price savings: car vs e-bike

89' Honda Civic vs Ebike
distance to work and back = 600 miles per month

Civic: $1400 used
gas at 38mpg and $4 per gallon= $62 per month
insurance= $15 per month (Progressive liability only)
tire wear, oil changes, parts ect= $20 per month
total costs
about $100-120 for only commute to work costs

E-bike: $1000 used
electricity at 9 cents per kwhr running a 1500 watt charger 4hrs a day: $10 per mo
price of replacing lipo battery expected to wear out after 400 cycles: $40 per mo
wear on engine, chain, parts, ect.. $5??
total costs
$50-$60 per mo

What about tax and m.o.t and battery should get 1000 cycles
In UK my car £1000
45 insurance
20 tax
100 petrol
14 permit for parking
War and tear 10
Mot 20
=219
Ebike
New battery every 3 years 10 month
Charging is 2.00 a month
Wear and tear 5 a month
=17 .
Big saving for me

Something is extremely wrong with your math.

I have a 2.5kWh RC Lipo battery ( 10s 30AH + 12s 30AH ) which would easily do 100 miles in 1 cycle at ~25mph constant. It cost me $1200.
It can easily do at least 300 cycles.

1200 / 300 = $4 a cycle.
My battery cost in your same scenario would then be $12 per month.

Had i bought lifepo4, i'd be paying 1.5x the price.
That's $1,800 for 2.5kWh.
It can easily do at least 1000 cycles.

1800 / 1000 = $1.8 a cycle
My battery cost in your scenario would then be $5.40 per month.

Those are worst case scenarios, since both batteries can be stretched beyond those cycle figures with some care.

Heeyyyy... what's up with your math, dude?

parajared said:

89' Honda Civic vs Ebike
distance to work and back = 300 miles per month

Civic: $1400 used
gas at 38mpg and $4 per gallon= $31 per month
insurance= $15 per month (Progressive liability only)
tire wear, oil changes, parts ect= $20 per month
total costs
about $60-70 for only commute to work costs

E-bike: $1000 used
electricity at 9 cents per kwhr running a 1500 watt charger 4hrs a day: $10 per mo
price of replacing lipo battery expected to wear out after 400 cycles: $40 per mo
wear on engine, chain, parts, ect.. $5??
total costs
$50-$60 per mo

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This does not look like a comparison. It looks like a deliberate attempt to make the E-bike operating cost ridiculous high (or the car operating cost ridiculous low).

$20/mth maintenance and repair for a 23 year old car? You must be a mechanic and have access to parts that are free or stolen.
Your one way commute is around 8 miles. There is not a chance for you to get 38mpg. 30mpg is more likely.
Your ebike travels 15 miles a day, and you need 4 hours to recharge the battery at 1,500W rate? Are you traveling at the speed of sound?

Forget all the calculations, just use these simple numbers for the USA:
E-bike = $0.05 to $0.15 / mile
Car = $0.30 to $1.00 / mile

wow you guys are fast to reply: I was hoping to get back to my computer and change the calculations before anyone noticed.
Yes I was calculating for round trip on my bike and one way trip on my car.

This does not look like a comparison. It looks like a deliberate attempt to make the E-bike operating cost ridiculous high (or the car operating cost ridiculous low).

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I really do about $20 per mo of maintenance per mo. Tires last about 20k miles making 600 miles less that a few cents. Batteries last about 5 years making 600 miles pennies in cost. CV axels, alternaters, belts hoses go out at a rate of about $20 per month. I do all my own maintenence so your $500 timing belt job costs me $15 and you $800 clutch repair costs me $80 instead.

Something is extremely wrong with your math.
I have a 2.5kWh RC Lipo battery ( 10s 30AH + 12s 30AH ) which would easily do 100 miles in 1 cycle at ~25mph constant. It cost me $1200.
It can easily do at least 300 cycles

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Hobby king batteries= $45 x8= $360 so over $400 shipped. 400 cycles= $1 per cycle or $40 per month

Allright. i'll comment on the car numbers...
You have an extremely reliable car that gets higher MPG than 80% of the cars out there. It's really not a fair comparison.
Yours is also paid off.
You also do your own work. most people don't.
So you basically have the best possible case scenario.... it's not a fair comparison.

