Dockless electric bikes and scooters are becoming a common part of the urban landscape in cities all over the world. It’s easy to see why – they’re a cheap, convenient, and ecological way of getting around town. However, dockless electric vehicles are less than ideal for frequent riders. This may already be painfully obvious to you if you use them every day for, say, commuting to and from work.

For regular use, there are several good reasons why you should buy an e-bike or e-scooter. In this article, we’ll show you the advantages ownership has over hiring. 

You’re Safer on Your Own E-Bike or E-Scooter

You’ve always got a good idea of what condition your electric bike or scooter is in. You know when its battery needs charging and you can tell when a part needs fixing or replacing. 

You don’t have that knowledge with a shared dockless vehicle. You’re always at risk of hiring a ride that prematurely runs out of juice or has broken or defective parts, potentially causing serious injuries or worse. Ownership of an e-bike or e-scooter gives you far more peace of mind than a vehicle you just grab off the pavement.

Sharing is Not Caring

There’s no debating that dockless electric bikes and e-scooters are an environmentally friendly mode of transportation – as long as we’re talking purely about riding. This benefit loses some of its lustre when we look at dockless operations as a whole.

Consider this: how do all those electric scooters and bikes get relocated, repaired, and recharged? The answer transforms them from being sustainable to climate-unfriendly: vans, trucks, and cars. Every day and night, bands of gig workers drive around picking up and transporting e-scooters and e-bikes, increasing traffic congestion and polluting the air. Buying an electric bike or scooter won’t make this issue disappear overnight, but it certainly won’t make it worse.

Dockless electric bikes and electric scooters don’t last long. A 2018 study indicated that, on average, electric scooters have a lifespan ranging from just under 29 days to nine months. Operators tend to discard rather than reuse them, increasing their negative impact on the environment. As the owner of an e-vehicle, you’re more likely to maintain it to maximize its lifespan. When you’re ready to get a new e-scooter or e-bike, you can always resell your previous one rather than just hauling it off to the dump.

Owners Don’t Have Abandonment Issues

Perhaps the biggest problem with shared dockless bikes and scooters in the urban clutter they create. A large number of riders are simply leaving them anywhere: across sidewalks, in front of doorways, on lawns, in car parks, in rivers,… really anywhere. Unsurprisingly, this inconsiderate behaviour is infuriating city residents all over the world, giving shared e-scooters and e-bikes a kind of social stigma.

When you own a vehicle, you’re not going to just park it wherever you want – doing so could result in a fine, theft, or vandalism. Buying a folding e-bike or e-scooter has the added benefit of portability, so you can keep it with you wherever you are, without creating obstacles for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.

Ownership is Cheaper in the Long Run

If you’re just riding every now and again, a shared vehicle is cost-effective. On the other hand, daily use over the course of a year could easily end up costing you more than a brand-new e-scooter or e-bike. Best of all, you don’t have to share your vehicle with a bunch of strangers.

Let’s do the math, using the pricing of a shared Lime bike. You pay £1 to unlock a bike then 15p per minute until you lock it back up. In the UK, commuters who cycle spend 44 minutes per day travelling to and from work. So we’re now at £7.60 per day. Using an average of 253 working days per year, this comes out to £1,922.80 annually. 

For just £77.20 more, you can get our Furo X folding electric bike, saving yourself nearly £2,000 in e-bike rental fees every year!

We don’t have shared e-scooter figures yet, but we’re sure that owning our popular Fuze electric scooter would save you as much, if not more, money.

To learn more about our folding electric bikes and scooters, pricing, and the benefits of owning over sharing, feel free to get in touch with us!