<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Owning an E-Cargo Bike<\/h5>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIf you hadn’t noticed, fuel prices are up<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhile the short-term correlation between the price of gas and Vehicle Kilometres Travelled (The total distance travelled by all vehicles in a given area over a period, or VKT) isn’t incredibly strong, with a 10% increase in gas prices leading to a 1.5-3% reduction in VKTs*, there are other interesting bits. Long-term fluctuations lead to changes in the vehicles people purchase. To oversimplify, people buy big heavy vehicles when gas is cheap, and more efficient ones when prices are higher.<\/p>\n
There’s also a significant difference between how fuel prices change the driving habits of people in urban vs rural areas. Urban folks can be more elastic with their transportation choices than rural folks.<\/p>\n
These urban trips are especially short – one study found the median one-way trip length for urban commuters was 8.7 kilometres. The average urban car trip is somewhere between 4 and 7 kilometres, and most often in a single-occupancy vehicle. There are 2,000-4,000 kg of metal moving one person around, and maybe some groceries. One study found that more than half of US car trips are less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometres)<\/p>\n
If your thinking is anything like mine, you’ve noticed that 5 kilometres (3.1 miles, or 1.5 Washington Malls for Americans) sounds like a nice distance to ride your bike instead of drive. But for a moment, let’s disregard the well-documented mental and physical health reasons to ride instead of drive, remember that the cost of car ownership in Canada averages 1,387 CAD per month,<\/i> and look at the long-term costs of owning an electric cargo bike to see if it can save you money.<\/p>\n
*I’m generalizing and using a bunch of studies here from all over the globe, because it’s hard to find all the specific data for one region or locality to compare. However, this is one of those areas where the exact numbers vary from place to place, but overall the themes are the same. I’ve included links to a number of articles and peer-reviewed journals at the bottom for your reading pleasure.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n ![\"Specialized](\"http:\/\/nsmb.com\/media\/images\/Specialized_Globe_Haul_LT_Cooper_DM_6.width-1920.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\nThe passenger rain cover makes me feel like a chauffeur driving an old Rolls Royce<\/a>, when the driver wasn’t deemed important enough to be contained and dry like his passengers. Photo: Deniz Merdano<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nThere are two main costs associated with any mode of personal travel: capital and operating. We covered some costs in the initial look at the Globe Haul LT here<\/a>, but to summarize, with all the accessories and accoutrements, the model you see here comes in at roughly 6000 CAD, which is both a fair chunk of cash and somewhere in the middle for an electric cargo bike.<\/p>\nAfter your initial investment, operating costs are incredibly low. While total fuel consumption for your ICE-powered SUV will obviously vary based on many factors, we can guesstimate it at $10 – $20 per 100 kilometres (4971 chain, for those in the USA). An electric car will be an order of magnitude lower at $2.50.<\/p>\n
A full charge of the Globe Haul’s 772Wh battery costs me approximately 10\u00a2 here in BC. That’s 100x less than driving and effectively negligible in the cost of ridership; over 5000 kilometres, that’s $12. Here in BC, we also have the benefit of very low carbon intensity power due to our primarily hydro-derived electricity, adding to the climate benefits of driving less that we’re not delving into here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n
\n
\n ![\"Specialized](\"http:\/\/nsmb.com\/media\/images\/Specialized_Globe_Haul_LT_Cooper_DM_17.width-1920.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\nThe individual health benefits of riding over driving are also well studied and documented. I’m not sure science can adequately quantify the smug feeling of riding under the snarled highway traffic on the way to pickup your kid, though.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nThere are some consumables; brake pads and tires being the two most obvious. Over the roughly 5000 kilometres the Haul LT has seen, I’ve replaced the pads twice, rear cable and housing once, and the rear tire once. An upside to the hub-motor is the lack of drivetrain wear, we’re coming up on needing a replacement, but aren’t there yet. Mid-motor bikes will eat chains and cassettes at much higher rates than you’re used to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nConsumables and parts<\/h3>\n