Something is extremely wrong with your math.
I have a 2.5kWh RC Lipo battery ( 10s 30AH + 12s 30AH ) which would easily do 100 miles in 1 cycle at ~25mph constant. It cost me $1200.
It can easily do at least 300 cycles

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Hobby king batteries= $45 x 8= $360 so over $400 shipped. 400 cycles= $1 per cycle or $40 per month[/quote]

40 cycles a month? if that's 20AH, then you'll easily getting about 30 miles doing 25mph.
30 miles x 40 cycles = 1200 miles on a 20AH 10S pack.

$45 x 8 = would be referring to 5S 5AH, correct? ( and you're selecting the higher price based on the china warehouse. )

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/..._5000mAh_5S_20C_Lipo_Pack_USA_Warehouse_.html

$41.39 each, $357.12 total shipped to the USA.

So you've got a little bit over 2x the real battery cost per month.
And if you use a multi-thousand cycle life chemistry, your cost plummets dramatically.

Most of us are going to own a car even if we have a Ebike and are going to be paying insurance and registration fees anyhow and this makes comparisons kinda meaningless.
For me, perhaps the ebike savings come from leaving the car in the driveway for around town stop and go driving. This allows me to keep that older car with only the minimal insurance and lower reg. fees.
Depending on where you live, the lowest cost transportation could well be a Chinese 50cc scooter. A couple of years ago I bought a slightly used, but neglected Eton Beamer[Tiwanese] for $500 and put another $200 into it. The State where I live doesn't require registration or insurance, so operating cosdt were pretty much just gas[100 mpg], 2-stk. oil and tires. It was very reliable, could carry bags of groceries including gallons of milk and could scoot up to the high 30's mph. I would still be riding it except I wanted to get some exercise and like the silence of the Ebike.
But if your State requires "mopeds" to have paperwork, that would probably tip the balance to Ebikes.

It's already been said, but I think for the vast majority of people, an eBike wouldn't save money, simply because a car is taxed, insured, depreciated and maintained whether it is used or not...

That and the damned upgrade itch. You know how much I've spent on new eBike parts and batteries since I've started?

I'm happy just to be able to get some exercise and sunshine on the way to work without getting there totally puffed and sweaty and in a comparable time to driving and/or public transport.

I do it not because of the money I save but the joy of the ride and for the guilty free transportation I am using and knowing I am sticking it to the oil company. : )

Another view,

I have the vehicle and the ebike and will keep both, so those costs are sunk. So the decision and comparison is which one to drive today and the variable costs.

For vehicle 25 miles round trip / 20 mpg * 4.20 $/gallon = $5.25

For ebike 25 miles * 35 watt hours per mile / 1000 * 0.25 $/kilowatt hour = $0.22, and I charge at work so my cost is about $0.10 (it is steeper on the way to work, so the charging there is more than charging at home)

The cost of battery replacement could be included in either cost of ownership or in the use cost. That could be as high as $1.00 or as low as 0.25. It could be a lot higher if something goes wrong.

The value of the exercise might be priceless.

I've already proven, using kindergarten-grade math, that an eBike is vastly cheaper per mile even using RC Lipo, which is gives one of the worst bang for the buck factors, in terms of cycle life, of all batteries.

If cost is really an issue.. a lifepo4 battery with a multi-thousand cycle life blows the car away even harder.
Hit 2000-3000 cycles and your cost to replace the battery per mile is lower than the electricity that you charge the bike with.
You do not need to spend a lot of $ to get a multi-thousand cycle life either.. headways can do it at a low C rate ( 1C or below ).. A123 can do it for sure.. some cells are rated in the multi thousands. Neither are particularly expensive.

case closed.

Apart from exceptional cases, the only way you save money with an electric bike is if you can completely get rid of the car. otherwise you should only compare the variable costs like fuel, parking, maintenance, etc.

I'm doing about 3000 miles a year on my ebike, which saves about £500 a year. My bike cost about £1000, so after two years I would have been about even, except I got interested in ebikes and spent another £2000 - £3000 on them during that time, so it'll take at least 6 years to get pay-back if I don't spend any more.

