https://maxmautner.com/2026/10/11/how-fast-is-a-car.html
The median American worker earns $23.80/hour, or ~$19 after taxes. A used car driven the US average of ~10,900 miles a year costs ~$8,200, counting $1,700 a year for a parking space at home. That is ~430 hours of work before the car moves. A new car takes ~700 hours. A $999 e-bike ridden 3,000 miles a year takes ~25 hours.
Your mandatory daily intrusive thought that it’s a good time to buy an ebike. I’ll pay around $25 this year in electricity costs to do 99% of my urban travelling, with only moving between apartments being impractical. The diesel shock is probably going to deplete inventories that are hard to restock because almost everything is coming from China. Getting ahead of the demand spike is going to be the smart move like it was in 2020. I don’t recommend the Lectric brand they chose for this study, but it’s the cheapest reliable one with a good service network.
how much snow, rain, and 30c+ days in your year?
I live on the Colorado Front Range which is one of the better/worse areas to bike in the US. It’s a high desert so we can expect snow from September-May, but it usually melts within a few days and the bike trails are the first things cleared. June-September brings a lot of 30-37c days with low humidity, usually with afternoon monsoon rains that always hit me on the ride home. It’s very hilly and high elevation so biking is rougher than most sea-level places. I’ve been able to bike maybe 350/365 days out of the past year, only stopping when it’s so snowy I don’t want to drive or below -20c.
The big thing an ebike gets you is mitigating the weather. If it’s snowy but passable, I can use my throttle to slowly trudge along and keep a pace that’s faster than walking. If it’s rainy and windy, I feel like I have a tailwind. If it’s super hot out, even a 10 hour day doing a physical job in the sun doesn’t deter me from riding because it’s like having air conditioning on full blast. I would have biked maybe 250/365 days on my normal bike while it’s only frostbite and ice/deep snow that keep me from the ebike.
the path clearing is a big deal, i don’t think i’ve ever lived anywhere that did those in a timely manner
Eat bitterness 吃苦
I think people are way too used to driving around in their climate-controlled boxes. Experience the great outdoors!
…but also, riding in the rain does suck. I always sweat under my poncho and get super sticky.
no thanks, i suffer enough physical torture every day just by living without external factors worsening the chronic pain.
Why’s that? Only asking because that’s the one I bought a couple weeks ago 😰
It’s still a perfectly adequate and safe bike. My first ebike was an Xpress 750, then an Aventon Abound. My issue with the Lectric was how cheap the components were. Anything that could shake off did, the brakes felt really inadequate, and the tyres were terrible. I ended up swapping out enough to make it cost more than Aventon’s commuter models. A lot of people who bought an Xpedition over an Abound also had similar complaints.