\n\nPart<\/th>\n Price ($)<\/th>\n Quantity<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n \nBrake Pads<\/th>\n 50<\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \nTire<\/th>\n 55<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \nCable\/Housing<\/th>\n 20<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \nLabor<\/th>\n 100<\/td>\n 1.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \nAnnual Service<\/th>\n 100<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \nTotal<\/th>\n 525<\/td>\nI did all the service and labor myself, however if you don’t have the knowledge, skills, time, tools, or desire I added an annual checkup at your local bike shop and some labor hours for the brake pads and shifter cable for a grand total of $525, you can adjust this for your local rates but it’s easily half or better than the cost of a year of amortized car maintenance; the difference is even more stark if you’re doing your own bicycle wrenching.<\/p>\n
While financing a bike is not my style, e-bikes can be very expensive, and given how normalized financing a car is, it’s a consideration here as well. Many large shops are now offering so-called “buy now, pay later” options. These may or may not include interest depending on the plan, but in an attempt to make the e-bike numbers a worst-case scenario, I’ve included 24-month financing, with zero dollars down and 6.5% APR.<\/p>\n
We’d be remiss to skip depreciation, an oft-overlooked and biggest part of the true cost of car ownership. Using some basic accounting, I’m going to suggest we estimate 40% for the first year, and 15% after that. We’re just over a year into the Globe Haul LT here, so that’s an additional $3000 – the used market fluctuates, so this may be aggressive, but bikes are depreciating assets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n ![\"the-total-cost-of-ownership-for-a-car\"](\"http:\/\/nsmb.com\/media\/images\/the-total-cost-of-ownership-for-a-car.width-1920.png\")
<\/p>\n\nRefresher on the average cost per month of car ownership for Canadians. It’s more than you might think.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n ![\"Ebike_Ownership_CostsY1\"](\"http:\/\/nsmb.com\/media\/images\/Ebike_Ownership_CostsY1.width-1920.png\")
<\/p>\n\nThe year one depreciation really does a number on this chart, and monthly cost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n
\n
\n ![\"Ebike_Ownership_CostsY2\"](\"http:\/\/nsmb.com\/media\/images\/Ebike_Ownership_CostsY2.width-1920.png\")
<\/p>\n\nWith the initial depreciation hit gone, year two paints a very different picture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nNone of these numbers is to be taken as gospel, and everyone’s financial picture will look different. But hopefully this illustrates that the cost of owning and operating a bike like the Globe Haul LT is at least one order of magnitude less costly than the average family car.<\/p>\n
The part I can’t estimate is how much driving you<\/i> can replace; it’s easy to paint a picture where a cargo bike is cheaper than owning and operating a car, but unless you’re fully replacing a car with it the comparison may seem a little unfair. For my family, one of the main reasons we’re able to maintain a full working family schedule with one car is because we’ve got an electric cargo bike. This saves us thousands of dollars a year in hard dollars.<\/p>\n
If you’re unable to fully ditch one (or more!) cars for an e-bike, the math requires a few additional assumptions, but after somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-10,000 kilometres (4,300-6,200 miles) the much lower operating costs of the e-bike have amortized themselves. Put another way, if you can replace about three thousand kilometers of driving with riding a year, you’ve got 2-3 years before you’re saving money. It sounds like a lot, but once you break the driving habit for a quick grocery run, you’ll be surprised how fast the kilometers add up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n
\n ![\"Specialized](\"http:\/\/nsmb.com\/media\/images\/Specialized_Globe_Haul_LT_Cooper_DM_21.width-1920.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\nThere are, of course, barriers to cycling beyond the financial considerations. There’s no way I’m trying to “share” this lane with drivers, and based on the daily traffic I see most other cyclists agree with me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nLeft unsaid in the discussion above cost breakdown is if you’re here on this website, you already own a bike. It might not be an electric cargo bike, but there are lots of ways<\/a> to carry things on your bike<\/a> – your costs above are effectively zero<\/i>. You’ve done it. The amortization period is over.<\/p>\nNo, your $8,000 170mm enduro bike isn’t great to go get groceries – where\/how will you lock it, the tires are slow as f***, and all that travel saps precious watts, but do you really need to take thousands of pounds of metal and a couch to get two small bags of groceries? Start by pedaling your Megatower a couple of kilometres to get a coffee with a friend, and I promise you’ll start to find other trips to ride. Pick up a cheap 80’s retro bike off Marketplace, add a couple racks, et voila!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n
\n ![\"Specialized](\"http:\/\/nsmb.com\/media\/images\/Specialized_Globe_Haul_LT_Cooper_DM_28.width-1920.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\nSometimes I motivate by thinking of car trips in absolute dollar terms, “It will cost me $4.50 to drive to [the thing] and back”, it’s an easy gamified incentive to hop on a bike. Sometimes I remember that riding bikes is just really nice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nSo, discuss below. As I see it, biking more is good for your fitness, your mental health, the planet, a net-positive for society, and when it comes down to brass tacks it’s good for your wallet.<\/p>\n
