How a San Francisco woman saved over $50,000 by swapping her car for an electric bike

[Art Deco]

Looks like a high-visibility frog. This country does not need flying cars, just imagine the delinquents spitting and dumping smelly things on other folks and dropping rocks and garbage on homes.

I still want MY flying car, but I don't want y'all to have one. I've seen how you people drive ...

 

[BikingSoCal]

I have been commuting in my e bike since March 2021. Don’t miss my car. Even the “extreme cold” of SoCal down to 32 degrees has not stopped me.

 

[Elkman]

Nice to see more regular folks and families use Ebikes for transportation... the typical American could save over $7,500 annually by ditching the car.

Here's what one woman used to replace her car and save $50,000

A San Francisco woman has learned firsthand that electric bicycles aren’t just for recreation; they also make efficient and cost-effective alternatives to typical transportation like personal cars. That’s exactly what Maureen Persico has discovered after she made the switch, though e-biking...

electrek.co

View attachment 85163

A San Francisco woman has learned firsthand that electric bicycles aren’t just for recreation; they also make efficient and cost-effective alternatives to typical transportation like personal cars. That’s exactly what Maureen Persico has discovered after she made the switch, though e-biking wasn’t part of her original plan. In 2014, her car was totaled when she was hit by an uninsured driver. Her insurance wasn’t enough to cover the cost of a replacement car, so she had the idea to try switching to an electric bicycle instead.

She had already been increasingly involved in cycling, having taken it up after her pregnancy as a way to get back into shape as well as reduce her own impact on the environment by leaving her car in the garage more often. But now that her family was without a car, she and her husband decided to see how long they could go without it. Maureen used the insurance money from the accident to purchase an electric bicycle. That was seven years ago, and they have yet to get another car.

Maureen estimates that she’s saved over $50,000 in the last seven years by not owning a car. That matches with AAA’s data that suggests car ownership in the US costs around $700 per month on average. Maureen explained to SFGate’s Tess McLean that she still occasionally rents a car when they need one for road trips or other occasional tasks that can’t be performed on the electric bicycle. But these days, there are so many different types of electric bicycles, including electric cargo bikes that can carry several passengers or hundreds of pounds of cargo, that more and more people are going totally car-less in favor of e-bikes.

It is simply wrong to have a child on the front or rear of a bike and to endanger their health and their life. In the event of a collision the child's head hitting the ground is likely to result in severe brain trauma and possibly to permanent damage. Even worse with people transporting toddlers on their bikes on streets shared with motor vehicles.

San Francisco is one of the many cities with very limited on-street parking and where a garage rental costs thousands of dollars a year. It is also rare as American cities go in its having an excellent public transit system so one does not need a car to get around in town. Smart people rent a vehicle for a weekend trip to the wine country or to go skiing and use mass transit. While not as bad as Rome, in San Francisco it can take more time to find an available parking space on the street than it did to drive to it.

 

[PedalUma]

It is simply wrong to have a child on the front or rear of a bike

I beg to differ. Taking kids to school on a cargo bike is the best. As more and more people do it others see how much more fun it is than being stuck in a car. I am not afraid of cars. I accidently punched one once. It crumpled like an aluminum baster pan. Being threated by a baster pan is just silly. It is the cars that need to watch out. That one punch did $1200 in damage.