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California EBike Incentive’s Disaster Rollout

When Climate Action meets Tech meets Social Justice

By David Abramson

Unnamed

The California Air Resources Board alongside Pedal Ahead, a San Diego-based 501c3 whose stated goal is to ‘foster a transportation system that is both environmentally friendly and accessible to all’ just launched their first program to provide up to $2000 for 1500 low-income folks to purchase eBikes, called the California eBike Incentive Project.

They announced the launch of the program to the public via what appeared to be a quite sizable multi-channel marketing campaign, with applications set to open on Wednesday, December 18 at 6PM. Fanfare and nervous, excited anticipation presumably ensued.

As the local neighborhood techie, I supported a friend and their sibling in shooting their shot to be one of the lucky 1500. First off, my friend’s family comes from a disadvantaged background and economic status for whom this program was presumably intended, and truly needed the money in order to be able to buy an eBike so she and her sibling were quite excited about the prospect of getting support for this!

I knew the odds were stacked against them once I saw how this program was going to go down, but we worked towards having the best chance possible to make it in.

We sat early in the morning on the computers, reviewing and preparing their documents to support the application, and reading instructions carefully. I advised them to be on the computer well before 6PM, and once the clock struck the hour, to click that ‘Apply Now’ button as fast as humanly possible. Arrangements were made for childcare. Music like Eye of the Tiger, and The Final Countdown may have been played on loud-speaker, and images conjured of Rocky Balboa climbing those steps.

Apparently thousands or maybe even millions of others had the same idea because that evening as my friend and her sister enthusiastically counted down the seconds until 6PM and clicked the apply button, they were added to the wait-list queue with an estimated wait time of 1 hour. 

Being on the line with my friend, I also tried to get into the application via my phone, and it didn’t work, and instead just caused a refresh of the page. I called the hotline, and they said that there absolutely was not a bug, and that things were working properly. Okay then!

Back to my friend – after about 1 hour of waiting patiently, juggling babies, checking on the food, holding phones, feeding babies, and handling regular Wednesday evening responsibilities, they were unceremoniously booted out of the system with no explanation, given a generic message like ‘Applications are now closed, thanks for trying!’

I have since heard several accounts of this exact thing happening to others, and have not heard from a single person who successfully made it through the application, though presumably somebody got through!

As someone who works in tech, and more specifically within designing inclusive, accessible technology web systems, I could see this disaster happening from a mile away yet could do nothing to stop it, like watching a trainwreck in slow motion.

To even create a program like this where the proposed plan is to open up a web portal at 6PM with a first-come-first-served basis for a lucky 1500 people (out of 7.3M low-income Californians who would qualify) is a horrible way to design a program for disadvantaged communities who most need the money to buy ebikes. First come-first serve works great for hot soup and hotel rooms, but not so great for equitable distribution of goods or benefits designed for low-income folks. I thought this would be obvious by now to people who have millions of dollars of budget to study these things.

Also, who exactly has the combination of time at 6PM on a weekday, access to high speed internet, and web-savviness to know how to beat the rush to be one of the first 1500?

My proposed answer is some combination of:

  • People with time
  • Young internet-savvy people who grew up with tech
  • Grad students,
  • People who are low-income-by-choice
  • Single people without kids or evening family/work responsibilities or those able to afford childcare so they can sit on the computer for some number of hours
  • People like me,
  • Botnets controlled by scammers, Russians, or other group who wants either an eBike or some piece of $3M of resale value.

I'm not saying the system got compromised in this way, but from working on building and testing large-scale tech systems, I know that it's incredibly easy now to program a bot (or a million bots) from unique IP addresses to click the button within a micro-second of the time the application went live, and completely jam up the system and beat out actual requests of people who the program was intended for.

The rollout looked more like a sideshow sweepstakes give-away than a well-thought-out plan and tech-build to address the highest needs for disadvantaged communities, as was specified and glorified in the marketing of the website and program literature, as well as countless California government official election promises.

Hopefully the folks implementing the Cal eBike Incentive learn from this mistake and do better next time, considering the complexity and interaction of technical and non-technical elements of planning a meaningful give-away. Given that this is a government program, I won’t hold my breath but I WILL BE available for recommendations and/or consultation should they choose to hear me out on this one!

