E-cargo bikes: how does a bike-car hybrid negotiate vélomobility and automobility in the UK?

Electric micromobilities, and specifically electric (e-)cargo bikes, are technological solutions with great potential to transform mobility, particularly in specific geographies: peri-urban and suburban areas with their high car ownership and use. E-cargo bikes are viewed as combining positive aspects of both cycles and cars – they should appeal to those who want to actively transport cargo and children or passengers as part of their everyday mobilities. However, such novel transport modes must break into already existing and to some degree obdurate social and material infrastructures (i.e. mobility systems) of automobility and vélomobility. We analyse data from interviews with households who were lent e-cargo bikes for between one and seven months, to investigate how a novel hybrid transport mode negotiates geographies and systems that have evolved in the context of other transport modes. These include: the ‘hardware’ of home, route (roads, cycle paths, bridleways and towpaths) and destination geographies, and storage, parking and charging infrastructures and spaces; and the ‘software’ of mobility regulations and identities. We suggest that the e-cargo bike as a new hybrid mode cannot hope to supplant existing dominant mobility systems, or expect to immediately establish its own mobility system de novo, but that its specific qualities offer hope for both extending cycling, and replacing much driving practice. We also suggest how policy makers can further support their mainstreaming, and what it would mean to construct a hybrid auto-vélomobility system that could supplant the existing mobility systems, in the context of electrification and climate goals.