me laughing on the bike that's cost me dozens of dollars in upkeep the past few years
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2026
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traingang
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Fahrrad/comments/1sxeei2/ebike_cost_breakdown_nach_40000km/
There's a dude on the german bicycle subreddit who did a full cost breakdown for his E-Bike commute of ~40.000km over 10 years. And I mean full. It includes jackets, gloves, a new fork every 2,5 years (for whatever reason), the cost of charging the thing (4,20€ / year) and depreciation.
Sight to behold, if you can autotranslate it. Comes out to 0,15€ / km. Now this might sound high - the german automotive club / car lobby pegs the lower price point of cost of kilometer driven at like 0,30€ / km but also they don't include like "shoes, because I need them for driving".
If you only take the actual mechanical repairs his bicycle needed, ignoring the fork because why, you get down to like 0,05€ a kilometer. And that's with that guy thinking 50€ for a pair of grips is not getting ripped the fuck off. If you exclude the battery maintenance at 600€ over 10 years you get down to like 0,03€ / kilometer.
If you only take the actual mechanical repairs his bicycle needed, ignoring the fork because why, you get down to like 0,05€ a kilometer.
This guy keeps his bike so well-maintained that the cost per km ridden is within an order of magnitude of a car.
I think the point is more if you were this accountant brained about your car you'd arrive at like 2€ / km easily honestly. Like who the fuck counts parking spot payments over 10 years, despite that being a very real cost? It's mostly gas mileage honestly
if it's a CF fork it might be getting stressed? 2.5 years seems like a quick turnaround though and like just get an aluminum one damn
Guy should get a steel is real fork and be done with it honestly
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me laughing on the bike that's cost me dozens of dollars
I actually got the bike for free from my sister that didn't want it anymore, I've spent probably less than $100 on a few odds and ends like new tire tubes & lights for riding at night.
Now that I think about it I think I've spent more on a singluar tank of gas this summer than I have on my bike in that past 5 years
SUV brain shit. People really think they need a giant tank in order to get around. "But what if I need to move an 80 inch TV?"
Uhh idk, how often are you doing that? Never. You got it delivered.
"How else am I supposed to move my wife, 4 kids, and giant dog?"
My man, you are single and allergic to dogs.
“How else am I supposed to move my wife, 4 kids, and giant dog?”
in a minivan like a normal person
And then they never do any of that shit, it's just one passenger carrying at most a couple bags of groceries.
minivans are a dying breed
The last minivan will be a previa, its odometer rolled over so many times its lost count. It will stand, lonely, last of its kind, carrying on as a testament to a less killkillkill age.
It is honestly worth it for a lot of people to put together how often they fully use a motor vehicle and look at car payments versus delivery or car rental these days. Cars are so expensive now, even used ones. And insurance is crazy. I personally haven't owned a car in almost twenty years. Do I benefit from others having cars? Certainly on occasion. But like, I don't need one daily or even weekly. I get around with a bike and public transit just fine.
A lot of folks in my city are replacing the "second" car in their family with a cargo e-bike. It makes so much sense.
I think that's truckbrain which, honestly, makes more sense to me than this bullshit. I mean it's still dumb but the skoda kodiaq doesn't even do any of that
But what if I need to move an 80 inch TV?"
You rent a van that day.
I fundamentally believe that it should be illegal to sell or register pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs to individuals. Like, you should have to be a business and apply for a business truck license that explains why you cannot get by with a hatchback or station wagon.
For the rare occasions when you do actually require the use of a truck, then you rent one from a licensed business, ideally a local hardware store that rents tools.
Theres cars with hatchbacks that makes transporting stuff easier, like the prius
"But what if I need to move an 80 inch TV?"
My 7-seater Renault Grand Scenic I bought for 2000€ has a lot more cargo capacity than any of those monster trucks running in 'Murican roads, I've carried 2.5m long boards in that car.
Also, it only drinks 4.8L/100km. I've taken it on trips with 5 friends (so 6 people in the car) and I even made it camper!!
The last time my dad went to go pick up a new TV (in his big truck that he definitely needs), they didn't have any in stock and it had to get delivered anyway lmao.
A friend of mine works from home and yet she pays $900 per month on her car, not even counting insurance or how the car requires the more expensive 91 octane rated gasoline. I spent $4k on my car, one time, around five years ago and I only use it to go to work. Everywhere else I have a bike lol
That's like a life changing amount of money to throw out of the window. Hope she really likes the car.
Sometimes it feels weird to be the only person at the office who doesn't have a car. Then I remember that I'm not actually the weird one in that equation.
I didnt know what a skoda was so I looked it up and the Google description was "a tech-loaded full size SUV" and I almost threw my phone into the street.
Skoda is a brand, to their defense some of their ICE models are, as far as ICE models go, rather sensible. It being a subsidiary of VAG does also mean they'll sell you a SUV from compact to child killer. And also the sensible models are getting axed and/or turned into more ginormous child killers.
Skoda used to be a Czechoslovak car manufacturer for a budget, now it's Czech VW, basically all of their cars are rebadged VW cars
People spend way too much on cars. Now a days I barely drive my personal vehicle but even back when I drove my own vehicle regularly the most I ever spent on a vehicle was $3k. Usually I just bought a shitbox from an impound lot or something and drove it until the rust got bad enough that it wasn't worth fixing. Cheap vehicles can have maintenance issues but honestly my old shitboxes always seemed to have way fewer major issues than the people I knew who bought $25k vehicles crammed with perpetually failing sensors and proprietary BS which you can't even fix on your own. Not to mention, parts are dirt cheap for old cars.
It doesn't make any sense to me to take out a loan for an asset which will depreciate faster than you're paying off the balance and which could turn in to a pile of scrap with no notice just due to a spooked deer or similar. Yeah, there's insurance, but having to pay for full coverage insurance is yet another monumental expense that comes with having an expensive car.
I think a large part of this is that the car is so, so standard people don't think about the costs anymore. Like every car costs already gets amalgated into "car cost, inevitable" even as fuel prices rise and then everything more complex than that is right out of the window.
As in: Love to spend like 5k extra every year to save about ~20 hours per year of added commute time, maybe, while I make 25 eurobucks an hour.
legitimately, not being on the typical update-a-car plan (and instead buying and keeping the same old shitbox running for 15+ years, limiting my driving range) allowed me to save up enough over several of those years to get into a realistic mortgage, giving me an appreciating asset. it wasn't just not trading up, but if i had done that, none of my other discipline would have mattered.
cars and car brain are a major impediment to avoiding being financially screwed.
Biweekly washes? Just wait for some rain! What are people doing?
if I don't spend about 50 eurobucks a month extra for years on end it might develop some patina and then the value will go down by like 2k eurobucks when I trade it in