Respectfully,
David Abramson

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Comments

21 responses to “California EBike Incentive’s Disaster Rollout”

  1. Tuvia ben Olam DBA Todd Edelman

    Funding for this was approved about 3 years ago and it was supposed to roll out a year ago, though at the time there was a very small soft launch.
    Pedal ahead is as I understand it’s still under investigation for some ethical issues.
    In addition to everything you said, a big problem is that a lot of lower income folks live in modest apartments with no to very minimal bicycle parking. That includes Davis, where an update to bike parking standards has been on the long range calendar of the transportation commission for as long as 5 years or so.
    I brought this up as a general issue to the organizer several times over the past few years, but they’ve done nothing to address it. There’s a statewide bicycle parking update in the works, but it only applies to new builds
    The only requirements in Davis are for a certain number of bike parking stalls per resident or per amount of commercial square footage. E-Bikes are not only more expensive than other bikes but they’re more available for vandalism.
    It’s not great to leave bikes with disc brakes outside.
    For further reading:
    https://cal.streetsblog.org/2024/12/20/e-bike-incentive-launch-a-mess
    https://bikinginla.com/2024/12/19/ca-ebike-incentive-launch-just-this-side-of-a-total-shitshow-and-hollywood-blvd-may-be-safer-but-business-owners-hate-it/

    Reply
  2. Tuvia bOdbaTE

    One extra note about City of Davis bicycle parking standards: The only mandate is for apartments which have been built since around 12 years ago, the time of the most recent update in the ordinance.
    Some apartment complexes have had updated parking in the interim, but it’s mostly about the style of racks.

    Reply
  3. Ron O

    If someone (especially a young person) needs an electric bike to pedal around Davis, they probably need medical intervention.
    In any case, I’m also not surprised at the result. You can probably look for “almost new” bikes to show up on places like Craigslist, soon.
    By the way, I recently saw a news report regarding the unexpectedly-large fire risk of e-bikes (and anything else with a lithium-ion battery). (Really large fires emanating from those batteries.) Parking these things inside of an apartment complex (e.g., while charging them) creates at least some risk.

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  4. Tuvia ben Olam DBA Todd Edelman

    Ron: Check out the Campus Travel Survey in regards to that, rather large niche: in regards to the east side of town, most people don’t cycle from east of Pole Line. E-Bikes would make a big difference here.
    Sometimes it’s necessary to cycle all the way across town… This can still take nearly a half hour by e-bike.
    All of the grade separated crossings except for Putah Creek/Arboretum have a gradient well above Dutch best practice and also somewhat higher than recent designs in California for active transportation infrastructure — they are difficult, especially for people carrying cargo and children. Again, e-bikes make a big difference here.
    There was tremendous desire for this program, and undoubtedly some people will eventually sell the bikes after a year or give them to other family members.

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  5. George Galamba

    Two thousand dollars? My e-biike cost about a quarter of that and works fine.