Is there a car-based trip from your weekly life you could (or have already) replaced with a bike? What are your impediments to riding more – and what can you do to reduce these barriers? Share your positive and<\/i> negative experiences, and let’s try to get more people on bikes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
If you hadn’t noticed, fuel prices are up<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the short-term correlation between the price of gas and Vehicle Kilometres Travelled (The total distance travelled by all vehicles in a given area over a period, or VKT) isn’t incredibly strong, with a 10% increase in gas prices leading to a 1.5-3% reduction in VKTs*, there are other interesting bits. Long-term fluctuations lead to changes in the vehicles people purchase. To oversimplify, people buy big heavy vehicles when gas is cheap, and more efficient ones when prices are higher.<\/p>\n There’s also a significant difference between how fuel prices change the driving habits of people in urban vs rural areas. Urban folks can be more elastic with their transportation choices than rural folks.<\/p>\n These urban trips are especially short – one study found the median one-way trip length for urban commuters was 8.7 kilometres. The average urban car trip is somewhere between 4 and 7 kilometres, and most often in a single-occupancy vehicle. There are 2,000-4,000 kg of metal moving one person around, and maybe some groceries. One study found that more than half of US car trips are less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometres)<\/p>\n If your thinking is anything like mine, you’ve noticed that 5 kilometres (3.1 miles, or 1.5 Washington Malls for Americans) sounds like a nice distance to ride your bike instead of drive. But for a moment, let’s disregard the well-documented mental and physical health reasons to ride instead of drive, remember that the cost of car ownership in Canada averages 1,387 CAD per month,<\/i> and look at the long-term costs of owning an electric cargo bike to see if it can save you money.<\/p>\n *I’m generalizing and using a bunch of studies here from all over the globe, because it’s hard to find all the specific data for one region or locality to compare. However, this is one of those areas where the exact numbers vary from place to place, but overall the themes are the same. I’ve included links to a number of articles and peer-reviewed journals at the bottom for your reading pleasure.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The passenger rain cover makes me feel like a chauffeur driving an old Rolls Royce<\/a>, when the driver wasn’t deemed important enough to be contained and dry like his passengers. Photo: Deniz Merdano<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There are two main costs associated with any mode of personal travel: capital and operating. We covered some costs in the initial look at the Globe Haul LT here<\/a>, but to summarize, with all the accessories and accoutrements, the model you see here comes in at roughly 6000 CAD, which is both a fair chunk of cash and somewhere in the middle for an electric cargo bike.<\/p>\n After your initial investment, operating costs are incredibly low. While total fuel consumption for your ICE-powered SUV will obviously vary based on many factors, we can guesstimate it at $10 – $20 per 100 kilometres (4971 chain, for those in the USA). An electric car will be an order of magnitude lower at $2.50.<\/p>\n A full charge of the Globe Haul’s 772Wh battery costs me approximately 10\u00a2 here in BC. That’s 100x less than driving and effectively negligible in the cost of ridership; over 5000 kilometres, that’s $12. Here in BC, we also have the benefit of very low carbon intensity power due to our primarily hydro-derived electricity, adding to the climate benefits of driving less that we’re not delving into here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The individual health benefits of riding over driving are also well studied and documented. I’m not sure science can adequately quantify the smug feeling of riding under the snarled highway traffic on the way to pickup your kid, though.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There are some consumables; brake pads and tires being the two most obvious. Over the roughly 5000 kilometres the Haul LT has seen, I’ve replaced the pads twice, rear cable and housing once, and the rear tire once. An upside to the hub-motor is the lack of drivetrain wear, we’re coming up on needing a replacement, but aren’t there yet. Mid-motor bikes will eat chains and cassettes at much higher rates than you’re used to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I did all the service and labor myself, however if you don’t have the knowledge, skills, time, tools, or desire I added an annual checkup at your local bike shop and some labor hours for the brake pads and shifter cable for a grand total of $525, you can adjust this for your local rates but it’s easily half or better than the cost of a year of amortized car maintenance; the difference is even more stark if you’re doing your own bicycle wrenching.