How Much Money Can You Save By Using an Electric Scooter? (Case Study)
Are you on the fence about buying an electric scooter and scrapping your daily driver? You could save a ton of money if your commute isn't too far.
Let's talk about what an electric commuter scooter is.
What is an Electric Commuter Scooter?
In the world of electric scooters, the commuter option is built for commuting. They are designed and manufactured to replace public transportation and to drive your car to work.
Do they do what they're designed to do? That's what this article is all about.
Keep in mind a lot of electric scooters aren't capable of being replacements for your daily driver. Only commuter scooters have what it takes. We're not going to explain what to look for in a commuter scooter; it's just worth pointing out the differences. They're more comfortable to ride, accessible to store and carry and have a more extended battery range.
What are the Alternatives?
The most common alternatives to using a commuter scooter are a gas-powered car or public transportation. For most of this piece, we'll compare a car with an electric scooter. Stay tuned at the very end for a quick comparison with public transportation.
Remember, these examples only work for people who are far from work. Too close and you could walk; too far, and you might be outside of your electric scooter's battery range. More on that later.
Electric Scooters vs Gas-Powered Cars
Saving money is the name of the game with electric scooters. You'll see savings in several categories when you compare them to a gas-powered car. Let's explore some of these categories.
Upfront Costs
The first thing to talk about is the upfront costs associated with either of these vehicles. When you're buying a car, signing a contract for 20, 30, or even 40 thousand dollars isn't shocking. That's a lot of money.
For an electric scooter, you can expect to pay no more than $500-$2000 (depending on your needs). You can push back your eye doctor appointment if you see dollar signs. That's an immediate savings of tens of thousands of dollars.
But wait, there's more.
Car Insurance
You know all about car insurance if you own and operate a car. This is a monthly bill of a few hundred dollars. That means a couple of thousand dollars a year.
Scooter insurance costs less than a tenth of this—yet another win for the electric scooter.
Price Per Mile
This is where things get interesting – the price per mile. This category is straightforward to compare side-by-side. When you look at the cost of commercial electricity versus a gallon of gasoline, things swing even more to the side of the electric scooter.
You'll pay nearly 30 times more per mile for a gas-powered car. In a second, we'll show you how we did the math. Chalk this one up for the electric scooter.
Depreciation
Personal finance experts say that a car is the most common money dump that the everyday person has. This is thanks to a thing called "depreciation". Depreciation is the idea of losing value from the second you purchase it. You can find something's depreciation by subtracting how much you can sell it for users and how much you bought it for new.
The car industry is built around depreciation. Once you drive the car off the lot, 9-11% of its total value is gone since it's a used car. Every year that you own a car, you experience even more depreciation.
Within five years, most cars are worth about half (or less) of what they started as. Your $40,000 car is now $20,000. In other words, you lost $20,000 simply by owning and driving a car.
Electric scooters don't suffer the same fate since the order of magnitude is much smaller. A 50% loss on a $1,000 electric scooter doesn't sting nearly as much. Plus, repairing an electric scooter to bring it back to "like-new" condition is pretty cheap.
That's another win for the electric scooter.
Costs of Maintenance
Did you remember to rotate your electric scooter's tires, change the oil, replace the transmission, and repair the clutch? No? That's probably because these hidden maintenance costs only exist for a gas-powered car.
These bits of maintenance quickly add up when you're trying to keep your car alive. It's not rare to get a bill from the mechanic for thousands of dollars. If you get the same account for your $750 electric scooter, you'll tell them to keep it, and you can buy a new one.
Put – the costs of maintenance on an e-scooter are much lower.
Parking Pass for Work
Some people must pay for parking passes to keep their cars parked at work. This is common in cities across the country. In places like New York City, these passes can cost up to $2.50 an hour. For a standard 40-hour workweek, that's another $100 a week.
Since commuter scooters can be easily carried and stored, you don't have to worry about this.
Case Study: Calculated Savings
In the next section, you'll learn how to calculate these values yourself. In the meantime, we'll show you the math we promised earlier.
This case study highlights our calculated savings for riding an electric scooter instead of driving a gas-powered car.
Price Per Charge
The average price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) is $0.13 in the US. This is a measure of energy that is used to charge your electric scooter at your house. In other words, this is the price you're paying to charge your electric scooter.
We started with an Inthezone X7 Pro scooter, an affordable electric scooter. According to manufacturing specs, it has a 36V, 10Ah battery. Those are Volts and amp-Hours, more electrical talk. If you multiply the two, you get watt-hours that might look familiar from the previous paragraph. That's right – divide it by a thousand, and you get kWh.
36 times ten divided by 1,000 is 0.36 kWh. What does this mean? That's how much energy goes into a full charge of your battery.
Let's grab this number and multiply it by your house's average kWh price. 0.36 kWh times $0.13/kWh is $0.0468 for a full battery charge.
