I don't want to renew my relationship with a dealer. Especially not with an electric car where I really would be beholden to them until the independent shops catch up - if they ever do.
The practice is ... different.
It doesn't matter matter if there are only 50% as many parts to service if servicing those parts costs three times as much.
At the end of the day, this is all revealed via depreciation.
Cars experiencing a lot of depreciation, by definition, are viewed by the market as more expensive to service over their usable life, as depreciation is just the forward payment of future maintenance costs:
Say a car will last for two periods. In the first period, the repair costs are zero, and in the second they are 15K. Now the car costs 35K new. Total ownership costs for both periods are thus 35+15 = 50K for 2 periods. Split evenly, that's 25K per period. But the buyer in period 2 will pay 15K in repair costs and 10K for the car. The buyer in period 1 will pay 25K in depreciation. Both parties pay 25K. If they didn't, and one party was paying more than the other, the put-upon party would prefer to buy new and resell instead, or buy used, etc, so in equilibrium, both parties pay for half the purchase price plus half the lifetime repair costs, except the new car buyer "pays" for their half of repair costs via depreciation whereas the used car buyer pays out of pocket.
Now you have a situation where Tesla Model 3s are depreciating at rates comparable to the dreaded BMWs -- notoriously expensive to maintain cars. E.g. they are losing 44% of their value after 5 years of ownership (source: https://caredge.com/tesla/model-3/depreciation)
So it doesn't particularly matter that there are fewer moving parts, etc, as for some reason the market believes these cars are going to be about as expensive to maintain as BMWs, which have lots of moving parts (and lots of plastic parts).
Now if we know that, we can come to a few conclusions:
* the market is just wrong and out-of-warranty Teslas will be cheap to maintain, in which case there is an arbitrage opportunity to sell Tesla warranties and make lots of arbitrage profits. Feel like getting into that business? Me, neither.
* The theory is wrong and the fact that there is a simpler drivetrain doesn't have much to do with overall maintenance costs due to all the other stuff modern cars do that don't have to do with moving down the road. Uhh, maybe.
* The theory is right and the electric car makers are just screwing the pooch by managing to sell expensive to maintain cars even though there are fewer moving parts. I tend to favor this theory.
But in either case, arguing that because there are moving parts, the cars must be cheaper to maintain is a fallacy. It's a confusion of theory and practice in one of the many situations where out of warranty car owners are screaming in pain at their repair costs, and countering "muh moving parts" is missing the point.
Anyone who doesn't agree with this is probably riding a car or a truck and never rode a bicycle or motorcycle on the streets.
The model 3 is cheaper but not the same class of vehicle.
[1] https://electrek.co/2021/04/22/tesla-increases-model-3-y-pri...
What's surprising to me is that you were seriously considering a mid-size SUV, but settled on an e-bike. (My main commute vehicle (when I was commuting) was a bike, but that bike is in no way comparable to an SUV)
Given how SHIT other people are at driving, I have no desire whatsoever to be on a bicycle in front of them.
Cars are 1-2 ton machines that can kill you as a cyclist or pedestrian, and humans are awful at operating them. The solution is therefore apparently to put more of those machines on the road (for self-protection) instead of reducing the risk altogether?
Possibly my most important safety measure is route choice. The streets that I ride on have very little car traffic. This includes separated bike paths, but also quiet neighborhood streets. Fortunately this is possible in the town where I live. In decades of riding, I've never experienced a collision with a car, and my near-misses have been rare.
At the same time, this is used by a lot of people as an excuse to not get a bike. In fact, it's not that dangerous as you make it out to be as is proven by statistics I guess (didn't look them up)
Bikes are definitely far more dangerous than cars. Not as much as motorcycles, but that’s scant comfort.
If you look at the absolute number of deaths, biking is reasonably safe. As I said before, cities can do a lot to make it even safer, such as good bikelanes, better traffic lights for turns, better driver's education and so on.
I also disagree with looking at absolute numbers. Of course bikes look better there because compared to cars, very few people cycle in most places. Relative numbers are the only ones that make sense. Apart from this, I drive and cycle, and it seems obvious to me that cycling is considerably more dangerous. Everyone I know who cycles accepts that it's a case of when, not if, something goes wrong, and the consequences are obviously much worse on a bike.
The problem is mostly just infrastructure. Almost no California cities have more than a piddling amount of safe transportation biking support.
Cities with lots of hills in Europe don’t have as many bikers or biking infrastructure. Eg Lausanne unless you want to go for a jaunt by the lake. Cannes was the similar during a short visit I made 20 years ago. Hilly south Europe (Athens, Rome) doesn’t seem to like bikes very much either.
Yes, even in -40 and beyond temperatures I rode. In fact, Whitehorse has the highest rate of bike ridership in Canada!
My commute to work was only ~15mins on the bike, and for the first half I was a bit cold, and then the second half I was unzipping my jacket and would even stand outside the office with no jacket of toque or gloves for 3-5 minutes in -40 temps to cool off. The steam coming off me was always fun :)
With a longer ride (my landlord rode 40 mins each way) you stop after about 20 minutes and change layers - usually go for windproof with minimal insulation to prevent overheating/sweating.
side note: i snooped your profile a bit and i'm intrigued by the path you've chosen. i am moving in a similar direction, and no doubt could benefit from referencing your experience...
On my feet I wore thick wool socks, and very well insulated winter boots. They were always hot, even just standing still past -40
For my face I had a toque under my helmet and a big thick merino wool neck warmer that I would pull up until it was right under my eyes - so it covered my ears entirely.
Half way to work I would pull down the neck warmer, unzip my big jacket, etc. in an attempt to not sweat too much.
.. haha, yeah, my path has been a different one, and I'm a thousand times happier than when I sat at a desk. I'm TheRoadChoseMe around the web, and my email is dan @ that .com if you want to get in touch!
I remember biking home from school during the winter when it was snowing heavily. The sidewalks were completely snowed in with heavy snow so the bike just really went where it wanted to go and very slowly. I eventually decided to move over to the road but I was soon tailgated by a bus. Since the bus was honking at me, I had to pull over to the next bus stop to get him out of my ass. I think it was about at that moment that I decided to ditch winter biking once I could own a car.
Single lane roads with no shoulder can be very dangerous in the winter. Fortunately where I am in Canada, there's adequate space for cars to pass on the roads I take.
> bicycles are still quite horrible in the winter. I find the opposite. The activity itself is fine, but the winter is quite horrible on bicycles. Salt and slush can really make a mess of the mechanisms.
I’m not saying it’s possible for everyone. I would probably not do it if my commute was longer than 20 km one way. But many more people can define do it for the benefit of their health and the environment.
Hell, Oulu has high biking rates and is one of the northernmost cities on the planet.
Of course, if my guess is wrong, ignore me. And be more clear next time. :-)
I’ll use the ebike when I’m tired so I end up using it a lot more.
You can turn them off the power then your riding around with 30 extra pounds if you need more workout...
https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-017...
On a conventional bike, it takes some training (and thus, skill) before you can ride 25+ mph for any length of time, but you can take an eBike out on your first ride and ride that fast.