Considering getting an ebike instead of a car

Joe_falahad

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192.168.100.1 192.168.1.1
So, I never learned to drive for various reasons. I guess since ride sharing is a thing and the fact you can get quite literally anything delivered, I never saw it as totally necessary for me.

I was planning on learning to drive, but then I started looking into ebikes. They sound really fun and I won't have to worry about a license, insurance, fuel, expensive maintenance or sitting in traffic. Plus I can burn calories when pedaling. Heck, I'll probably just ride around for fun when the weather is nice.

And for $1000 I could get a brand spanking new radmission or similar rather than a beater $3000 car that may or may not be questionable.

If I need to travel far, I can just call an uber and considering how much money I'm NOT pouring into a car, it wouldn't be expensive by comparison.

Should I go for it? Its cold and snowy in my area right now. So maybe I should hold off till spring, but I am curious if anyone else was in a similar situation as me or close to it.
 
Many reasons for having an e-bike. Glad you don't want to drive a gas burner. Cars are money pits, you buy a beater and will keep poring money into it. Have an EV car and it saves me a lot of money compared to ICE. But the insurance is higher than ever. I could almost build a new ebike for the insurance payed each year. I don't drive the car much mostly for my mother, when she quits driving may sell it.

Don't buy something that wont do what you want with the ebike. You can get one that will ride in the snow. Don't know where you live. There are people that ride theirs in the winter. May need a fat tire ebike.

Need to learn about not charging cold batteries, how to take care of one like proper use of the batteries to get maximum live (2X) out of them. Need to keep an eye on them, people will take them in a minute. I have $3,000 in my eTrike, but can ride 4 hours or more on a charge. One charge cost $0.10.
 
We cannot answer for you :wink:
I think many people on ES use their ebike for pretty much everything, but if you have never used a bike on a daily basis before, you first have to try it to see if you can really live without your car.
For sure you will save a lot of money, and will limit pollution and oil consumption at your level :thumb:
My advice would be to put a bit more in your ebike if you want to use it at all time, especially if you leave in a cold/wet region. Perhaps the RadRhino or RadRhino Plus ?
 
Cold and snowy in mid September? Whoa. Do you live in Yellowknife?

Yes, I think you should try using an e-bike for transportation instead of a car. I haven't had a motor vehicle for well over a decade now, and I've had no practical reason to consider one. Most of that time I used pedal bikes only, but e-bikes have proved easier and more versatile for daily transportation.

A bike like Radmission will do a good job of carrying you modest distances with decent reliability and low cost. But it won't help you haul very much stuff around, and it will turn into a pretty unpleasant ride the moment you run out of battery. A cargo bike with at least some assortment of gears would make a better substitute for a car. Radwagon ticks those boxes, but the latest version uses a funny wheel size that you won't be able to find winter tires for. Earlier versions of Radwagon use 26" wheels and have no such problem.

Remember that the cost difference isn't only in purchase price. Cars cost thousands of dollars per year to own, and their per mile operating costs are much higher than any e-bike's. An e-bike ridden daily will average a few hundred dollars a year in maintenance and replacement parts.
 
Chalo said:
An e-bike ridden daily will average a few hundred dollars a year in maintenance and replacement parts.

And 1 or 2 dozens of dollars in electricty :wink:
 
I did quit driving about 30 years ago, and never regretted my decision. You can ride most of the time, and use other transportation services for the times the weather is too bad or you need to travel too long distances. I had built bikes that outperform any car in the city, yet very much lighter than motorcycles. My commuting is fun and fast, without any trafic or parking problems that are making cars a nightmare in big cities.

Travel clean, silent, fun and cheap. The ebike is the ultimate freedom in city commuting.
 
Get your license, get your license even if you plan on not driving.

I know I am going against the grain telling you that.

