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ロボットか人か？

Residential snow clearing

Snow removal service (per visit) vs Autonomous snow blower robot

Whirrworkによるモデル推計であり、事実ではありません。 方法論 · 予測の検証記録

人 · 年額$800Snow removal service
ロボット · 年額$2,139Buy a snow robot
回収期間365 か月
逆転する年2035年までなしBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers people are clearly cheaper. The robot would sit idle most of the time; it pays off at higher volume or longer hours. Payback is longer than three years, which is longer than many robot contracts and some robot companies.

アメリカ合衆国 · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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作業量
仮定

Clearings per winter month.

仮定

Hours per day it may run.

仮定

Days per month.

仮定

Snow months per year.

人員
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 37-3011.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

価格
算出値 HomeGuide

Midpoint of $30-$70 per visit for a standard driveway.

ロボット
仮定

Clearings per robot-hour for a two-car driveway.

Yarbo US store

Yarbo Y40P core with snow blower module.

仮定

DIY setup.

仮定

Yearly parts share of price.

仮定

Useful life in years.

仮定

Availability.

仮定

Clearings lost to faults or stuck robots.

仮定

Visits you still need: heavy wet snow, the plough berm at the end of the drive.

仮定

Your time is not costed.

仮定

kWh per robot-hour.

仮定

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

資金
仮定

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

仮定

Years in the NPV comparison.

仮定

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

仮定

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

仮定

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

結果

選択肢月額年額Per unit (visit)初期費用回収期間Break-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
人 Snow removal service 比較の基準 $66.67$800$50.00— — — —
ロボット Buy a snow robot $178$2,139$134$7,299 365 か月 6%
Utilisation 2%
 -$5,370

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a snow robot5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a snow robotWorkloadlow value: 1 → -$7,329high value: 10 → -$1,451Robot purchase pricelow value: 5000 → -$2,856high value: 9000 → -$7,230Useful life or contractlow value: 4 → -$7,818high value: 10 → -$3,737Active months per yearlow value: 2 → -$6,676high value: 6 → -$4,064Snow removal servicelow value: 30 → -$6,420high value: 70 → -$4,320Work that stays humanlow value: 0.05 → -$4,880high value: 0.4 → -$6,023Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → -$5,151high value: 0.12 → -$5,620Wage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → -$5,429high value: 0.0636 → -$5,309Electricity price per kWhlow value: 0.08 → -$5,364high value: 0.3 → -$5,382-$5,370low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/snow-removal/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Whirrworkによるモデル推計であり、事実ではありません。

Chart単位あたりの人件費 (基本), 単位あたりのロボット費用 (基本), 単位あたりのロボット費用 (ロボット：進歩が速い), 単位あたりのロボット費用 (ロボット：進歩が遅い). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/snow-removal/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.$0.00$50.00$1002026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / visitscenario range単位あたりの人件費 (基本)単位あたりのロボット費用 (基本)単位あたりのロボット費用 (ロボット：進歩が速い)単位あたりのロボット費用 (ロボット：進歩が遅い)Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/snow-removal/). Modelled estimate, no…

逆転する年: 2035年までなし

What the spreadsheet misses

安全性
Shovelling is a known cardiac risk for older people; that, not cost, is the strongest case here.
品質
Clears little and often, so snow never piles up.
柔軟性
A service brings a plough for big storms.
Edge cases
Heavy, wet or very deep snow; gravel drives.
Customer experience
Wakes nobody at 5 a.m. (unless it beeps).
Jobs and redeployment
Seasonal snow contractors lose small driveways first.
規制
None; keep it off public sidewalks unless your town allows it.

関連

このページの出典

注記と出典は英語です。英語版が正式な版です。

  1. Snow removal: driveway $30-$70 per visit (standard driveway up to 90 ft) HomeGuide, 2026
  2. Yarbo Y40P Core with Snow Blower Module Gen 2: $7,299 Yarbo US store, 2026-10 · vendor
  3. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  4. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  5. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  6. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  7. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  8. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  9. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  10. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  11. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  12. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  13. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013