For the sake of simplicity, that's 4.7 cents to charge your battery fully. Go to the gas station with 4.7 cents and see how much gas you can get!
Price Per Mile on an Electric Scooter
Let's take 4.7 cents that and break it down a little further. After all, that's the price for a full charge – what's the cost per mile?
That same Turboant X7 Pro e-scooter ranges 15.2 miles in real-world riding. Note: This came from our study, which we'll detail later.
Take that 4.7 cents and divide it by 15.2 miles to give you a price per mile. In this case, it works out to $0.00308/mile. That's 0.3 cents a mile! Three cents for 10 miles, 30 cents for 100 miles, 3 dollars for 1,000 miles – however, you want to say it, it's an insanely small price to pay.
Price Per Mile in a Gas-Powered Car
So now we need to determine your price per mile in a conventional car. You'll better understand these figures based on your area usage and car and gas prices. We used average values for our math.
AAA says the average gas price per gallon is $2.16 (as of December 2020). The EPA says that the average miles per gallon (mpg) of cars sold in the US is 25.1 mpg.
We need to use these two values to get a price per mile. Divide the price per gallon by the miles per gallon. $2.16/gallon / 25.1 miles/gallon = $0.086/mile.
Compare the Prices Per Mile
From our math with electric scooters, we found that they cost $0.003/per mile. Gas-powered cars cost $0.086/mile.
If you find the ratio between these two, it's a 28.67:1 ratio. That means it's about 29 times more expensive to fuel a gas-powered car per mile. Transversely, it's about 29 times less costly to use an e-scooter.
When an Electric Scooter Won't Work
This concept only applies to certain situations. If your commute involves a highway with no bike lane, you won't be able to use an electric scooter.
In general, if anything stops you from physically (or legally) riding an electric scooter to work, you won't be able to use these ideas.
On top of that, if your electric scooter's range isn't extensive enough, you won't be able to commute. You'll be walking the extra miles home if your office is 5 miles away and your electric scooter's battery can take 8 miles.
Before buying an electric scooter and selling your car, it's worth doing some homework.
How to Calculate Your Savings
You've seen our math; now it's time to do your own. In this section, you'll learn how to calculate your savings.
You can use our calculator to determine how much money you'll save riding an electric scooter. Remember that this calculator does not consider maintenance costs, insurance and similar expenses. It only accounts for what you pay per mile you travel.
First, you need to determine the battery capacity of your e-scooter. In most cases, this data is available from the retailer or manufacturer. If not, you can calculate it using the battery voltage (V) and amp-hours (Ah).
Step #1: Calculate Your Current Costs
This is the bucket where all of your current commuting expenses go. A few of them were highlighted earlier, like your insurance, gas mileage, miles a day, price per mile, depreciation, upfront costs, maintenance, and parking pass.
If you have additional costs that aren't captured in this list, they'll get added to this part.
For reference, AAA found that all these costs work out to an average of around $8,500 yearly for the typical driver. $5,700 of that alone was annual depreciation.
Whatever your calculated value is, keep that handy as we move to step 2.
Step #2: Find Your E-Scooter's Range
You need to know your electric scooter's range to calculate your savings. Use this number if you have already tested your scooter in real-world conditions. If not, skip this step until you learn how to run your own electric scooter range test in a later section.
We'll take this number with us to step 3.
Step #3: Calculate Estimated E-Scooter Costs
As we did earlier, it's time to do some math about your electric scooter costs. Again, this will contain the cost of your scooter, miles per charge, cost per mile, and maintenance costs.
In most cases, you should find your annual cost to own and operate an e-scooter under $500 – potentially as low as $100.
Step #4: Calculate the Difference
Take your final number from step 1 and subtract your last number from step 3. In this general case, we take $8,500 and subtract $500.
We're left with an annual saving of $8,000. That means every five years; you're saving an average of $40,000 by strictly riding your e-scooter to work and dumping your car.
What Changes Your Electric Scooter's Range?
Before finding out how to run your electric scooter range test, we want to tell you why this figure won't match the manufacturer's specs.
When they test these batteries, they're using a lab setting. It's the same situation when a car manufacturer does an EPA test on their rated miles per gallon. They'll take the car to a controlled environment and run it in ideal conditions.
Have you ever used a car and matched up with the crazy-high EPA-rated miles per gallon figure? You might be as much as 10 miles per gallon lower than they rated the vehicle.
The same thing is true in an e-scooter rating, but more minor changes can have more significant impacts here.
Tire Pressure
Tire pressure is something many people dismiss when riding a commuter scooter regularly. A tire that's flatter than it should be taken more power to drive your usual route.
Having manufacturer-suggest tire pressure on your tires will boost your overall range. Don't believe us? Drive your scooter until you use half of the battery's range. Deflate the tires to 25 psi each and make your way back home. Hopefully, you have Uber on your phone or are not afraid to walk the extra mile.