This will get you past the restrictions period for any and all new drivers, which is for any and all ages, which is you can't drive at night without a normal license driver in the passenger seat. I dont know what the other limits are. I assume these restrictions are the same across the provinces in Canada, and states in USA but I do not know. If you are a 30+ yr old, doesnt matter the age, all new drivers have restrictions, so get your license immediately. Renew your license when the time comes. Even if you never drive at all.

That then opens up more doors for you in transportation
- Like car-share and companies like Car2Go, ZipCar and others.
- Renting a car from a car rental company if your traveling, or the occasional great weekend rate to get out of the city. That is a really big bonus and well worth the cost to get a DL.
- Gives you an easy 2nd piece of ID, that isnt any better then a non-drivers province/state issued ID card. Which leads me to the next one.
- I'd bet in some circumstances a DL is a more reliable piece of ID, gives a clerk looking at it more assurances then a non DL id, especially when out of province/state, and more so out of country. Dealing with credit card for example, or large/expensive purchases.
- It would also go on your credit report that you have a DL and is most likely a factor in any of their top secret, no one knows but themselves algorithms.
-

I would go even more against the grain and tell you to do buy used car. A small car with good fuel mileage, depending on where you live of course because if you live in NYC then yeah parking is a mess. If you have the money for the price of the vehicle, Insurance, Repair, Fuel, Driving Test, Written Test, Driving license cost. If you are single, most women look down on a grown adult man with no vehicle.

Winter in September you say - Snow, pouring rain, a foot of snow...... all suck.
 
let your partner supply the vehicle and get yourself a bike, or two... or three
thats what i do :D

i cant stand driving anymore
riding a bike feels like freedom

and watch out for those ride share vehicles
people driving them dont know how to drive or theyre tourists on vacation that are lost
they do the most unexpected things
 
markz said:
...most women look down on a grown adult man with no vehicle.
My personal experience is very different. Gold diggers are after men with fancy cars, but all of them that are not after money, are after love and Love is blind. I often had the new girl in the neighborhood while being the only one around going to work on a bicycle.

You know the most satisfying way to spend a pay check?
Try spending the new neighbor’s pay check in a riding weekend with his beautiful daughter. 8)
 
E bikes are a bit like cameras, you can take great pictures with a cheapie, or spend as much as you want.

Cold and snowy by September does sound like you might not ride so much all winter, but like you said, owning a car could still cost more in the long run.

If you go for this, get a decent bike to start with. Not a new bike that costs a fortune, but a good quality bike used will do. On surprising option for a commuter is a fairly cheap beach cruiser, but one with 7 speed rear gears. But what I'm trying to say is buy a sturdy bike, preferably with full fenders, for commuting. 26" balloon tires should be enough for winter, but you might need some with studs if its really that snowy.

Its quite possible to save a lot of money running an e bike vs a worn out car. I paid down 20 grand in charge card debt, by using an e bike, vs replacing a worn out car. I drove the car when I had to, biked the rest. This put off the repair the car needed long enough to get to where I could buy a replacement, it took 4 years.

If you are very young, insurance for a car can be a real big expense. But you can still learn to drive, and get a license. Its just going to help you get started out in many ways, to have the license. You should consider a motorcycle license added too, when its affordable to get the lessons for that as well as the driving school.

The single cheapest transportation I ever owned, was a honda 125. Sips gas, never needed much maintenance, rode it for three years and then sold it for every penny I paid for it originally. But that was back in the day, I rode without insurance the whole time. So it was cheap then for sure.
 
Jil said:
you first have to try it to see if you can really live without your car.
His first sentence clearly says,
“So, I never learned to drive for various reasons”

You can’t try to live without a car if you don’t have a car :lol:
 
Joe_falahad said:
192.168.100.1 192.168.1.1
So, I never learned to drive for various reasons. I guess since ride sharing is a thing and the fact you can get quite literally anything delivered, I never saw it as totally necessary for me.