    Reply
  6. Ron O

    Todd: I suspect that no matter what is done with bicycles (in any form), it’s not going to make much difference at this point. Students use them, for sure. Families/others, not as much. The reason being that they’re only for one person, can’t carry much, are exposed to weather and darkness, can’t go beyond town, etc. Also, Davis is increasingly aging, and those folks don’t travel much at all in the first place (let alone on bicycles – in any form).
    Also, not everyone is going to campus. Lots of households include those who travel to Sacramento, etc. But it is interesting how long it takes (as you noted) to travel across town via e-bikes. And yet, the fiction that is being presented regarding the proposed Covell Village and Shriner’s developments is that these people will be taking public transit or bikes to campus. (And that no one in their household goes anywhere other than to campus.)
    Dense housing on the outskirts of Davis would primarily be occupied by students, who wouldn’t have as far to go if UCD housed them.
    The other fiction that is presented is that folks will move from places like Woodland, abandon their cars, and move to a less-convenient, more dense, more expensive, and smaller house almost as far from campus as Woodland is (and certainly more hassle to get to campus). And that they’ll be using bicycles and public transportation to get to the “only” location they travel to (campus). And yet, this fabrication it the underlying claim being put forth by the Davis Community Action Network, in support of dense housing on the periphery of Davis.
    I’ve seen plenty of people traveling from Davis to Costco (including students). (Sometimes, students arrive in small groups.)
    I do want an e-bike someday, myself. (Essentially an electric motorcycle.) Of course, they’re already causing environmental damage in parks that are open to mountain bikes, and I fully expect they’ll be increasingly-regulated.
    In the hands of kids in particular, I’ve already seen that they endanger pedestrians. Also, it would be interesting to see if accidents on campus increase, as a result of these things. (As it is, some students can’t even handle the speed of normal bicycles. I recall reading that every year, there’s collisions on campus – especially at the start of the new school year.)
    I have to kind of laugh at the new law which prohibits parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk, as I’m pretty sure that this won’t make much difference regarding bicyclists (mostly students) blowing-through stop signs. (Though I’d have to say that most UCD students aren’t as aggressive regarding that, as I’ve seen in places like San Francisco. Partly because of the flat terrain, which requires an effort to maintain speed.)

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  7. Alan C. Miller

    This is just wrong. By the first paragraph I could see that this was a government agency creating essentially another state lottery, and RO’s speculation that these would soon be on-line for sale is spot on.
    Government programs such as this – where they should exist at all – should offer equal benefits to all, not large benefit to a few ‘lucky’ people. This is immoral and unethical – and stupid – and the ARB should be investigated for even proposing such a thing.

    Reply
  8. Alan C. Miller

    E-bikes are a real conundrum in themselves. While they add to mobility and the last mile solution, they: 1) Take away from one of the greatest advantages of bicycles – health with exercise while traveling; 2) Create parking issues with their size and addition to ‘bikes’ without new spaces; 3) Create safety issues as their drivers are often more unsafe than experienced bicycle riders — and their extra weight can be more deadly in a collision with a pedestrian or bicyclist; 4) There is no new infrastructure for them – so they weave between bike lanes and car lanes despite the fact ‘difference in speed’ is a leading cause of collisions; 5) For some unknown reason, a majority of their riders pass slower bicycles on the right, despite this being incredibly unsafe.

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  9. Darell

    Alan: are you aware of the three classes of E-bikes? I was pondering this question as I rode my un-assisted e-bike home from town just now, getting a far better workout than anybody riding the same speed on their acoustic bike with the same amount of assist.
    I’m still amazed at the assumptions and un-knowledge of e-bikes that persists. It seems that most folks think that e-bike means “throttle-assisted.” I own two e-bikes today. A class 1, and a class 3. Neither one of them has a throttle. Both MUST be pedaled or pushed to move at all. Both can offer a far better workout than any non e-bike. And I ride both of them non-assisted about as much as I ride them with assist. (not throttle…. assist).
    My e-bikes take ZERO extra space beyond what a non-assisted bike would take. In the case of both of my e-bikes, there exists an exact acoustic version…. and it is the same bike. Just without a battery and motor. The. Same. Bike.
    I’ve ridden acoustic bikes for 57 years now. And for most of those years I rode faster (and farther!) than I do now riding mostly my e-bikes.
    “So they weave…. ” generalize much?
    “A majority of their riders pass on the right“…. Anecdote much?
    I mean… I get it. I get annoyed at idiots on bikes as well. I also get annoyed at idiots walking. And I’m terrified of idiots driving. But the key here is that I get annoyed at idiots. That they may or may not be on an e-bike shouldn’t be the main point. And your bias against e-bikes (I have to assume only class 2 e-bikes) has led to some wildly illogical conclusions and statements here.

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  10. Ron O

    Darell: I’m going to wait until they do-away with pedals entirely, before I get one. 🙂
    Sort of like they did with motorized mopeds, which were popular in places like S.F. for awhile. (Not sure if they even make those, anymore.)
    Let’s face it – these are becoming “fake motorcycles”. (I’ve heard that Harley Davidson is moving toward electric motorcycles, now.) (Which may not quite fit with the image.)

