Ebike Vs Car Costs Calculator Spread Sheet

[Ussyamoto]

The Document contains:

Total bike cost calculator
Total current bike savings, cost per mile, cost vs using the car.
Total est savings after 1 year, cost per mile, cost vs using the car.

Calculator to find Electricity cost per mile/for 1 year.
Calculator to find Fuel cost for the car per mile/ for 1 year
Calculator to find your average car cost per mile/ for 1 year

Average car cost calculator contains:
Fuel $/mi
Maintenance
Tires
Insurance
Government fees/taxes
Depreciation
Monthly payments
Parking costs


I have left my personal statistics in it for an example, If you have any questions please feel free to reply to me through this post or PM.
Please let me know what you think, this is for people who want it, this is a tool, does not help calculate health benefits but does help understand where your money is.

Here is a google docs link, should be good to go
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13bz9CxDh2atnt3Cuv9ucQjOlqJeq4aREReMH-ihLXAc/edit?usp=sharing

 

[BYqSXt8Z]

can you transfer your numbers to a google docs spreadsheet so that it can be viewed directly in the browser?

 

[Ussyamoto]

Sure, I'm not used to using google docs and couldn't figure out a way to make it usable by others without downloading. Here is a link to the one I just remade,

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13bz9CxDh2atnt3Cuv9ucQjOlqJeq4aREReMH-ihLXAc/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for checking it out and let me know what you think

 

[BYqSXt8Z]

Thanks!

When calculating the cost per mile of the bike, what happens if for each bike mile you also subtract the cost of a car mile from it from the wear and gas and parking on the car?

Another suggestion, if you make it a per trip it woudl also change a lot becaues wear is higher per mile on short trips (more stop and go and contraction and expansion of parts) and parking is not a per-mile thing, it is a per trip thing (so you have a higher cost per mile on short car trips).

If we can figure out good formulas for this, we could make a google-sheet based calculator for people to use.

 

[Ussyamoto]

When calculating the cost per mile of the bike, what happens if for each bike mile you also subtract the cost of a car mile from it from the wear and gas and parking on the car?

I updated the sheet to reflect this, thanks for the idea!

Another suggestion, if you make it a per trip it woudl also change a lot becaues wear is higher per mile on short trips (more stop and go and contraction and expansion of parts) and parking is not a per-mile thing, it is a per trip thing (so you have a higher cost per mile on short car trips).

I think this would start to clutter the sheet, the per mile section for the car is supposed to just be averages to help me crunch some other numbers to find average car running cost.
I don't know how I could do a per trip constant instead of a per mile constant with out a lot of clutter, People travel different miles per trip. For example, 3 miles to the store, 15 miles to work, so on.

I'm still trying to figure out how to use google docs, is there a way I could make this usable online but without others editing the original?

For example someone goes there and puts their information in the browser and it automatically uses the calculators, but It doesn't save to the file?

Thanks again for the reply!

 

[BYqSXt8Z]

Well I found this about sheets http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Google-Doc-Public but it seems that you already made it so that anyone can view it now.

To make it a "public calculator", I found that it can be done by putting a sheet in a google site. https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/docs/VXjZXqYfCu4/discussion

If it will be a public calculator, at the top you could put a quick km to mile and L to gallon converter, and even a UK to US gallon converter (or maybe even have different sheets in the file for US, Imperial and Metric.
It is starting to get a little technical though, so I will be trying to do it on my side as well later today, so if you need help putting yours up at least two of us will have been trying to figure it out and we can help each other.

 

[USAEBIKECO]

An electric bicycle is actually more energy efficient than a non-electric bike. Lets do a cost/ benefit analysis on that.

 

[BYqSXt8Z]

An electric bicycle is actually more energy efficient than a non-electric bike. Lets do a cost/ benefit analysis on that.

How do you mean? To take into account the fact that most of us would have bought a bike anyways?

 

[middriveebike]

I think he wants to know how much more energy can we save by using ebike instead of motor bikes.

