Still cheaper to own. Maintenance with ebikes is not going to be very much. Throw lube on the chain every once in a while and have the bike shop do tires and brakes once every two years. Honestly you could buy a brand new $1200 ebike a year for the prices the services around me ask for their most basic plans which have mileage limits, and require a deposit anyhow. You can also turn around and sell your new ebike anytime, not much lock in or commitment there whereas I'm putting my blind faith in the fact that this particular subscription service will be easy to cancel (history says otherwise).
Bay Wheels is $159/year and about $2.00 a ride, meaning you would need to ride 520 times that year before it became cheaper to own. Also for regular bikes it's free each ride.
That's ignoring that decent e-bikes are more expensive than $1200, the stress of having to lug around and securely park your property, the depreciation of the batteries, as well as any insurance & deductible costs you'll encounter for when (not if) it gets stolen.
It's hands down better to be able to hop-on and -off wherever you want with an ebike than to deal with owning one in SF.
I think Bay Wheels is quite a bit more than that if you want e-bikes. [1]
Looks like its $159 per year, so $13.25 per month. Then, your rides are $0.20 per minute for the first 45 minutes, $0.40 per minute thereafter, and an additional $2.00 fee for not parking at a station - stations which aren't always conveniently located.
I own an e-bike now that I ride longer distances - that a Bay Wheels bike won't make anyways but I don't consider that a fair comparison. Based on my old commute from the Mission to downtown 5x weekly:
- 1.5mi/12 minutes each way. $0 base + $2.40 assuming optimality.
- Hub on one side, no hub on the other, average $2.00 extra there, $0 extra back.
- Monthly fee assuming 40 rides per month is $0.33.
So for this commute alone we're talking $7.46 per day, $149 per month or $1788 per year. Add on a few grocery runs, grabbing drinks with friends, lunch runs, not wanting to park at a hub when you're in a rush, and we're probably in the low-to-mid $2000 per year price range if you really buy into it.
A VanMoof X3 is $2448 (or $88 per month) [2] It would pay itself off in like 14 months, or you can save 37% on the monthly payment vs Bay Wheels. Now you have something with almost a 100 mile range, a much better ride, that you can park anywhere. If it gets stolen, they'll also send out a team to pick it up via its onboard GPS, and fix it up for you.
My point isn't that you should or shouldn't get a VanMoof X3, it's just that the pricing isn't exactly a slam dunk in favor of Bay Wheels.
>Hub on one side, no hub on the other, average $2.00 extra there, $0 extra back.
This is difficult to believe that it isn't a bad faith argument to pad a comparison, because hubs are littered across downtown and the mission. [1] It's highly improbable that there aren't any hubs near either.
>- Monthly fee assuming 40 rides per month is $0.33.
Which is bad math. Riders use bay wheels more, because you can take a bike to a concert or restaurant or park and not worry about parking it and/or bringing it home later. See the part above about not having to worry about parking an expensive asset. You compare the variable costs of breaking even when determining which of two methods is cheaper, not try to pad it by dividing up fixed costs.
>I own an e-bike now that I ride longer distances - that a Bay Wheels bike won't make anyways but I don't consider that a fair comparison
Then you shouldn't be making declarative statements about a $1200 always being cheaper than something like Bay Wheels, because it is cheaper for the vast majority of people living downtown SF.
> This is difficult to believe that it isn't a bad faith argument to pad a comparison.
Ok but, I used my actual commute when figuring this in. It was 3 blocks away from my office and a block from my house. I wasn't really looking to walk 4 blocks each way out of a 12 block commute - at that point I could just walk, no?
There's also no hubs in Potrero, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Telegraph Hill, Chinatown, Japan Town, Polk Gulch (all places I'd call 'downtown') and none west of the mission. Coverage is good, don't get me wrong but it's not perfect for everyone.
> Which is bad math. Riders use bay wheels more, because you can take a bike to a concert or restaurant or park and not worry about parking it and/or bringing it home later.
Ok, but we're talking $0.33 down to what $0.16 per ride? Doesn't really matter because that's covered by the first minute of any additional ride. That'll increase your daily costs a lot - and make it much easier to justify owning your own.
Re: fixed costs, at $2000 per year for Bay Wheels, you can actually afford to get your $1000 e-bike stolen twice per year and still break even - and have your VanMoof with built-in theft protect, GPS and recovery team stolen every year and still break even.
> Then you shouldn't be making declarative statements about a $1200 always being cheaper than something like Bay Wheels, because it is cheaper for the vast majority of people living downtown SF.
Except I didn't say that. It's definitely not always better. I'm a big advocate of bike share services, and I've used them for years. Sometimes it is cheaper, some times it isn't. I'm not the gp.
You're not getting a high quality ebike for $1200. I had a $600 e-scooter (Segway ES4) and by the time I hit 500+ miles on it the screws were falling off, the external battery connection was corroding, and the bottom floorboard light connection had broken.
I just checked and the Ninebot Max is $949 on Segway's website and that's got a smaller battery than most ebikes. And I'd be willing to be that that scooter would also break down just like mine.
