage years, I don't see people doubling up on handlebars anymore. That said, there are many 'off the shelf' solutions available for transporting both a shopping trolley worth of groceries and an additional person across a city. Saying something is 'impossible' is a little short sighted.
I'm sure driving about works just fine for your lifestyle specifically. For myself, it takes longer to drive across my city than to ride to the same destination. I wasn't trying to talk you into trading your car for a bike. I was only making a suggestion about the most common trip people take in case you hadn't thought of it.
I don't mean this rudely, but it's not as though you and I know one another personally. I have no vested interest in what you do. I was just chiming in to share an alternative perspective. After all, isn't variety is the spice of life?
Cheers
You said exactly that. You also said I was being disingenuous.
I see why my comment gave that impression. When I wrote:
I wasn't using 'you' in the specific, I was using it in the general sense. I should have written "one just goes". That would've made my meaning more clear. If I had said it verbally it would have been obvious by inflection, though text is so often a poor analog for speech.
Anyway, insofar as the disingenuity, yes. Making a straw man argument is disingenuous. Talking specifically about grocery trips then shoehorning in every other errand under the sun isn't a good faith argument.
Regardless, it's good of you to give a lift to friends to go meet the group. One less car on the road contributing to traffic congestion.
And as I've said in other comments, going to the grocery store isn't the only thing I do in my life. Not everything is about the exact circumstances of how I keep the pantry stocked. I do a lot of things with my time so every use of that time is a tradeoff against those other things. If it takes an extra hour each week to shop for groceries, that's an hour I don't get to spend on other things that I value. I'm not a grocery-shopping robot designed only for grocery shopping.
I'd buy one of those if they were available, frankly, and thus save even more of my personal time to do things I consider more important. And then people would complain at me even more about the resources I was "wasting." But they're my resources and at a certain point having people telling me I'm bad and wrong for how I use them gets offensive.
You aren't unique in this. Everyone does things beyond grocery shopping. I don't see suggestions that you should take to the dentist, the hardware store, the cinema all on a bike. It's all been about something we all do: groceries. If you took the bike to pick up the milk, your car doesn't get sold out from under you while you're away. If you like pens and use a pencil to sketch something, it doesn't mean you can never use pens again.
Going on about all the other things a car benefits you for is irrelevant when the conversation being had was about one specific circumstance. Now I'm not sure what to think about your statement on going for groceries two or three times a week would cost you an extra hour. If you live so close to the shop, that surely wouldn't be the case. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes I'd figure, unless you're spending quite some time in the store? I'm in and out in ten minutes going a couple times a week because I'm not filling the pantry in one go.
At multiple points in this thread, suggestions have been flatly rejected for reasons of false 'impossibility' and other responsibilities procluding car alternatives. None of what's been suggested has been meant to have you sell your car and solely go with a bike. Replacing one or two trips a week on a bike is fine and reasonable, and very possible for anyone living within a short distance of something as common as a grocery store.
Now I will take a note from @Mavvik@lemmy.ca and bid you adieu. But if nothing else, consider you may be best served in hiring a delivery service in lieu of shopping yourself. Or perhaps toss the car in the river and get a real grocery-getter.
And worse for your health.
You don't know me. I spend an hour each day walking my dog, I get plenty of exercise.