I had a question, this post is the answer, so I thought I would share it with you all.
As I have discussed in earlier posts, I am considering getting a moped and ditching my car. The main reason being the insurance is expensive, it’s a pain to constantly find parking and I can’t afford to pay for parking. The only convenience it brings me is going to the grocery store outside of New York City, where prices are much lower. Other than that, I can take public transportation or use a moped when public transportation is slow.
A moped offers an easy alternative because:
- I don’t have to get a new license, like for a motorcycle. As long as the moped cannot exceed 30mph then in New York, anyone with a drivers license can drive one.
- You are allowed to drive them on the shoulders of the road in New York. This usually means they can get around stuck car traffic and get to destinations just as fast if not faster than a car.
- They are easier to park. You can easily park them in the space between cars on the street and you longer have to dread the notorious alternate side parking rules of NYC.
Source: thirteen.org
In addition, they are affordable. You can buy a gas powered moped for around $500. You can purchase an electric one for under $1,000 and this was the option that I have been leaning towards lately. Mostly because it’s quiet, I can take off the battery and I can charge it at my home.
I need to compare the options though and a Google search on the topic wasn’t considerably helpful. So I had to roll up my sleeves and do my own digging to figure out if an electric moped was worth it from a cost standpoint.
How Much to Charge the Battery?
I started with a simple question: how long will I need to charge it and how much will that cost in terms of my electric bill? Obviously this varies significantly depending on the type of moped you get and the type of battery that the moped uses.
After some research, I found a strong review on the GenZe Electric 2.0 Scooter seen below.
Source: electrek.com
Below are also the specs on the bike:
Source: electrek.com
The key is the battery capacity. Electricity is charged by kilowatt hours and to get to that figure you need to multiply the battery voltage by the amp hour rating to get the watt hours. In this case we have 52 volts with 30 amp hours which is 1,560 watt hours. Divide this by 1,000 and you have kilowatt hours of 1.56.
Below you will find the regular electricity rates for ConEdison for New York City:
Source: coned.com
Take the 1.56 multiply that by $0.10817 and you have a cost of $0.1687 to charge this battery for a 30 miles range. Not bad!
The Downside of Getting One
However batteries lives run out and it’s worth checking what would be the cost of the bike and the charging over its life.
The life of the battery would be the 800 charges multiplied by the range of 30 miles which would get you 24,000 miles before the battery needs to be replaced. I hear that the cost of the battery may be as much as $500 so it does start to dent the affordable aspect of the bike.
Those charges will also cost you about $135 over the life of the battery. This particular bike is on the high end and starts at $3,700 but if it is a replacement for my car, it may be worth it to pony up for a quality moped.
Does Gas Still Win?
So now I know that charging the battery will not be a huge cost, however replacing the battery could be and I may have to do it about every 2-3 years depending on how much I use the moped.
In addition to the cost, electric scooter and moped startups are becoming very popular lately which means the companies making them are riding the fad wave. This means that some of them may not be around when I need a new battery which would force me to buy a new moped. This defeats the purpose of getting it to save money.
Although I now know the costs of charging a scooter will be quite low, the prospect of replacing the battery down the road is potentially more expensive. As an alternative, I will be looking into the fact that it may make economic sense to get a gas powered moped instead.
Giving the gas powered option a quick look, they are clearly cheaper. The Tao Thunder 50 moped is $790 plus $179 shipping on Amazon.
Source: Amazon
In addition, it claims to get 110 mpg. If we compare that running cost assuming gas at the high end of $3.00 over the next few years, the running costs over the equivalent battery life of 24,000 miles would be $654, which ends up being about the price of charging and buying a new battery for an electric bike.
In addition, while riding my Revel rentals, I noticed that the battery powered bikes also seem to lack some power compared to something running on an internal combustion engine. It’s not a dealbreaker because New York City is relatively flat but it is another factor to consider.
The on remaining question is do the electric mopeds last as long as the gas powered ones? There doesn’t seem to be definitive research done on this and published online. Given the low cost of the bikes, I would assume many people rather just buy a new one every few years rather than pay to fix them but that is just speculation at this point.
Conclusion
Since the electric models are all the rage right now their prices tend to be higher but they also have a more varied range of styles and looks. The gas powered version still seems to be the more powerful option as well as the longer lasting and more cost efficient. I’ll keep you updated on my final decision given all these factors.
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