Four months of rising fuel prices have taken a toll on household budgets, squeezing the disposable income of drivers every day. But with almost half of all trips taken nationally under 5km, is it time to question how we use our cars, and whether the cost of running a second one is really worth it?
Geopolitical instability means more fuel-price increases, protests, filling station queues and empty pumps can’t be ruled out. There’s a fossil fuel-driven climate crisis to think about too. Swapping four wheels for two with an e-cargo bike will deliver savings for some families, and it can be more convenient.
Fiscal cycle
How do people in Ireland get around? The car tops the list – it’s used for 71 per cent of all trips, making it the most common mode of transport nationally, according to a National Household Travel Survey, published by the National Transport Authority (NTA) earlier this year.
That’s despite the fact the majority of us live within a 15-minute walk from a shop (71 per cent), a pub or restaurant (64 per cent), a public leisure space (60 per cent), a chemist/pharmacy (58 per cent) or a doctor’s surgery (47 per cent).
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With the rocketing cost of motor fuel and the rising cost of car ownership generally, not to mention traffic congestion, we’d be wise to consider whether, for many of our trips, a car is really the smartest choice.
Users of e-cargo bikes say they are doing short to medium-range trips to work, school and the shops faster and at a fraction of the cost.
Has the fuel protest shown that the loudest lobby generally gets what they want?
On this week’s episode of Inside Business, host Ciarán Hancock speaks to Mayo entrepreneur Ciaran Crean. Ciaran is co-founder of Micksgarage.com, a business founded in 2004 selling car parts online. There have been a few bumps on the road since its foundation, but Micksgarage is currently in growth mode and has spun out a couple of businesses. One of those is WaveOMS, which provides software to Irish retailers looking to fulfil their online orders. Plus, IFAC chairman Seamus Coffey discusses the Government’s €505 million package of supports in response to last week’s fuel protests around the country. Is this money well spent? Will it be enough if the Middle East conflict drags on? And is it now a case that those who shout loudest will be appeased by the Government?Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.
About four in 10 of all of our trips, not just in cars, are “returning home” from somewhere, according to the NTA study. Excluding these “returning home” trips, our primary reasons for travel are work, education and social life, each accounting for one in five trips.
For some, such as Limerick resident Dr Yvonne Ryan-Fogarty and her family, using an e-cargo bike for work and school drop-offs is just more convenient. She is an environmental scientist and her work entails promoting inclusive e-bike uptake.
Her daily 4km commute to work at the University of Limerick, with a primary school drop-off en route, fits into the near-50 per cent of all trips taken nationally that are under 5km.
She uses a long-tail e-cargo bike to ferry her 10-year-old and seven-year-old boys while her car remains in the driveway at home.
Doing the trip by car would mean leaving earlier to counter rush-hour traffic. Driving means parking further from her children’s school too. If she gets held up, she’ll miss out on any free parking spaces left at work and end up paying a daily parking rate.
When she analyses her commute, using her car for this twice-daily journey just doesn’t make sense. It will cost more, the journey time is less predictable and the logistics less handy.
“With the bike, if you leave the house at a certain time, you are guaranteed to be on time for school and work. There is a lot less stress with it,” says Ryan-Fogarty.
“People think it rains more than it does,” she says. “I can count on one hand the times I’ve gotten wet so far this year, and now there are amazing rain ponchos designed for cycling.”
Cycling Monday to Friday spares Ryan-Fogarty about 40km a week in fuel costs.
Protests over fuel prices and then empty pumps brought many car users to a standstill in April. A 50-litre fill of diesel cost €107 in mid-April, up €12 since March, according to average figures from AA Ireland. Petrol vehicle drivers paid on average €95.50 a tank.
Even after a 10 cent per litre excise reduction on April 14th, diesel was still about 30 cent a litre more expensive then than it was just six weeks before, and petrol was about 10 cent more expensive per litre than before the war in Iran started.
But even before the war, just over half of car owners in Ireland claimed to have cut back on driving due to the cost of fuel or electricity, according to a Carzone.ie motoring report published in January.
Those completing journeys without a car have been protected.
Waterford-based Shane Kelly starts the day cycling his son to the childminder on an e-cargo bike, then going to gym before starting work.
“The fact that we cycle so much means we don’t have to have a second car – we are a family with a young child and we only have the need for one car,” Kelly told the NTA as part of its Walking and Cycling Index 2025 survey.
“I find there is a lot less stress on the bike than when I’m in the car. All my trip journeys are more reliable. If I’m 5km out, I know it’s going to take me 15 minutes. With the increase in cars on the road, if you go at the wrong time, it could be 30 or 40 minutes,” he said.
The experience of e-cargo bike users challenges assumptions around the convenience of driving – on shorter journeys, a car can be a hindrance. Driving can be more stressful too.
“If I cycle and drop my kids, I get a whole extra 20 minutes at home in the morning,” says Ryan-Fogarty.
“And what you can’t buy is your children’s happiness and your own mental health.”
For Kelly, using an e-cargo bike means a better travel experience.
