Comparing a cargo bike to a new car only makes sense if that new car requires no fuel, no significant maintenance, no tax, and no insurance.
A $5k cargo bike it’s almost certainly a e-bike, additional cargo bikes haven’t really hit the manufacturing scale needed for automation to make sense. So there’s a significant amount of labour involved in effectively hand building, and hand welding these bikes. Something that simply isn’t true for cars.
I also don’t think there is much price gouging happening with cargo bikes. Unlike cars, the barrier to entry for new manufacturers is practically zero, so if it was easy to build new cargo bikes cheaper, someone would do it.
But even if there was significant price gouging involved. Economically, a $5k cargo bike will have a total cost of ownership orders of magnitude lower than a car, regardless of cars price.
There's a vicious cycle of automobile orientated development creating demand for cars. Cars are considered essential transportation tools. Bikes are considered nice to have recreational, fitness, or kids' toys. So people aren't willing to spend thousands on a bike unless it can replace a car.
You’re making some very big assumptions about “consumers” here. Unlike the U.S. most European cities have decent public transport, and a car isn’t seen as essential.
I live near central London, can easily afford a car, have a private location to park a car etc etc. But I don’t own a car, or consider a car essential, driving in London is simply the slowest, most expensive and stressful form of transport. I do however consider my bike an essential transport tool, alongside my Oyster card.
If we need a car, then we just rent one (and have it dropped off near our home). So we rent a car when going on trips out of London, or needing to move items that we can’t using our bikes.
> So people aren't willing to spend thousands on a bike unless it can replace a car.
That’s a very large assumption, you also make it sound like a bike can’t replace a car. Which simply isn’t true, for many European cities the opposite is true, a car can’t replace a bike.
situation is exactly reversed where I live. Car is a recreational luxury (get out of the city for a day, road trips). A bike is my essential day to day transportation.
The luxury status of cars is cemented by the wide availability of car rental apps that mean I have a car or van always available for the few times a year I need it for a trip to ikea or whatever.
Privately owned vehicles should be banned from city centres.
> So there’s a significant amount of labour involved in effectively hand building (...)
I call bullshit on that take. Some brands sell electric cargo trikes for around $1k, while other brands sell their cargo bikes for >5k. You can buy a brand new Opel Rocks Electric for 3k more than a cargo bike. Are we expected to believe that an electric mini car is less labour intensive than a bike frame with a bucket and a COTS electric motor? Unbelievable.
This where automation and scale make a huge difference. A bike can absolutely be more labour intensive to build a single unit than a car, especially when said car is being built by a company with expertise in design for manufacture, and production automation.
Cars a built using huge injection moulded plastics components that are trivial to automate at scale, and metal bodies carefully crafted to make automated assembly trivial. Plus there will be a huge investment into fixtures and assembly processes that effectively reduce the human labour to little more than biological end effectors. Little operator skill or experience is needed for high productivity.
Compare that to bike frames which haven’t been optimised to automated mass production, and where manual welding is primary construction methodology. I can absolutely guarantee that a vaguely welder costs substantially more than someone that just needs to operate a fancy screwdriver. Welding requires significant skill and experience to do productivity, and compensated appropriately. Welders aren’t trivially fungible, screw driver operators are.
If don’t think that labour is the reason for the cost of cargo bikes. Then why don’t make contribution and tells us where you think the cost comes from, and why competitors haven’t sprung up to reduce that cost and make a killing.
I'm sure you could recruit the same bike frame welders in China/Taiwan to make a bike for you. There are some that are willing to make custom modifications on demand for a very reasonable price. If they can do that for one-off welded bikes, then making a standardized cargo frame is absolutely doable for a reasonable budget.
Sure, there's more material, more bending, more welds, and it'll cost more, but you could certainly do that within reason. Like much of the bike industry, these markups are rooted in a foundation of bullshit.
A $5k cargo bike it’s almost certainly a e-bike, additional cargo bikes haven’t really hit the manufacturing scale needed for automation to make sense. So there’s a significant amount of labour involved in effectively hand building, and hand welding these bikes. Something that simply isn’t true for cars.
I also don’t think there is much price gouging happening with cargo bikes. Unlike cars, the barrier to entry for new manufacturers is practically zero, so if it was easy to build new cargo bikes cheaper, someone would do it.
But even if there was significant price gouging involved. Economically, a $5k cargo bike will have a total cost of ownership orders of magnitude lower than a car, regardless of cars price.