    Reply
  11. Alan C. Miller

    DDD, I have no knowledge of e-bikes, and clearly I could do more to understand them, not even knowing classes. I don’t really understand much of what you said about throttle or class or workout relativity — I think I’d need a demo or a YouTube at least.
    Anecdote, bias? Maybe. I’m not going to spend the money to do a survey. But clearly there’s been a great rise in speed differential with e-bikes and scooters, and a great rise in these new machines using sidewalks, roads and bike lanes in much greater numbers than bikes did.
    You can question my observations as non-scientific. Before about 7-8 years ago, almost everything out there was a manual bike, and usually people passed me on the left, even going out in the car lane if they were going faster. Now, I am frequently passed by machines that are powered, and they almost always pass on my right where I am not expecting them, and the speed differential is greater, and my mirror is on the left. This greatly increases the chance of a crash.
    “I could be wrong, but I’m not, no I’m not” — The Eagles

    Reply
  12. darell

    There are many, many confusing aspects to the whole e-bike thing. It is easier to be confused, than it is to understand it. In the Netherlands, e-bikes are referred to as “fat bikes” because so many look like little mopeds with fat tires. In Davis we may have just as many illegal motorized bicycle things as we have legal e-bikes. And then we have the actual different legal classes of e-bikes that few know or understand… and it is ONE of these classes that I think is causing most of the (legal) consternation. All of this contributes to the confusion. If it has two wheels and an electric motor, folks logically wish to call all of these “e-bikes.” In fact, I also see electric motorcycles called e-bikes. And why not? Everybody is riding a bike, everybody is a “biker” right?
    While I try not to take any of this personally, it is amazing to see how often people disparage those of us who ride legal ebikes in a reasonable fashion. People have gone so far as to call me “lazy” and have asked why I don’t want to “exercise.” The ignorance and ableism is sometimes shocking, and often overwhelming.
    I don’t have a car available to me on the weekdays. I do 100% of my daily errands by bike.

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  13. Alex Baldwin

    I was in the system queue 20 minutes before the portal opened. It said the page would refresh once the portal opens and it did at 6pm sharp. However, the queue message said the wait time was over 1 hour. I waited for ~40 minutes after that until it finally said the application windows closed. Not sure who got there first and what time the “pre-queue” system started, but I have a feeling that the people who work at CARB and possibly the people who run the portal got in cahoots with people who were actually able to submit their applications.

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  14. South of Davis

    darell asks:

    everybody is a “biker” right?
    People on bicycles are “cyclists” people on motorcycles are “motorcyclists” and “bikers” are the 1% of motorcyclsts that will walk into a “biker bar” wearing a “1% patch” (if anyone doed not blieve me they can walk up to a guy with a diamond 1% patch wearing lycra and a Davis Double Centuty jersey and say “Hi I’m a Biker just like You”…
    The ignorance and ableism is sometimes shocking,
    and often overwhelming.
    The number of people “able” to make it from South Davis to Davis High on an electric bike but can NOT make it on a regular bike due to some kind of disability rounds to zero (LESS than 1%). An electric bike won’t help most “handicapable” people in wheelchairs (but typing “handicapable” made the use of the term “abelism” seem less annoying).
    P.S. I was happy to read that David is aware that “Botnets controlled by scammers, Russians, or other group who wants either an eBike or some piece of $3M of resale value.” are out there and I’m betting that (like “most” government programs) only a tiny percentage of the money actually helped someone. I ride my (non electric) bikes almost every day (it is not raining) and I wish more people would ride (even electric bikes) since every year of my life I have seen the populatation get fatter and less fit. I’m complaining that I can’t get my 5K time under 22 minutes or beat my kids to the bottom of KT22 on powder days now that I am over 60 when most of my friends arecomplaining about getting ouy of bed, walking up stairs and bending over to pick stuff off the ground…

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  15. Darell

    “The number of people “able” to make it from South Davis to Davis High on an electric bike but can NOT make it on a regular bike due to some kind of disability rounds to zero (LESS than 1%). ”
    Where does this come from? A hunch? Common knowledge? Assumption?
    I’m curious to learn more about how this is known. I don’t recall being polled. And perhaps it would surprise you to learn that I’m (on bad days) one of the people in that category. Does this mean I get to wear the 1% patch? I certainly feel more special now.
    Maybe most importantly: What is the point about pointing out this 1% minority thing? Is this what grants me acceptance to use an assisted bicycle?
    And for the record, this lazy guy even rides in the rain.