<\/p>\n While financing a bike is not my style, e-bikes can be very expensive, and given how normalized financing a car is, it’s a consideration here as well. Many large shops are now offering so-called “buy now, pay later” options. These may or may not include interest depending on the plan, but in an attempt to make the e-bike numbers a worst-case scenario, I’ve included 24-month financing, with zero dollars down and 6.5% APR.<\/p>\n We’d be remiss to skip depreciation, an oft-overlooked and biggest part of the true cost of car ownership. Using some basic accounting, I’m going to suggest we estimate 40% for the first year, and 15% after that. We’re just over a year into the Globe Haul LT here, so that’s an additional $3000 – the used market fluctuates, so this may be aggressive, but bikes are depreciating assets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Refresher on the average cost per month of car ownership for Canadians. It’s more than you might think.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The year one depreciation really does a number on this chart, and monthly cost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With the initial depreciation hit gone, year two paints a very different picture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n None of these numbers is to be taken as gospel, and everyone’s financial picture will look different. But hopefully this illustrates that the cost of owning and operating a bike like the Globe Haul LT is at least one order of magnitude less costly than the average family car.<\/p>\n The part I can’t estimate is how much driving you<\/i> can replace; it’s easy to paint a picture where a cargo bike is cheaper than owning and operating a car, but unless you’re fully replacing a car with it the comparison may seem a little unfair. For my family, one of the main reasons we’re able to maintain a full working family schedule with one car is because we’ve got an electric cargo bike. This saves us thousands of dollars a year in hard dollars.<\/p>\n If you’re unable to fully ditch one (or more!) cars for an e-bike, the math requires a few additional assumptions, but after somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-10,000 kilometres (4,300-6,200 miles) the much lower operating costs of the e-bike have amortized themselves. Put another way, if you can replace about three thousand kilometers of driving with riding a year, you’ve got 2-3 years before you’re saving money. It sounds like a lot, but once you break the driving habit for a quick grocery run, you’ll be surprised how fast the kilometers add up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There are, of course, barriers to cycling beyond the financial considerations. There’s no way I’m trying to “share” this lane with drivers, and based on the daily traffic I see most other cyclists agree with me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Left unsaid in the discussion above cost breakdown is if you’re here on this website, you already own a bike. It might not be an electric cargo bike, but there are lots of ways<\/a> to carry things on your bike<\/a> – your costs above are effectively zero<\/i>. You’ve done it. The amortization period is over.<\/p>\n No, your $8,000 170mm enduro bike isn’t great to go get groceries – where\/how will you lock it, the tires are slow as f***, and all that travel saps precious watts, but do you really need to take thousands of pounds of metal and a couch to get two small bags of groceries? Start by pedaling your Megatower a couple of kilometres to get a coffee with a friend, and I promise you’ll start to find other trips to ride. Pick up a cheap 80’s retro bike off Marketplace, add a couple racks, et voila!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sometimes I motivate by thinking of car trips in absolute dollar terms, “It will cost me $4.50 to drive to [the thing] and back”, it’s an easy gamified incentive to hop on a bike. Sometimes I remember that riding bikes is just really nice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n So, discuss below. As I see it, biking more is good for your fitness, your mental health, the planet, a net-positive for society, and when it comes down to brass tacks it’s good for your wallet.<\/p>\n Is there a car-based trip from your weekly life you could (or have already) replaced with a bike? What are your impediments to riding more – and what can you do to reduce these barriers? Share your positive and<\/i> negative experiences, and let’s try to get more people on bikes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n <\/p>\nConsumables and parts<\/h3>\n
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\n Part<\/th>\n Price ($)<\/th>\n Quantity<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n \n Brake Pads<\/th>\n 50<\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Tire<\/th>\n 55<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Cable\/Housing<\/th>\n 20<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Labor<\/th>\n 100<\/td>\n 1.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Annual Service<\/th>\n 100<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Total<\/th>\n 525<\/td>\n
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![\"cooperquinn\"](\"http:\/\/nsmb.com\/media\/machina\/avatar_images\/ee8a4b04f7164785a71081e96f98afb4.png\")
<\/p><\/div>\n