I was planning on learning to drive, but then I started looking into ebikes. They sound really fun and I won't have to worry about a license, insurance, fuel, expensive maintenance or sitting in traffic. Plus I can burn calories when pedaling. Heck, I'll probably just ride around for fun when the weather is nice.

And for $1000 I could get a brand spanking new radmission or similar rather than a beater $3000 car that may or may not be questionable.

If I need to travel far, I can just call an uber and considering how much money I'm NOT pouring into a car, it wouldn't be expensive by comparison.

Should I go for it? Its cold and snowy in my area right now. So maybe I should hold off till spring, but I am curious if anyone else was in a similar situation as me or close to it.

Do you have experience riding bicycles in general? Wow you have snow right now, do you plan on riding your bike in the snow or just in the nice weather?
 
I didn't get a car until I was nearly 40, though I had a drivers license (with motorcycle endorsement!) If I could go back and change things about my life, that would be one of them. But that's me and my life. There are lots of people who would have little use for one.

Get a driver's license, or if "learning to drive" is a real issue, walk. Bicycles operate in a no man's land between cars and pedestrians. Occasionally you will have a lane marked off for your use, but if it's really your transportation, you will run into plenty of places where to get from point A to point B, even just something like making a left turn to get from one arterial to another, you will have to choose between some hairy maneuver that's really in the domain of the motor vehicle vs. lumping it with the pedestrians. Whether you're going to be in one of those cars or not, it's a good idea to have sat in that seat long enough to know how they're supposed to operate.
 
I apologize if the various reasons you never learned to drive include safety reasons, like an illness or physical limitations.

If that is the case, you might look into trikes, and or keeping it on the slower side. Less of a problem if you should be prone to narcolepsy or whatever.

But if its just money, or you just live where you can walk to everything, start out with the e bikes, then see if you can take lessons for a motorcycle license later on as funds, time, etc permit. The MC lessons are something you might find real handy if you do ride e bikes for life. Life might be longer with what they teach.
 
All reasons are good to avoid cars. And that is valid wether it is from the outside or the inside. :D
 
markz said:
If you are single, most women look down on a grown adult man with no vehicle.

Yeah, well... Most people seem to be cool with gradually destroying every good thing in the world for their own temporary convenience. You want someone to care about you when they're incapable of caring about literally everything? Good luck with that. At best, you wind up with a blinkered materialistic person who treats you okay when you're meeting expectations.

Cars = sociopathy.
 
Eastwood said:
Jil said:
you first have to try it to see if you can really live without your car.
His first sentence clearly says,
“So, I never learned to drive for various reasons”

You can’t try to live without a car if you don’t have a car :lol:
Ahah, mea culpa , I hadn't read properly !
It's indeed much easier to learn how to live without a car when you don't have one :mrgreen:
 
I started driving young and depended on it the first part of my life. Then it turns into an addiction and you think you can not live with out it.

My budget for a car used to be $1,000 + insurance a year. Now $3,000 + insurance. 12yrs ago insurance for me was $240yr, now with my elder mother it's $1,500yr. She just renewed her license.

I will keep my license as long as I can. Good eBike setup cost much more than a regular bike and drawbacks like weather, roads/traffic, parking/not getting it stolen. If you are just looking at money the fuel cost are the cheapest of all the transportation.

So if it's doable for you then give it a try. You can always buy a car.
 
Jil said:
Eastwood said:
Jil said:
you first have to try it to see if you can really live without your car.
His first sentence clearly says,
“So, I never learned to drive for various reasons”

You can’t try to live without a car if you don’t have a car :lol:
Ahah, mea culpa , I hadn't read properly !
It's indeed much easier to learn how to live without a car when you don't have one :mrgreen:

Indeed :lol:
 
I vote car. Or at least get a license so you have the option to rent one. It opens up your immediate geographical circle far more than an ebike or ride sharing can. Wanna go explore something more than, say 10 miles away? Good luck on an ebike as 20 miles is the comfortable range for many of them. And it'll get worse in the cold. Speaking of the cold, if it's snowing now where you are, it's going to suck balls to ride a bike once real winter hits. As for ride sharing, yes you can go farther but since you're acutely aware of the cost it will generally disincentivize you to go anywhere besides specific, known locations that are relatively close. I just checked uber rates and to travel to a city 150 miles away, it's over $200 1 way! Even with my gas guzzling SUV, that's about 7-8x more than what I'd pay in fuel costs.

