What these scooters have done for SM-Venice is, they’ve gotten people to park farther away and spend less time in cars. Especially the tourists. What does that mean for locals? Well, for one, it means that the nuisance of having to drive slow past people on these things, rather than the nightmare of sitting in standstill traffic if all of those people were in cars instead. Summer traffic in Venice was definitely helped by the scooters, as they replaced a bit of car traffic. These “short haul mobility vehicles” make it much easier for larger groups of people to engage in a large, spread-out, mostly-pedestrian area.
They’re completely dorky and I’ll never be caught dead on one... but, at the same time, there’s serious benefits to us all that these things exist. There’s definitely problems (not sure how I feel about seeing them in piles outside of public schools, such as Venice High, and there’s something very Idiocracy-esque in watching them being used by people who would benefit from walking), but I find it to be an overall net-positive.
I’m interested to see where the next form factors go, and how these things factor into future urban planning decisions. Especially within geofenced environments where you don’t have to pay for them, they just exist. There’s a lot to ponder here.
For half a second I had this vision of Lime jet-skis piling up and blocking the canals of Venice, Italy.
Kids treat them like shit but what is there to do?
So now there’s this sort of quandary I have as a parent: do I tell my kids and or other kids to not play on these scooters? And to take care of them? Where should I draw the line?
I don’t see them in poor areas of town, so it’s like they exist in large part as an almost “parasite” on the good will of nice communities where they won’t be stolen or chopped up for parts. They’re here to make money for a private company.
In a public park or at the public library it’s easy to say: “this is here for our community, by our community, you need to take care of it because we’re all in this together.”
These scooters (despite their benefit) are ultimately taking money out of the community (if they’re profitable) and they’re budgeting for loss and damage, so why not let the kids play on them and damage them?
At least for me, there was a clear before and after moment, where you suddenly saw far more people on your block in Venice riding around drunk on scooters all the time, where as before, you hardly saw anyone.
This said, I use them all the time, Venice is a bitch to find parking in, and the neighborhood is just spread out enough where you need a vehicle to get around. Before it would've been a huge pain to grab breakfast at Gusta, head into ocean park for some shopping and then head on down to Washington to spend some time near the pier all before noon.
Sorry for asking, but are you thirteen?
A lot of people do. Looking at something and saying "I don't think I would do that because it would be very embarrassing" is a thing adults can do.
Now that it's gotten colder, I think my range for using them will contract to something like 2-8 blocks, but I don't think I'll cut off using them entirely. I don't notice them being "piled up" anywhere (except for at a street festival, but lots of people were picking them up too), and I don't think I've ever run into a situation where my path was actively blocked by one.
Baltimore used to have a bike share, but I've heard it's being shut down and even when it was up they had a hard time keeping bikes in all the stalls.
Will convenience ever win out for you?
This is a serious question.
So all info you withhold from them is the few meters walk from where you ordered to where you got picked up.
Can you do this?? Thanks, I had no idea!
I feel like this is a bit of misleading marketing since a ton of fossil fuel is used to round them up and distribute them around town every day.
(TPU/C)(TE/CE) = Carbon Efficiency of using Lime/Bird
I’ll admit that I don’t know all the numbers to plug in here (being HN, maybe someone else does) but given that even dirty power plants have better fuel efficiency than ICEs and that chargers don’t need to drive super far to find a ton of scooters my money is on this being better than driving, carbon-wise.
Even if a vehicle is used, it is nowhere near the fuel consumed by all the scooter trips combined. It collects multiple and is only after several days per scooter.
Given that I perceive fossil fuel savings, I feel it’s worth it to check and try to lean towards this method of transport.
Sorry if these are stupid questions, but isn't this a problem with Bird? I see random birds all over the place. Can someone explain why bikes can't be left around randomly like a bird can?
As for why a non-powered bike couldn’t just be left around, here are a few thoughts:
- As some people have mentioned, bikes are just bigger, and take up way more sidewalk space. If Bird and Lime have gotten unpopular, a “Bird for Bikes” would probably make people livid.
- Honestly, the fact that Birds and Limes come with Anti-theft mechanisms and GPS transponders (which run on the same battery as the motor I think) makes them a bit harder to steal (and there aren’t easily removable parts or a viable black market for selling them). Even a non-powered bike would need a charge every once in a while if it relied on power for its transponder.
- I think the “we supply’em, you pay us to ride’em, we pay people to charge’em” business model is just a straight up new thing that happened to be first successfully done by a scooter startup. I imagine it would be hard for a person in a minivan to pick up tons of bikes for charging without having to remove their minivan’s seats. Again, scooters being small is a big advantage, which is probably also why bigger “sit down” vespa-style scooter startups don’t seem to be a factor right now.
Also there are dockless bikes, see Jump in SF.
Looks like Maryland uses a significant amount of coal to power their grid, so is this even a good thing?
Also, the argument you're making here is called "the long tailpipe" and has been debunked – it's still a win even if the grid has dirty energy because of efficiency gains.
1. Scooters use far less energy than larger vehicles.
2. Generating energy from fossil fuels can be done more efficiently at a power plant than in a small engine.
3. When power generation is centralized, it is easier to substitute it for better, more efficient forms in the future.
It's why electric cars are viewed as being friendly; the grid they're plugged into may still be fossil fuels, but that can change at any time. A gasoline powered car won't change its reliance on fossil fuels until you replace it.