 

[arkmundi]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13bz9CxDh2atnt3Cuv9ucQjOlqJeq4aREReMH-ihLXAc/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks so much. Very useful. Have linked to it for my Lesson Two in the eBike Workshop with eWorc and Technocopia thread.

 

[USAEBIKECO]

An ebike is more energy efficient than a regular bicycle.

For example, if your commute is 10 miles or less, you won't break a sweat riding an electric bike and only pay a nickel ($0.05) in electricity to charge the battery. Plus, you will get to your destination twice as fast by using the electric motor.

Now compare that to riding 10 miles on a regular bicycle. You most likely will be very tired and sweaty at the end and need a shower.

Then you must factor in the cost of water consumed, and the food you will need to eat to replenish calories burned riding. In the end the cost will be over a $0.05 per ride.

I wish more people knew this.

 

[Ussyamoto]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13bz9CxDh2atnt3Cuv9ucQjOlqJeq4aREReMH-ihLXAc/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks so much. Very useful. Have linked to it for my Lesson Two in the eBike Workshop with eWorc and Technocopia thread.

Thank you! I'm glad to see people are using it

An ebike is more energy efficient than a regular bicycle.

For example, if your commute is 10 miles or less, you won't break a sweat riding an electric bike and only pay a nickel ($0.05) in electricity to charge the battery. Plus, you will get to your destination twice as fast by using the electric motor.

Now compare that to riding 10 miles on a regular bicycle. You most likely will be very tired and sweaty at the end and need a shower.

Then you must factor in the cost of water consumed, and the food you will need to eat to replenish calories burned riding. In the end the cost will be over a $0.05 per ride.

I wish more people knew this.

To be honest I don't think I know enough about bicycling and there are too many factors for me to do this. Like cost of food, intake normally vs intake commuting.

 

[Chalo]

An electric bicycle is actually more energy efficient than a non-electric bike.

Not if you count the health benefits of pedaling/costs of not pedaling. Heart disease is expensive, whether you're measuring kWh or dollars. Running more A/C because you are not as acclimatized as a pedal cyclist is not energy efficient either. Of course, as long your bike has pedals, whether you use them in earnest is entirely up to you.

 

[BYqSXt8Z]

lol, I think the thread has gotten a little extreme with talks calculating the costs of a shower, food, and long term health-care

 

[Chalo]

lol, I think the thread has gotten a little extreme with talks calculating the costs of a shower, food, and long term health-care

Yep, I think direct vehicle-related fixed and per-mile costs are the only ones worth calculating directly. Those are the only ones that apply more or less uniformly across different owners and usage patterns.

My point was mainly that using food as fuel in an energy analysis is a faulty and disingenuous way of making e-bikes look more energy-efficient than pedal bikes. They just aren't, once you take into account the motor, battery, electronics, wear and tear, and various lifestyle effects on the rider. No powered vehicle can touch a pedal bike in that regard, and it's not a meaningful goal either.

For any individual, commute time might be even more important than dollar outlay-- but depending on the specifics, either a car or an e-bike could prevail. And then there is the relative value of time spent stuck in traffic versus time spent out in the open air, pushing pedals as much as you like and using off-street paths as much as you can. But like I was saying before, these factors don't extrapolate directly from one rider to another.

 

[Eclectic]

If you are talking just the energy required for human transport, then an e-bike probably wins. With a 10:1 to 15:1 ratio (calories in to calories out) for raising and transporting food, then an e-bike has a 5x to 10x advantage over a pedal bike.
http://learn.uvm.edu/foodsystemsblog/2013/07/18/counting-calories-the-energy-cost-of-food/
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2011/08/11/10-calories-in-1-calorie-out-the-energy-we-spend-on-food/
Since the actual monetary cost of energy is a very very small part of the expense of using an e-bike, the effect it would have on a cost analysis might be minor. If you are talking about energy efficiency and carbon footprint (not the subject of this thread though), then it is important.