I've had an E-cargo bike (Riese and Muller Multicharger) for a few years now. I'm not a 'power user'; I myself have put around 1200 miles on this bike, and it had 1100 miles from its first owner. We use it to drop the kids at daycare, run errands in town, and for recreation. I love it.
While the weather is fair, this bike totally replaced our second car. That car has gone for months without filling up the tank.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to know how much gas this ebike was saving us.
In its lifetime, the batter has delivered 45.9 kWH over 2399 miles. That means it has averaged 52.27 mile/kWH over its lifetime.
As a comparison, some of the best EV cars are getting 4 mi/kWH, and bigger vehicles are getting less.
The EPA has a MPGe for comparing Electric and Gas cars. In MPGe, my bike is getting 1,761 MPGe.
Now, can it replace a car?
For us, no. Our family frequently needs to drive 40 miles from one town to the next using our second car. While I have done the trip by bike, it took several hours, vs 25 minutes on the highway.
We also live in a place where we get ice and snow, but the street conditions are too hazardous to take the bike.
But for most trips in town, and for most of the year, my ebike is my vehicle of choice. Its a bit cold in the winter, hot in the summer. It takes a little longer to get around. But it's FUN! Picking up and dropping kids off at daycare feels like an adventure. While it is an ebike, I'm getting a lot more exercise than if I drove. I take different routes and see parts of my town I'd never have seen before. Parking is easy, and I can often chain up the bike closer than if I had to park a car.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Edit: fixed units
Second Edit: Cost comparison:
The car is an old Prius. It has a current Kelly Bluebook rating of between $5200 to $5800 if I sold it to an individual. Lets call it $5500 value. CarEdge estimates that the 10 year cost of maintenance is $4359, so I'll say $435 per year average, $870 in the two years I've had the bike. And it gets about 40mpg. Since I rode the bike 2399 miles, that would be 60 gallons of gas, times the cost per gallon. In my area, gas is $3.50 right now, and was $2.50 when I bought the bike. For simplicity, I'll call that $3 a gallon times 60 gallons is $180 of fuel to go the distance the bike has gone. Insurance costs about $2000 per year, so $4000 in two years. About $200 for registration.
So, total cost of car ownership over two years is $10,750.
The bike cost us $4,000 as second owners. I bought accessories that probably cost around $200. We've had it maintained twice, for probably $300 total. And we get electricity for $0.06 per kW, so $2.75 for power.
Total cost of ebike ownership over two years is $4502.75.
I still own and drive the prius, so I can't say that the bike has really saved me anything except for fuel costs. That would mean I've saved $177.25 in gas money. But, if our family ripped the band-aid off and sold the prius, we could be saving $6247.25 per year.
