• apprehensively_human
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    2 days ago

    It is wild to me that the sticker price on this bike is $12,499 CAD when you can get a normal bicycle for under $1000, a normal non-cargo e-bike for $1-5000, or a used EV for like $20000.

    Are cars being subsidized that much that you can justify making a bicycle that costs over $10k and market it as a replacement? I bought my current car for $16k, and if you put them side by side and told me the difference in price was three thousand dollars I wouldn’t believe you.

    • No_Eponym
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      2 days ago

      Although, how much do you pay for your car monthly? Gas + insurance + parking is a lot, and maintenance on a pre-2015 car is getting pricy. If you can ride your bike most of the year, even with light use a cargo bike will have paid for itself in car savings in a lot of places after 4-5 years. You could get a cheaper bike, but if you haul kids or want some of the things that really take the maintenance out of the picture (e.g. belt drive) you’re going to spend more but you’ll get a true car replacement for a 2nd car.

      You’ve gotta live somewhere with cycling infrastructure, cycling weather, have a lifestyle that supports biking, and probably still need 1 car. But car + cargo bike vs 2 cars, the math can work out for even pricy cargo bikes.

    • _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.worksOPM
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      2 days ago

      They also make a lot more cars than they do bikes like this, so the economy of scale probably helps too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some pretty hefty subsidies on top of that.