Since it is raining today, I started doodling with a pencil and calculator trying to figure out how long you would have to ride an electric motorcycle, with its higher cost, in order to save money, compared with an IC motorcycle. Since I have access to the entire
Motorcycle Consumer News library, I can find out what it costs to service just about any IC bike and what they give as it fuel mileage. But it is really hard to make anything but very generalized conclusions. It really depends upon which motorcycle model you pick to compare with which EV model. Since I own a $14,000 9 kWh Zero S, I decided to compare it with a 2011 $4,000 Kawasaki Ninja 250R. This should be the worse case scenario (for the EV) when comparing the running costs for an IC motorcycle and an electric motorcycle.
The Ninja needs major servicing every 7500 miles, which takes 5 shop hours and about $55 in parts and supplies. At $100 per hour (the labor rate around here), the servicing cost amounts to $555 every 7.5K miles. The average fuel mileage for the bike was listed as 45.7 miles per gallon. I just rounded numbers, assumed a $4.40 a gallon fuel price and 14 cents per kWh (today's numbers), neglected things like typical repairs over long distances for a small bike like the Ninja and the cost of insurance (which is lower for an el moto than an IC bike right now) and came to the conclusion that it would take about 60,000 miles of riding for the Zero to cost less to ride than the Ninja. Of course, this doesn't account for increases in fuel and oil prices and a lot of other stuff, such as replacing chains and belts (on the Zero). But I think it shows that if you keep your electric motorcycle (even an expensive one) long enough, the overall cost per mile of riding will eventually pay for the much greater purchase price.
I then ran the numbers for the 2011 Suzuki SV650 Gladius (which I think is no longer in Suzuki's range for 2012). That $6,500 bike gets 50 mpg, but needs a $300 service every 3,750 miles and a major (5 hours plus lots of parts) $620 service every 15,000 miles. (With the Suzuki, I ignored the cost to replace the voltage regulator and alternator, which have a tendency to burn up now and then.) I estimate that the Zero will undercut the total running costs of the Suzuki after about $30K miles. Of course, this doesn't account for resale value and I have no idea what the Zero might be worth after 30 or 60K miles, so I didn't factor that in.
My conclusions are very rough and most people could punch holes in them, but I think the numbers are somewhere "within the ballpark". The secret to getting your money's worth out of an electric motorcycle is to keep it as long as possible and ride it as much as possible, which is one conclusion that I think holds water.
I figure that the Enertia and Enertia Plus would show even better results, due to their lower purchase price. If anyone wants to put more thought into this than I did, go right ahead.
