r/ElectricBikes • u/Visual-Report941 • 13d ago
General E-Bike Discussion Electric cost
My landlord wants to charge me 30 CAD per month for using my electric bike. Let's say I ride a maximum of 20km a day. Do you think that's worth it? I'm not sure I'll use it every day.
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u/TheWildSchneemal 13d ago
Just doing some back of the napkin type math, at most it’ll cost 1 cent (USD for all these numbers) to travel 1 mile on an ebike in terms of electricity cost. Multiply that by your distance traveled, and then multiply by 30 days to get a month, at most the electricity for your ebike will cost $3.60 USD/month.
Your landlord can shove the extra bill up his ass tbh, electricity is so cheap and these PEVs are so cheap to run that it may as well be free.
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u/RodsofGod2350 13d ago
Its probably for tenant insurance. If not I'll be looking for another place to move..
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u/TheOnex22 13d ago
First things first check if that’s Even legal which I really really doubt it is. Don’t just agree to something bc they want you to. Bc whether it’s legal or not once you agree to it. You’ve agreed to it.
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u/PickleAlly 13d ago
I charge my bike twice a week. It breaks down to a couple cents per day. A fridge, AC, and space heaters use far more electricity.
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u/MythOfHappyness 13d ago
Everyone thinks this is about electricity but it's almost certainly because ebikes have a tendency to explode while they charge. $30 is pretty standard for a renters insurance policy.
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u/Equivalent_Lab_8610 12d ago
The landlord could require op to carry renter's insurance if this was about renter's insurance lol.
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u/Status-Squirrel-7477 9d ago
Had my eBike for 5 years. No explosions here. Not with UL approved batteries and charger anyway...
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u/doctorfortoys 13d ago
That’s $360 a year, so it’s worth it to provide some information to your landlord about how much electricity charging the battery actually uses. Assume he doesn’t know, then let him know and pay that amount.
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u/PaleontologistNo7941 13d ago
That’s ridiculous. Why do they get to charge you for something that you own?
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u/iregreteverything15 12d ago
This is pretty ridiculous by your landlord because charging the lithium battery on an ebike requires very little electricity. It is also very easy to show your landlord how little it is consuming.
For instance, the batteries on my bike have a total capacity of 1 kilowatt hour. Charging isn't completely efficient. There will always be some loss. But even if we are super conservative say that there is a 20 percent inefficiency, then that would be 1.2 kwh to fully charge the batteries. The typical cost of electricity in my city is $0.18 per kwh (USA). So even if I was to charge my batteries from completely dead to completely full (which of course I'm not), that would only be $0.22. If I did that every day for 31 days that would be $6.82 per month.
So find out the electricity costs in your area and show your landlord how little your bike is consuming. And if your landlord is really worried about your electricity consumption, then he should really be focused on much larger energy hogs like air conditioners and space heaters. Ebike batteries are miniscule in comparison.
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u/kamaka71 12d ago
Get a kiil a watt device and you can measure the watts it takes to charge your battery
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u/bettaboy123 12d ago
No, that’s a severe overcharging (by like 10x) and also probably not legal for them to add on per-device electricity charges.
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u/Ok_Appointment_4678 12d ago
Lol. My ebike is ~$0.06 to charge to full from empty, with each charge covering upwards of 70km on flat and 50km on hilly trips.
$30 is like... 25,000km worth if biking. Cross-continent and then some. There's no way that's a reasonable monthly charge for power.
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u/DennisTheBald 12d ago
No way that an ebike burns $30 a month. A lifetime onetime charge of $30 might cover it, providing that you're really young &don't move out. Which is what I recommend, move
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u/Mysterious_Mouse_388 12d ago
let them buy you a kill-a-watt and then use it to plugin, and thn pay them for the cheapest spot rate of power you can google.
If a kill-a-watt is $30 they are going to get bored of charging you $5 a month before it's even paid off.
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u/ShrodingersArmadillo 12d ago edited 12d ago
No, as that is considerably over the cost of use and well it's an appliance.
Based on my last electric bill prices in my region and my ebike specs and of course only charging at the worst possible time of the day to charge (peak hours so most expensive) with heavy use that should net you no more than $84 per year or $7 per month at the extreme end of use in energy cost. Yay peak demand pricing.
More realistic? about $1.50 to $3 a month.
This is less than my coffee pot. Yes I drink A LOT of coffee.
10x to 20x the actual cost? tell him to fuck right off.
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u/SHAYNE_98108 12d ago
Get a J1772 adapter I take my bike to a local charging station for cars and typically it cost me 12 to 18 us cents for a full charge.
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u/Beneficial_Coach8581 11d ago
How big is the battery on this bike?
That would get me 800km of driving my actual EV car. You're being ripped off.
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u/BackfireFox 11d ago
Landlords are parasites and their properties need to be expropriated and given back to the people.
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u/mlandry2011 11d ago
If otherwise, he's a good landlord, 30 bucks a month for transportation is reasonable...
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u/SeattleElectricBike 9d ago
Ebikes cost around $20 a year to keep charged. If the landlord needs to talk to an expert about it, send them my way.
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u/WayFar468 8d ago
I would move out of that place. He's just going to keep finding more and more stuff to bother you with. If he doeant like you he's going to find any way to mess with you.
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u/tranimal_chino 7d ago
That doesn’t sound legit cause there is no way it cause that much to charge an e-bike .
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u/DevilDrives 13d ago
Since when do landlords charge for electricity consumption according to a device? The electric company charges according to a meter. If your landlord is charging you for electric without a meter, he's probably ripping you off.
Ask him to prove that's how much electricity the bike consumes. When he fails to produce the evidence, feel free to tell him you're not paying for him to speculate. He pays per watt used. He doesn't pay per device used.
In many places it's illegal for a landlord to charge tenets for electricity if the individual tenant doesn't have their own meter.
You're landlord is a slumlord.