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  16. South of Davis

    Over Christmas I saw well over 100 people and of the people that “could” ride an electric bike around Davis there was not a single one (0%) that could not ride a “regular” bike around Davis (my one year old grandnephew won’t be jumping on an an electric bike anytime soon). My Mom took both my kids to UCNS from South of Davis over the bike bridge towing them in the double Burley behind my wife’s college (triple chainring) mountain bike (with the under the chain stays XT U Brake) when she was in her 70’s. I’m a “pro choice on everything” libertarian and don’t care what anyone rides (I hope Darell knows I’m fine if he rides a regular bike, electric bike or even a Harley). I’m just pointing out that few people “need” an electric bike to get around Davis (that is pretty flat and has lots of bike paths). As I get older I’m also noticing that the guys that still ride bikes are in a LOT better shape than the guys that don’t (a friend was getting close to twice what he weighed in High School and durring Covid I talked him into getting a Peloton, and cutting back on sugar and carbs and he is down 100 pounds three years later)…

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  17. Alan C. Miller

    “a friend was getting close to twice what he weighed in High School and durring Covid I talked him into getting a Peloton, and cutting back on sugar and carbs and he is down 100 pounds three years later”
    That rarely works, but good on you for risking your friendship to save your friend’s life, or at least make it one hell of a lot more live-able.

    Reply
  18. South of Davis

    Alan, as I mentioned I don’t care what other people do, eat or ride. I only helped this friend (that I’ve known for over 50 years) after he begged me to after talking to my Dad at his Dad’s funeral. Both of our Dad’s were around 300 pounds when they had strokes in their 70’s but my Dad bounced back and lost “over” 100 pounds pretty much eliminating sugar and alcohol from his diet. When my Dad was scuba diving in Mexico with his grandkids 5 years after his stroke my friend’s Dad was dying in a rest home. For most of my life I thought that I was thinner than most people due to excercising more than most people but now I think that it has more to do with the fact that I never had much of a sweet tooth (as a kid I wouls skip the M&Ms and eat peanuts if I had a choice) and was never a big drinker (at high school and college parties I would have a beer and refil the can with water every time I went to the bathroom).

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  19. darell

    I wonder why we (generally) don’t talk like this about all the people who are in cars needlessly? How many of THOSE folks need a car to get around Davis? Are we holding those who ride bikes to a higher standard for some reason?
    If I were driving a car instead of riding an e-bike I wouldn’t even be part of this conversation. (well, that’s probably not true. I still needed to correct some inaccurate assumptions!). There are many reasons that I choose to ride an e-bike as my main way to get around. And indeed one of them is to ensure that I get exercise. But the main reason is just to allow me to travel from place to place regardless of my condition, and regardless of the weather conditions. The same reason that the vast majority of Davis residents use a car.
    Happy New year!

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  20. Alan C. Miller

    DDD: “I wonder why we (generally) don’t talk like this about all the people who are in cars needlessly?”
    I pretty much agree with the sentiment. My issue with ebikes is really more about any of the large powered vehicles, really more scooters and their ilk, that now share the bike lanes, with little thought or enforcement about the safety of bike lines with powered, faster vehicles now in the space.

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  21. Brit

    29 April 2025: I am so angry. I was successfully in the waiting-room queue for approximately 54 minutes, waiting for 6:00pm to see if I am one of the lucky thousand chosen to get a bike, and their entire website crashed and spewed all of us out approximately six minutes before the magic hour.
    They said they will reschedule for a different date.
    I cannot properly express to you how disgusted I am. I literally took off work so I could be at my computer for the 5pm sign-in to the waiting room, then waited in their waiting room until almost the 6:00pm time when 1,000 lucky waiting people would be chosen…just for their system to crash with just minutes left to go.
    Why do incompetent people have jobs like this and force tens of thousands of innocent people to suffer?

    Reply

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