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

FlatSix911

Well-Known Member
Region
USA
City
Silicon Valley
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. ;)
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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.
 
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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. ;)
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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.
Cars will become very expensive again. A century ago, cars were toys for the rich, not transportation for the masses.
 
Cars will become very expensive again. A century ago, cars were toys for the rich, not transportation for the masses.
WILL become very expensive?😳
Interesting. If you live in a bike-friendly city area with bike-friendly weather and have a teenage boy willing to ride on the trunk bag, it’s perfect!😉
 
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I love bike commuting when I have a contract in a city where it is practical. I am not out to save the planet. I just enjoy it and the exercise is a great bonus as well. However, bicycles are not going to replace cars for most people. At least in the United States. Maybe we will see a lot more electric cars in the future, but they still have some problems to solve with those too, like range, fast charging, and grid capacity. I had hoped we would see flying cars by now, but no such luck.
 
I love bike commuting when I have a contract in a city where it is practical. I am not out to save the planet. I just enjoy it and the exercise is a great bonus as well. However, bicycles are not going to replace cars for most people. At least in the United States. Maybe we will see a lot more electric cars in the future, but they still have some problems to solve with those too, like range, fast charging, and grid capacity. I had hoped we would see flying cars by now, but no such luck.
I grew up with a Jetson’s expectation of the future!
 
For more evidence that the masses should not have flying cars ...


WTH is on her helmet, anyway?
 
That's like 2 Creos, 1 Trek Rail , enough for a Stromer, 1 R&M and a 2-3weeks vacation in the Alps !
 
I can relate to her. I've owned a car only 3 of the last 23 years, and that was a mistake I knew the day I got it. I'll never own one again. CN
 
Did you mean to say “ebikes will become very expensive again”?
Cars are expensive now.
Nope. EBikes may get cheaper, but new cars will become much more expensive, here in the USA, as a percentage of income.
The growth market in auto sales is in China and the east now. Those cars won't need all the safety equipment and pollution controls that are/will be required to be sold in the USA.

We already have more cars here than we need and the cars we have are very safe, very good, and very expensive compared to what the Chinese make. New American cars will be luxury goods made in small quantities for wealthy buyers.
IDK how soon, but soon.
 
Like German cars, French wine, Russian caviar...
American pickup trucks and SUVs ?
 
Great write up and fun to read, as a young family we had two cars and the second one started to need repairs so I junked it and started biking full time to work. I didn’t care to drive much anyways so was good with it. We found talking through our weekly plan on Sunday about who got car which day worked great. Made for some fun adventures too with wife dropping me off a few times with bike on rack if she needed car for appt. Don’t know numbers but we’ve saved a lot of cash which goes a long way for young family! Second car is paid off and not having car payment also helps budget a lot. Got a 1.6k ebike to commute and was able to afford easily due to no car payments. Would rather spend money on San Diego beach trips and mountain trips in Arizona than a second car payment. Having one car for the last four years has been one of our better family financial decisions. It also feels good from an environmental perspective and my wife and I talk/dream in the future we don’t even want a car once kids are grown up! Probably had also helped our cardio a bit because we find ourselves biking more to schools, appts, errands, etc. Once Covid and wfh started it became a total non issue having one car and many weeks could have not owned a car but on demand car use via Turo and Uber just isn’t quite there yet where we are ready to ditch the one car. Side note: I envision a future where we could get a Tesla that is highly utilized where it takes me to work and self drives home to take kids to school and and then wife to wherever she’s going for day and then repeats at end of day, maybe it could go to Tesla taxi service during day too? I calculated one day our utilization on car is under 5 percent so spends most of the day parked.
 
I do live in a place that is bike friendly and has relatively good weather. I sold my car in January of 2018. And as part of an experiment have been able to use electric bikes for my transportation needs. This week I made a cargo bike electric for a member of my town's city counsel. I see that electric bikes will continue to evolve and become more prevalent. There can be a line of SUVs 300 yards long to pick up kids after school. One local Dr. uses the cargo bike I made for him to bypass the line to pick up his two daughters. They totally cut through gridlock. Others will want to ditch the car to join the fun.
 
Love the story about the cargo bike and school pickup! Would love to see more kids on bikes for a whole lot of reasons. Still on a quest to help my 9 year old son build an ebike. Will be our project once we move in a few months.
Feel free to look at the images on my site for ideas and inspiration, PedalUma.com. I think the first bike looks clean. Yes, it is electric. The cargo bike fits a case of IPA bottles in the basket and carries up to 420 pounds in the rear.
 

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Maureen's story highlights the reason why it's so necessary that city and town planning should include cycle lanes or seperate bike paths to create an environment where cyclists can be safe, an investment for future generations who may consider the option of cycling as a prefered form of transport.
 
Nope. EBikes may get cheaper, but new cars will become much more expensive, here in the USA, as a percentage of income.
The growth market in auto sales is in China and the east now. Those cars won't need all the safety equipment and pollution controls that are/will be required to be sold in the USA.

We already have more cars here than we need and the cars we have are very safe, very good, and very expensive compared to what the Chinese make. New American cars will be luxury goods made in small quantities for wealthy buyers.
IDK how soon, but soon.
Yes, watch for an increase of at least $10K for the new electric cars the $26K Tesla is a feverish fantasy( pure vaporware sort of like the Tesla Semi and Cybertruck{yes I have one on order, seriously doubt if I ever get it or even can afford it} The PTB want to put us all in easily controlled cities anyway, so campaign for bike-friendly places. My soon to be"gated" sparsely populated county has not one bike lane or MTB trail. Its really no wonder why the young people leave this county.
 
Love the story about the cargo bike and school pickup! Would love to see more kids on bikes for a whole lot of reasons. Still on a quest to help my 9 year old son build an ebike. Will be our project once we move in a few months.
At our schools, they would make the ebikers wait in behind the buses when loading and make everybody follow the buses. Seriously doubt if they would have enough sense to load the bikes separately.
 
For more evidence that the masses should not have flying cars ...


WTH is on her helmet, anyway?
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.
 
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