How You Ride
If you're an aggressive rider on your electric scooter, you can expect not to go as far on a charge. Riding the accelerator hard is a quick way to drain your battery.
Your Commute's Terrain
You can expect fewer miles per charge if you have a lot of hills, bumps, and rough terrain. Terrain will interfere with how much energy your motor uses and what kind of strain your battery sees.
Your Weight
Not to sound like your rude aunt at Thanksgiving, but your weight also plays a factor here. Heavier riders can get fewer miles out of a fully-charged battery. From the perspective of your electric scooter, the motor and tires are seeing a more significant load, putting a more considerable strain on the battery.
We're not judging, and neither is your e-scooter! It's just something worth mentioning.
Your Battery's Max Capacity
The downside of electronics is that the battery will slowly die over time. It's no different than your phone, which seems to pass faster after a year.
When batteries get hot, their total capacity diminishes. Every 2 to 4 years, you can expect your electric scooter to be due for a new battery.
The total amount of miles per charge you'll get will go down during that time. You might start at 15 miles per charge, but that number can go down to 10 quickly.
How to Run Your Own Electric Scooter Range Test
If you were a little lost in step 2 earlier, this is where you'll get some clarity. You can run your e-scooter range test to determine how many miles a fully charged battery can take you.
This will put the previously-discussed factors to the test. In other words, your weight, terrain, capacity, riding style, and tire pressure will hit the asphalt and tell you your genuine battery's range.
Step #1: Get Ready
The first step is to get everything in order. Fully charge your e-scooter and wear the gear you'd typically put on. You want to emulate a regular commute perfectly.
Step #2: Find the Distance
Before you head out the door, figure out the exact distance between your home and your job. You can either use an online map service or find out while you ride with a smartwatch or GPS-enabled device.
You'll want to conduct this test on your commute path, so the final math you do is more accurate.
Step #3: Ride
With everything in order, it's time to ride. Ride to work and back continually until your battery completely dies. Keep track of how often you completed the commute and mark where the scooter died.
Use this mark and calculate how far away from your home you are.
Step #5: Add it Up
Now, add up the numbers. The math is easy if your commute is 3.5 miles one way, and you went to work and back two times before the scooter died 1.0 miles away from your house.
3.5 miles times two times two plus 1.0 is 15.0 miles. This is your total range from one test.
Step #6: Repeat
No experiment is done after just one test. You'll want to repeat steps 1-5 at least twice before arriving at a usable number. Our suggestion is to have five ranges from 5 tests. We know this is a lot of effort, but you can incorporate it into your commutes.
Step #7: Do the Final Math
Take the average of the numbers you collect. If you don't remember, you can find a standard by adding all the full ranges and dividing that by how many tests you did.
For example, if we ran three tests and arrived at ranges of 15.0, 15.2, and 15.4, we would find the total by adding the three and getting 45.6. Divide that number by 3 to get an average of 15.2 total miles.
Electric Scooter vs Public Transportation
We told you in the beginning that you could expect a quick comparison between an electric scooter and public transportation – well, here it is!
Time Associated
As we all know, time is money. How valuable is your time? If you stick with public transportation, you'll feel like your time is worthless.
Every subway and bus is going to be inevitably late. This means being late to work and getting an earful from your boss.
Alternatively, it means waking up 30 to 60 minutes earlier so you can account for this annoyance of public transportation.
Electric scooters don't have the same problem. As long as you charge it, it's ready to go when you are. All aboard!
Cost
Unless you're an insane collector, you're not purchasing a subway, bus, or train. The cost associated with public transportation revolves around buying a ticket for a one-way ride. In the following examples, we'll talk about a 5-mile commute in NYC.
Subway
If you're in New York City, you'll use a MetroCard. As every New Yorker knows, this will run you $2.75 for a one-way ride. A workweek has ten one-way passages, which equate to $27.5 a week.
Bus
The one-way price of a bus varies depending on how far your ride is. For a 5-mile commute, the price is about $2.5. This works out to $25 a week.
Taxi / Uber
Taking a ride in a rideshare in NYC will run you about $3 a mile – higher during rush hour and hot times in the city. But let's be honest, every hour is rush hour in the city.
For a 5-mile one-way commute ten times a week, this looks like $150 a week.
Electric Scooter
We discussed it earlier, but an electric scooter costs 0.3 cents a mile. For this same 5-mile one-way commute, ten times a week, you'll pay $0.15 weekly.
In this situation, it is between 167 and 1,000 times cheaper to ride an e-scooter than commute.
Convenience
The arrival and departure times of public transportation will define your morning commute. If you're late for the arrival time, they leave without you.
It leads to some genuine inconvenience before you even get to work and start your day. With an e-scooter, you can leave when you want. You aren't beholden to New York's public transportation schedule.
Availability of Public Transportation
This isn't even a comparison if you don't live in an area where you can use public transportation. However, areas that do utilize public transport are usually hot spots for people swapping their commute for an e-scooter.