In short, a car gives you far more options of things to do.
 
In a big city, driving a car can drive you nuts, and winter makes it even worse. Cars are addictive because people enjoy being disconnected from reality. It is a drug that is making them selfish, agressive, and stupid. When you watch DashCam footage on youtube, you can see the effects of this addiction. It is easy to pretend those drivers are stupid, but if you are honest with yourself you have to admit that you’ve been stupid too at times when driving a car. It is not easy to quit, even when the downsides are obviously ruining your mental health. There should be some therapy to cure car addiction, because simple logic is not enough. Car junkies are finding normal to move around with one ton and a half of junk that isolates them from reality. 21st century schizoïd man had lost consciousness of being part of this planet, and behaves like some alien colonist who needs artificial life support to protect himself from this hostile environment.
 
I'm just saying if its possible, learn to drive and get the license. It will come in handy some time. Like when you have to move, you can rent a truck. You fly somewhere, you can rent a car if the rest of the trip is farther than you can take a taxi. A lot depends on where you need to go, out west, you fly in someplace, then you drive 200 more miles to get to where you want to go. Or you may end up with a job that requires driving, or your promotion is limited by not driving. I'm just saying if you have a choice, learn to drive eventually. Nothing wrong though, with getting a pilots certificate first. :thumb:

Own a car, that's not mandatory. But having enough stuff delivered can get expensive too.
 
This one is easy... get the bike and see how it goes. The bike will be fun and when it proves to be impractical that $1000 expense won't have broken the bank when you realize you do really need a car and have to buy that beater after all. Personally there is simply no way I could exist without my motor vehicles. I can't imagine living in such a shrunken local world. One day they will be hybrids or electric but for now they burn irreplaceable climate change inducing fossil fuels. That's just the way it is.
 
dogman dan said:
I'm just saying if its possible, learn to drive and get the license. It will come in handy some time. Like when you have to move, you can rent a truck. You fly somewhere, you can rent a car if the rest of the trip is farther than you can take a taxi. A lot depends on where you need to go, out west, you fly in someplace, then you drive 200 more miles to get to where you want to go. Or you may end up with a job that requires driving, or your promotion is limited by not driving. I'm just saying if you have a choice, learn to drive eventually. Nothing wrong though, with getting a pilots certificate first. :thumb:

Own a car, that's not mandatory. But having enough stuff delivered can get expensive too.

Yep. City and countryside have different transport requirements. When everything is far away, transport and fun are making it much more important to drive.

I somehow agree that one would want a driver’s license for purpose of identity, insurance or occasional use of a licensed vehicle. But in the city, you will always find someone happy to drive the car or truck that you plan to rent. In the countryside where I need transport I always let someone else driving. I own a Landcruiser and a truck, but hadn’t use them myself for decades. For me they are artefacts from another time. I let the kids have fun or work with them. My best fun vehicle is a sailboat, more than my bikes that I use the most.

Now that I think about it, I should make plans to replace my boat with a foiling cat. I had dreamed of this for long, and I an old enough to indulge myself. I have tried building electric boats long ago, but range limits are not compatible with boating philosophy.
 
MadRhino said:
Now that I think about it, I should make plans to replace my boat with a foiling cat. I had dreamed of this for long, and I an old enough to indulge myself. I have tried building electric boats long ago, but range limits are not compatible with boating philosophy.

A foiling cat, now you're talkin. Hell of a learning curve I'll bet.
 
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