However, since I started spending my money on bikes, I stopped buying guitars, so I saved another £4000, but bikes depreciate and the guitars don't. What the hell, it's only money:Health and friends are more important!

Just taking my commute into account, my car uses $185 per month of petrol (800kms, 14L/100Km, $1.65/litre at the moment). My ebike uses not very much electricity- even less when I plug it in at work!

That's not why I do it though. I just do it for the EV grin!

Oh, and in rush hour traffic, the ebike's quicker.

The only way to make a comparison is to calculate the true, complete, cost per mile. That includes everything! Parking you pay for, a second charger you keep at work, the spare tube in your panniers, the clothing you might buy for riding. Everything!

Almost no car costs less than 40 cents a mile, and a buck a mile is not uncommon. One typical repair will nearly double the cost of that old honda for instance.

It's very hard to calculate, especially if you figure the battery of an ebike lasts x miles, but in the real world lasts less. Or you have to replace a crap bike 6 times vs one good bike that cost a lot.

My general calculations are thus. The cheapest cars I've owned cost about 40 cents per mile, and a new economy car should cost no more than 50 cents a mile for the first 80 thousand miles. The cheapest I could get a commuter ebike capable of 20 mile range at 25 mph was about 15 cents a mile. But that can go up considerably by upgrading the bike itself, just like a higher price car like a luxury suv will cost a lot more per mile than a ford focus.

So my fuzzy math comes out to every mile on an ebike puts at least 25-30 cents a mile in your pocket. But the real value, is going for a fun ride on the weekend, instead of jacking the old piece of crap used car up every other weekend for another miserable wallet draining weekend replacing worn bearings and trashed CV joints. Forget about it if you need to do the timing belt and water pump on some models. Dump the car for junk.

You guys have really cheap car insurance rates. I'm in Southern Ontario and I was paying $150 per month for insurance here. That's not even that high compared with some other people driving newer cars. No car payments, bought it used for cash. Let's say maintenance costs are at the very least $50 per month for oil changes, brake replacements, tire replacements and various repairs, this is likely an underestimation at least in my own experience. I don't really drive all that much mostly commuting to work and then shopping and going out here and there on weekends. Let's make another modest assumption and assume I'm spending $75 a month on gas average, although I don't think I was ever spending that little on gas more like $100 to $150 a month would be more like it.

Monthly car expenses:

Insurance $150
Maintenance: $50
Gas $75
Total $275

Again that's a very modest estimate in reality my operating costs were over $300 a month. That's not even including the eventual cost of having to replace the car every few years when something major breaks and it's not worth repairing. I ended up finding a job very close to my house so I eventually sold my car and got rid of all car expenses. That was over 1 year ago. Let's say I saved $300 per month for the past 12 months that's $3600 in my pocket. That's also not including the prior 6 months I had parked the car and was only paying $30 per month to maintain my insurance account. So that's another $1500+ in savings there. That's over $5000 in savings in only a year and a half of ditching the car.

My costs of operating my ebike so far, I've got a small battery just 66.6v 8 amp hour zippy's. That cost me close to $500. The electricity usage is not worth mentioning and I don't pay for it anyway. My only other cost with the bike is brake pads and battery bags and various other accessories I end up buying while experimenting with different setups. Let's say I'll spend about $200 a year on bicycle accessories and repairs etc. Hopefully I won't need to replace the battery every 12 months if I take care of it, maybe I could stretch it out to a year and a half of use but that might be a little optimistic. So let's just say ebike costs for me are somewhere around $700 a year but could be as low as $500 a year if the battery lasts longer than a year. At $700 per year that's just under $60 per month.

For comparison a bus pass here costs about $120 per month. The bus takes me an hour to get to work despite my work being under 9km away due to traffic. I can get to work in 20 to 25 minutes on my ebike and traffic does not exist for me.

There's another thing I've found with owning a car it makes going places almost too convenient. Many times when bored on the weekend I would hop in the car with my family and we'd head out to a mall or some other place and end up spending more money. With out car we take the bus now and we tend not to go out as much unless we really want to and have a good reason to. I can't quantify the savings there but I'm sure that is another significant amount of money in my pocket at the end of every month. For me the ebike has reduced my expenses considerably. I'm also no longer giving money to the oil and insurance cartels and I'm not spewing toxic gases into my environment and I'm getting exercise.

