What does your commute cost?

My commute is 13 miles round trip. Just the fuel cost would be around $1.50 -2.00 a day.

The recharge for a day was 214wh. Even at SoCal Edison's highway robbery rates of $0.22/kwh plus tax A, plus tax B, plus tax C....
Lets say $0.25/kwh.

0.214kwh x 0.25 = 5 cents a day. That's under $15 a year. not to shabby.

My commute is 8 to 10 miles round trip, about 2.5 cents per day since I pay half as much and use a bit more juice. Takes me about 222 watt hours.


In gas it is right about $1.75.

In order to be more realistic, you should add in the amortized replacement cost of the battery pack. You should still get a very good figure, but battery replacement is the most significant ongoing expense after bike+system initial purchase cost.

If you run $120 worth of SLA and it lasts 12 months, your battery replacement cost is $10 month (also then divided by your average monthly miles). Of course NiCD and Lithium would return different figures.

Its my understanding that NiCD is less expensive to purchase based on aH size alone (range), but lithiums per/mile replacement cost is cheaper because it can cycle many more times than NiCD.

Tires and brake pads are so cheap per/mile that I wouldn't even count them.

With that in mind my automobile commute is $5 per day with wear and tear, and the electric bike commute would have a $.33 daily depreciation of battery ($200 cost, two year- ish shelf life). For arguments sake we can say I only ride every other day, so even at roughly $.69 per day of fuel and depreciation my electric bike isn't too bad of a deal. Compared to a scooter it may not shine so much however.

For batteries, if the going rate is $.8 / watt-hour, and you'll cycle the battery 1000 times, and the mileage is, say, 25 watthour / mile. You get $20 / mile, over 1000 times, that's 2 cents per mile. Since your chosen battery capacity is twice the actual range you use per cycle (for example), the battery cost is 4 cents per mile. At 30 miles, that's $1.20 compared to $3.00 in gas for a car. Add in an electricity cost of 10 cents, and you're talking $1.30 compared to $3.00.

However, is comparing to a car reasonable? Wouldn't a moped be more reasonable for comparison? In that case, with 90 miles / gallon, it seems the longterm running costs are pretty comparable.

However...

Electric acceleration > Gas acceleration.
Electric quietnesss > Gas noise.
Electric smell < Gas smell.
Electric messiness < Gas messiness.
Electric healthiness > Gas healthiness.

Just about the only thing gas boasts is range and that's irrelevant for some. I like paying upfront instead of being bled dry over time.

So figuring in fixed costs.

$360 batteries, 1000 cycles, 250 work days a year. 4 year life, $90 cost per year, $0.36 per commute.

$0.05 electric cost + $0.36 battery recovery cost = $0.41 per commute.

$400 motor /controller kit. Life span? lets say 6 years? $0.26 per commute

That brings it up to $0.67 per commute.

For the car you use the IRS rate of $0.50 per mile (which is usually a bit light) x 13 miles = $6.50 per commute.

Agreed on all the aspects over a moped. I kick all the 50cc mopeds around here on 44.4v 25a with my puma.

Here is Quebec we produce our Terawatts of hydroelectricity and sale a part to the US.

Clean energy, and... CHEAP ! :wink: 0.06$ per kWh

For going to work and as well riding for fun, i do an average of 50km a day.

Usually it'S at high speed ( 40mph) so the Wh/km is high. Around 35Wh/km

that's around 1.75 kWh of electricity out of the battery and 2.1kWh out of the 120V 15A outlet since my charger is 1700W DC output with high efficciency.

1.75 x 0.06 = 10.5 cents of electricity a day... just 40 time less than with a car

My Spa is eating more kWh than my ebike!...

Doc

Even with high dollar nuke power here my commute fuel costs are cheap, about 15 cents for 30 miles.

But the real costs, ALL of them is a lot more. I came up with about $3.00 for the ebike, same for the roketta 150cc scooter. About $15 for my Subaru forester, and a whopping $30 for the one ton truck.

When I calculated for the ebike, I based the costs on 10,000 miles, using one lifepo4 battery, two cheap bikes, two motor kits, 6 sets of tires and brake pads, etc etc. Plus about $50. for electricity

Guys don't forget the charger too. My kill-a-watt says it cost me $0.14 to go 20 miles and it costs $7.00 to make the same distance in my Tahoe.

My commute is only about 2 miles, so not quite $0.02 by bike vs. $0.70 for the car. It's probably even more money for the Tahoe if it is pure commute miles. Mega-short commute in the truck gives horrendous mileage.

This is with a brushed hub motor, which gets about 1.2 to 1.5 miles an amp hour, a brushless motor would get even better "mileage".

Well ... to be real about things IMO ... ebike costs more than picking any of my dino suckers for sure!

If one of my vehicles is around $7-8/day for commuting etc... and my ebike, if I could pick one and have it last long enough to hit some sort of arbitrary point of time, I'd maybe estimate $5/day for say a period of up to 3yrs. assuming stability of current costs similar to vehicle ownership e.g. excludes my trying all sorts of stuff, tools and a tendency for redundancy (1=2+ etc... ) for EV.

But a one vs. the other comparison is unfair if I can't or wouldn't give up one for the other! So, the cost of the ebike is in addition to the vehicle ownership I don't give up. As such, I could reduce my vehicle ownership cost per day some, but never "actually" save any money as the cost of ownership would always be higher than any factor of electricity costs over hardware costs vs fuel savings! That is of course my opinion if using any kind of reasonable miles, days or years to derive real daily costs...

The only way I can figure a way to save, by using an EV in addition to other vehicles, is by building one from next to nothing. Basically free batteries, motor, controller, bike, etc... this assumes I already have the tools materials and my time needed all free too!