“It means freedom, the choice to go anywhere in the city at any time of the day and to have a reliable, safe and healthy journey.”
Cost of car ownership
The cost of an e-cargo bike can range from about €2,700 to about €4,800 without accessories such as car seats. You can pay up to €6,000 or more including them. Ryan-Fogarty bought hers with a Bike to Work scheme grant of €3,000, available for new e-cargo bikes only, and only from some employers.
Travelling by e-cargo bike is suitable for infants using car seat adapters in a cargo box bike, right up to preteens using a long-tail e-cargo bike, meaning good longevity.
E-cargo bikes are powered by a battery, rechargeable at home “like your laptop”, says Ryan-Fogarty. They are permitted to travel at speeds up to 25km/h , and their average range is generally 40km to 100km on a single charge.
There are no motor tax, insurance costs or NCT costs.
Car owners by contrast spend on average €224.40 per month running their vehicles, that is according to the Carzone.ie report. But this was published in January, before the fuel crisis.
The average cost of car insurance in Ireland is approximately €655, according to the National Claims Information Database.
Motor tax ranges from €120 per year for an electric vehicle to €600 or more, depending on CO2 emissions. There’s also the cost of regular servicing, repairs, tyre replacements, and depreciation over time.
About one in five new car buyers used hire purchase or personal contract plans (PCP) to purchase their car in 2022, according to a consumer survey commissioned by the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland.
Interest on PCP loans can be up to 7 per cent, adding significantly to the cost of ownership as the finance house earns interest from your depreciating asset.
The overall cost of car ownership in Ireland is going up, Carzone.ie’s Conor Faughnan has said.
“We’ve seen that the average household is spending approximately 15-20 per cent more of their disposable income on motoring compared to 20 years ago,” said Faughnan.
Typical e-cargo bike user
So will an e-cargo bike suit best? If you are a middle-aged, suburban homeowner with children, you are probably in the sweet spot. That was the demographic of those who responded to an e-cargo bike research call-out by SEAI research fellow Dr Robert Egan.
His resulting research derives from a quantitative study of 203 e-cargo bike users and a qualitative study of 25 e-cargo bike users.
“About 71 per cent of the 203 participants, all of whom owned a private e-cargo bike, engaged in child-related trips – so transporting children to childcare, school, the playground and activities,” says Egan of his research.
“They are doing about three to four trips a week, with at least 20 per cent of them doing those trips daily,” he says.
Transporting children on short distances over one kilometre on foot is logistically difficult – think little legs, or navigating with a buggy and other accoutrements.
This is the type of short trip for which lots of parents will feel the need for a car, or a second car.
An e-cargo bike can prove a neat alternative.
“We found out the average kilometres per week of e-cargo bike users was 56km,” says Egan. That’s about 7km a day, or maybe two 3.5km trips.
Survey respondents cited being able to filter through traffic congestion at peak times, predictable journey times, and being able to get right up to the school gate as positives.
The arrival of a second child appeared to be a tipping point for e-cargo bike purchase, says Egan. Nearly all of the respondents in the qualitative study were parents with two children, some with three.
“From the survey respondents, 76 per cent were one-car households, that seems quite low for people with children living in the suburbs.”
“There had been a negotiation in the family about maybe getting a second car to manage mobility demands and as part of that, many got an e-cargo bike instead,” says Egan.
“In almost all cases, people used it as their primary mode of family mobility for local trips. They used a car for trips outside of town, visiting family and friends, but the e-cargo bike was used in a much more day-to-day capacity for family mobility,” he says.
“More than 76 per cent have at least one car – so it’s not about replacing all car use, it’s about having something that’s very useful for local family-related trips, that’s what it’s really good for. It’s having a mix of modes, as opposed to just one mode in all cases.”
“It appeared e-cargo bikes delayed car ownership, or delayed buying a second car, and many talked about how it was very, very cheap to run an e-cargo bike once you made the commitment to it, but it was a big [financial] commitment at the time.”
The cost of charging their e-cargo bike either wasn’t mentioned by participants, or was cited as “almost negligible”.
“They were just so relieved they didn’t go with a second car and that they went with an e-cargo bike instead,” says Egan.
“The vast majority talked about how they had saved so much money compared to a second car, that it was a no-brainer for them to use it. They were happy they made the commitment to it and they would have done it sooner if they knew how easy and effective it was as a means of mobility.”
In for a penny
That you will save on fuel costs by switching a journey from a car to an e-bike is obvious, but one UK expert has put a figure on it.
It was 140 times more expensive to drive a petrol or diesel car per mile in the UK this month [April] than it was to power an average e-bike, according to Mark Sutton, editor of dedicated e-bike publication cyclingelectric.com.
Sutton based this on motor fuel and electricity prices on April 13th, and UK drivers’ average miles per gallon. This excludes other car costs such as +insurance and motor tax.
“The average electric bike costs 0.14 of a penny per mile to ride, based on average battery size and recent electricity rates,” says Sutton.
“The Strait of Hormuz, at only 21 miles wide, could be comfortably ridden on an electric bike in under 90 minutes.”
That’s under three pence.
