Research: Impact of Shared Micro-Mobility on Gasoline Sales
Want to know the impact of electric scooters on fossil fuel companies? Our new study reveals just that.
Coming to the foreground in America, electric scooters are setting the trend for personal transportation. Recently, the National Association of City Transportation Officials revealed that 84 million trips were taken on shared micromobility in 2018, more than double 2017 figures and with electric scooters contributing 38.5 million trips to the total.
As U.S. citizens increasingly opt to travel by shared micromobility instead driving, alongside Bird and Uber releasing data on the average distance travelled on micromobility devices, Electric Scooter Insider has been able to calculate the monetary impact that micromobility has had on gasoline sales.
In fact, fossil fuel companies could have lost $19.8 million to shared micromobility as a result of fewer gasoline sales.
Approximately 57.8 million miles were traveled on electric scooters in 2018. Combining this with the average cost of gasoline per mile, electric scooters could have had a direct impact of $6.5 million on gasoline sales.
However, electric scooters are second in line to station-based bikes, which were ridden 94.9 million miles in 2018, thanks to the higher average distance travelled – 2.6 miles compared to 1.5 miles on electric scooters. As a result, station-based bikes could have cost fossil fuel companies a staggering $10.7 million, the most amount of all shared micromobility devices, equating to 54% of the total $19.8 million loss.
In comparison, dockless bikes were only ridden 23.4 million miles, a quarter of station-based bike miles, but they still could have accounted for a loss of $2.4 million.
If shared micromobility rental companies continue to expand into new cities and countries, and usage grows in popularity, then sales of gasoline could continue to decline.
In the study, we only highlighted the impact on gasoline sales, but there could be an extended impact on the decline of taxi, Uber, Lyft and similar transportation transactions. How shared micromobility will affect the profits of ride-hailing services is yet to be seen.
Sources:
- U.S. Energy Information Administration – U.S. Gasoline and Diesel Retail Prices 2018
- United States Environmental Protection Agency – Automotive Trends Report 2018
- National Association of City Transportation Officials – Shared Micromobility in the U.S. 2018
- Bloomberg – Scooters and Bikes Compete for City Streets 2018