There's even a problem with directly comparing x number of miles saved on a dino sucking vehicle due to using an alternate mode of transportation, in that time itself is a factor for cost of ownership even if it isn't driven.

Anyway... if the argument that an ebike saves you money works ... great! ... go with it...! What was that other thread ... something about 60mph, brick wall and genetics? ... ROTF

For the 1 or 2 of you here that an "actual" savings could be calculated ... I tip my hat/helmet to you! For you we could discuss the topics; costs of powered vs not, time spent elsewhere and growing our own food to provide calories for pedal ... etc... LMAO!

Shouldn't commute costs per day include ALL costs ... rainy day and the like... alternate commute options being paid for but sitting in reserve?

Incidentally, I recently calculated the costs to pedal/mile compared to full electric/mile ebiking, and pedaling costs 5 times as much (based on cost of calories) as compared to simply using the throttle only. I suppose there is SOME value in pedaling, as it gets me in better/healthier shape.

peddling is fine for your health just dont breath when your out there!!!! I steal most of my hydro, so its FREE !!!!!! Water is washing over the dam here, move to manitoba, get hydro for 5c KWH beat that drum dr. !!!!!! What about all the other costs of driving- other vehicles? Parking , fines, taxes, paperz, hoops, red-tape and all that extra shlop that disappears when you switch!!! Ebikes are the future of transportation, its the best of all worlds.

Price of batteries = Going down
Cost of ebike commute= ev grin
Oilman= dying

For me it will never be practical to dump the car entirely, but every day I don't drive it is a priceless extra day before I have to replace a car. The old junk cars I always buy don't last so long, but doubling the time they last is turning out to save me a ton. The actual savings of about $12 per round trip may not be all cash in the pocket since the car is paid for now, but I garantee the repair costs I haven't paid have paid for a lot of ebike stuff. I don't spend much time in Auto Zone like I used to.

But for sure, I've spent a lot more than the original estimates on Ebikes, especially upgrading to nice bikes from the wall mart grade. And don't even ask what all the various tries at putting together a nice bike for dirt riding have cost. But those ebikes are not transportation, those are entertainment budget. Compared to snow skiing, or hot air ballooning, or owning a big 4x4, it's been cheap fun.

The one thing that is turning out right on is the battery costs. I don't use my 36v ping much anymore, perfering the 48v one, but its still going strong with nearly 6000 miles on it. So far the battery has cost 7.5 cents a mile, but I expect that to get cut in half eventually. But for now, it stands at $2.25 per day. So if you figure battery costs plus electricity, it comes close to gas costs. But with a car, it's the other costs that beat you like a dog. Repairs, purchase price, insurance, etc. The days of driving a car for 25 cents a mile are gone gone gone. Even a cheap used car is 50 cents a mile, and anything nice is pushing a dollar after paying 20K for it.

I need a family car, but my ebikes have reduced it's use by at least 90%. With such a huge portion of the time just sitting, then it should be easy to reduce car insurance costs to more than offset the cost of bike batteries. Of course all costs should be considered in any comparison, just don't forget those not so obvious savings. If I really want to do a fair comparison, then my time savings alone of getting from A to B in traffic more than offsets my battery cost. Price my time out at even a very low rate, and that too would more than pay for my bike batteries.

BTW SpinningMags, NiCads can have a service life of decades if properly cared for. Even NiMH batteries can last more than a decade, as proven by Toyota. They just need to be used within a conservative charge/discharge rage.

Just the fact of less wear and tear on the gassers saves us money. Also the resale of the gasser with less worn interior/exterior and lower overall milage could command a higher resale value when it comes time to sell. So can we figure that in too?

32 miles round trip, about $2.00 give or take, depending on vehicle.

Ebike ~ 800wh or about 10 cents with electricity rates here.

I few weeks ago I did a detailed calculation of the cost of ownership for various automobiles. Most were economical subcompact (B-Segment) cars such as the Fit, Yaris, Fiesta, Mazda2, etc. Including ALL costs (including depreciation over 10 years), the cost to keep one of these cars for 10 years was in the order of $4,500CDN/yr.

Doing a similar calculation for a Trice Sprint with e-assist, the cost of ownership comes out at about $650CDN/yr. I was obviously pretty liberal with the maintenance cost per year so the trike and associated power system would remain in perfect condition.

So it easily costs 7 times as much or more to own and use the car. To be fair, the utility is certainly not the same given the large advantage of the car in speed and carrying capacity. The recumbent trike can be nearly as comfortable in good weather, but not in the cold or during rain, snow, hail...

Evoforce said:

Just the fact of less wear and tear on the gassers saves us money. Also the resale of the gasser with less worn interior/exterior and lower overall milage could command a higher resale value when it comes time to sell. So can we figure that in too?

Click to expand...

I think so, but I didn't put that into my figures that had me putting $12 in my pocket every time I take the bike. But really, don't you just about double that figure by putting off by one day the purchase of the next car? Maybe that's a bit too high a number, but really staying out of the place you borrow money to buy another care really is priceless. After over two years of it now, I can definitely say that riding that ebike instead of wearing out a car is feeling a lot like a 5th paycheck a month to me in my budget. Plus, I don't spend every other weekend under the car fixing it. I really do feel like I have at least an extra $100 a week in my pocket if I don't take the car often enough.

I've calculated the burdened cost for my 9yo VW Jetta at approximately $0.38/mi, including amortized purchase price, insurance, repairs, gas, etc... My commute is 47 miles round trip.

So every day I leave the car in the garage is an extra $17 in my pocket.

My driving commute is about 30 miles. Riding a bike is about 50 miles round trip.
Current cost to drive ~$15 a day
Ebike all costs/miles will get there approximately when I hit my 150th commute as long as I can keep mainenance to chain/tire/lube

wtf?