Cars are expensive on Hawaii.

Gas prices are surging, yearly fees add up and the cars themselves are sitting at all-time highs.

Substituting your daily driver is one of the best, easiest & most actionable ways to save money.

At an average gas price of $4 and a car that gets 25 miles per gallon, a car costs $0.16 a mile just in energy costs. (You can calculate your own rate by dividing the cost of gas by your miles per gallon.)

This may seem relatively cheap, but let’s compare that to an e-scooter.

The average price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) was $0.287 on the Oahu in 2020.

The X8 (our best seller), uses a 36V 10Ah battery. We multiply those numbers and divide by 1000 to get 0.36 kWh – how much energy goes into a full battery charge.

If we take that number and multiply it by the average kWh hour in your house, we get a cost of 10 cents for a full battery charge.

Now, let’s take that charge price to determine how much it costs per mile.

The X8 has a range of 18-22 miles under ideal riding conditions. Take that 10 cents and divide it by the 18 - 22 mile range and you get a price per mile of .0045 - .0055.

That’s about half a cent per mile – 50 cents for 100 miles or $5 for 1,000 miles.

If we take the ratio between the energy costs of operating a car vs a scooter, we get 35.6:1. That means it’s 3560% less expensive to operate an e-scooter compared to a car getting 25 miles/gallon just in energy costs alone.

That means if you are spending an average of $50 a week in gas, you could be saving 97.2% or $48.6 by substituting your daily driver for a ride on an electric scooter.

That’s a total savings of over $2500 a year!

Now, we know that electric scooters are not suitable for every commute, but considering about 60% of all trips are under 5 miles, this may be an easier transition then you would think.

As well as your car purchase costs and loan interest, there are also expenses including depreciation, insurance, maintenance and fees.

According to AAA, the average costs of repairs, maintenance and tires is $112.50 a month for a new car. A used car can be significantly more expensive if you find yourself needing repairs every 6-months to keep your car in driving shape.

Depreciation is another sneaky expense that most car owners don’t think about.

In their first year, new cars lose around 20% to 30% of their value–Over each of their next 5 years, depreciation averages between 15% - 18%.

That means in the first 6 years of owning your car, it will lose over 50% of its initial value. For a car that costs $30,000 off the lot, 6 years later you’ll be looking at about $11,000 if you want to sell it.

Fees, taxes, insurance and other miscellaneous costs can also add up to several hundred dollars a month, especially in Hawaii.

If we add up gas costs at $50/week, registration fees at $500/year, insurance at $75/month and AAA’s calculated costs of maintaining a new car, we get $5350 – The cost of operating an average car every year.

With that you could buy a brand new X7 from us every month and a half!

…Or you could just get one and put the excess money in your pocket. Up to you.

It’s clear that you could save a lot of money if you were able to use your car as little as possible.

Even just changing your work commute could save you thousands of dollars each year, so you could afford to do more of what you love.

Click here to check out some more money saving tips.