Car $3600 per year
Ebike $700 per year

I'm saving close to $3000 per year, probably more taking all things into account. I don't make much money so for me that is significant savings. I do spend some money on public transportation sometimes to be fair but I figure the savings from going out less and spending less that way cancels that out at the very least.

Three thou a year for a car is getting off extremely cheap. Say you did a really good deal on a lease, 200 a month, plus 50 a month when you spread the down payment across 3 years. Then insurance, cheap in my state plus I'm an old fart good risk, but still about $80 a month.

$3960 a year plus gas. 600 gallons for 15000 miles at 25 mpg, x 3.75= $2250. Already above 6 thou per year. And that's on the low end, at 40 cents a mile.

Yep my estimation is on the cheap end of the spectrum for owning a car. That's for minimal use, short commutes to work and buying a cheap used car outright in cash, no monthly payments and not taking into account car replacement costs which would add considerably to the cost. I don't miss owning a car much, although riding a bike when it's -10c and under outside is not for everyone.

I have been e-biking to work for almost a month now and was pleasantly surprised to discover a hidden cost saver.

Because I have been taking the e-bike to work my wife has been driving the honda instead of our 22mpg pick-up truck.
So 600 miles a month at 38mpg instead of 25mpg at $4 per gallon has saved us an unexpected $33 this month.

electr0n said:

, although riding a bike when it's -10c and under outside is not for everyone.

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That's the understatement of the year. Heck, I could not even stand +10c on a bicycle.

SamTexas said:

electr0n said:

, although riding a bike when it's -10c and under outside is not for everyone.

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That's the understatement of the year. Heck, I could not even stand +10c on a bicycle.

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+10C?
you'd be dissin 'bout Where I Live!

but that's why I wear two light coats, gloves and earmuffs Where I Live if I intend to Ride My Trike(TM)
-all year long

I don't even own an automobile
but I've occasionally made use of renting one.

I'm one of the few who totally transitioned from car to e-bike. Being disabled, my city has a bus service that is branch off of our normal public transportation dept. They pick you up at your house and take you where ever you need to go. They will then pick you back up where ever they dropped you off at. They charge only 2 bucks each way. I only use them for really really cold days or when it's lightning out. Anyways, by getting rid of the car I'm saving over 500 a month in insurance and car note payments. That's not counting other things like parking, gas, and upkeep.

I'm now starting on my 4th year car free for a savings of well over 18000 bucks.

You need not fear lightning for you are member of the Sphere :lol:

ddk said:

+10C?
you'd be dissin 'bout Where I Live!

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I lived in Boston for 13 years before I moved to Houston. The only times I didn't hate the winter were when I was downhill skiing in New Hampshire or in Maine.

ddk said:

I don't even own an automobile

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Pure said:

I'm one of the few who totally transitioned from car to e-bike.

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I have tremendous respect for anyone who can become car-free by choice, especially in this vast, cheap, car-centric USA country. You two rock.

Thanks Sam, It really does become a way of life. Just about every thing you do involves the bike in one way or another. It's not something most can do, so those who can should.

SamTexas said:

electr0n said:

, although riding a bike when it's -10c and under outside is not for everyone.

Click to expand...

That's the understatement of the year. Heck, I could not even stand +10c on a bicycle.

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I'm envious of your weather. I'd love to be in a warmer climate. Using a bike full time in a warm climate would be a piece of cake. I don't particularly enjoy riding in the cold but I figure people go out skiing and snowmobiling in the cold. When dressed appropriately it's not too bad. I can bundle myself up a lot more due to not needing to pedal much if at all.

For me not driving a car and using a bike is a lifestyle choice. Using the electric bike as my transportation saves me significant money and allows me to work less and have more free time as a result. Riding a non electric bike would be even more frugal but it's a good trade off and it's a lot of fun. There are also environmental benefits in that I'm not polluting the air around me or creating noise pollution. It's also a political statement for me I'm not supporting the oil cartels.