I personally love these scooters. I'm living in Australia now where we don't have them. But last month I took a 3 week road trip from LAX to DC and back so I could hit cities I hadn't been to before. And in many of these cities, I used a Bird to get around. These scooters opened up so much more of these cities for me than I could have seen if I just walked every where.
I think they provide real value to a city, for tourists to get around, and for citizens for the last mile and to complement other forms of transport. We just need for these scooter companies to be less like Uber and actually work with the cities to come up with reasonable regulations (in particular insisting on all riders wearing helmets)
The issue for me is the co-opting of public space for private enterprise in the least considerate way possible. People leave these scooters like litter in parks, sidewalks, and lakes.
You could object that this is an overly precious perspective, but I would counter that similar startups (ZipCar most notably) have solved this by contemplating the logistical implications from the get go.
I personally would not object the assigning some percentage of parking spots in neighborhoods as designated parking for shares, and would hope such a contract will emerge.
I certainly understand the dockless advantage here, but the result for those of us who don't use them is garbage some random company feels entitled to clutter up the sidewalks with.
I have a lot of problems with a) companies seizing arbitrary amounts of public space for private businesses, b) venture-funded litter cluttering the streets, and c) novice scooter riders with no training turned loose on sidewalks I am trying to walk and not die on.
And I also have a lot of left-over ire for scofflaw companies. Yes, Uber got away with it. But no, would-be titans, that's not permission for you guys. It was a one-time trick.
In a lot of places in West Los Angeles, you are having to step around them constantly if you walk down the street. People literally just drop them in the middle of the sidewalk, because there is no incentive for them to not do that.
This means that everyone who doesn't use the service has to suffer.
Take two parking spots in each block. Put beacons on the corners or some kind of signaling tape around the whole thing. Only let users drop off rides inside that spot. Bonus points for having non-locking racks to help organize.
People get to litter their car on the side of my road, often in the bike lane for free and everyone walks around like it's okay. It's not. Neither are the scooters on the sidewalk. We know how to solve both problems. Parking spots for dockless transit and banning cars from transit and pedestrian rich neighborhoods.
[edit] I removed a line saying I was annoyed that people kept complaining the scooter parking situation. Those complaints point out a very real problem with scooter deployments and that we have a solution for it that is difficult to get passed doesn't make the complaint less valid.
You and I have very different definitions of "large." I'd call this "very minor."
It also depends on the comparison group. I mean, look at these astounding photos of mammoth, abandoned dockless vehicles: https://slate.com/business/2018/04/astounding-photos-capture....
Cities will, over time, reallocate a small amount of the space currently devoted to very large dockless vehicles to small dockless vehicles and thus solve the problem.
Personally, I usually wear a helmet, but if I happen to not have mine with me it won't stop me from taking a bike or scooter.
Having good situational awareness of surrounding cars, pedestrians, and other road users as well as stationary obstacles ahead of you provides much more safety than a helmet.
Here's a good look at that for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWhMEkMtLy0
It's pretty clear that there is a growing demand for ways to get around other than driving yourself. Lyft and Uber are great for covering distances, but have their issues. In busy metro areas it can often be quicker to walk than it is to drive if you're only going a mile and traffic is bad. On the flip side, in more suburban areas the nearest Uber or Lyft can often be 10+ minutes away.
These bikes and scooters fill that "too long to walk, too short to Lyft" gap perfectly as well as being a great for getting from a public transit stop to a destination.
I don't think they have all the kinks worked out yet. I often see them left in stupid places and there are safety issues for sure, but I really do think they are a step in the right direction.
Walking a mile or two is easy, healthy and does not take very long.
Amusingly, they're forbidden from using all roadways including the green bicycle paths on the sides of roads. They must be ridden on the footpath, or on dedicated bikeways that aren't on roads. I don't understand why this is the case.
The helmet thing is currently tackled by having a helmet on each scooter. I haven't seen any go missing yet but I've also not ridden one myself, though I both live and work inside the proximity for using them.
People I've talked to who've used them have found them fun and convenient. Friends have used them to get to work faster than walking when running late. Others have gone out on the weekend to just sight-see and enjoy the weather, which I think is a positive change vs. sitting inside. I think they're a net positive, but there's some downsides that I think can be addressed.
edit: For additional context, we have a bike share system in Brisbane too (called CityCycle) which is tied to our transit card system. I see it getting some use, but it seems like the scooters are far more popular (at least right now). With our CityCycle system, you pay a ongoing membership fee ($5/mo) plus usage fees (after the first 30 minutes), though there's also a day pass ($2/day) rather than ongoing membership. This makes it a bit harder to start using or sporadically use compared to the scooters. Additionally, you have to return them to dedicated rack locations rather than just park them anywhere. Lastly, they're somehow more dorky than a lime-green scooter, given that they have bright yellow plastic and ads on them.
I wanted to like them when I was visiting from Europe to STL but I couldn't:
- They require a helmet. I don't have a helmet and I'm not gonna buy one for a 5 day trip. Most people do not wear helmets but if police stops me I can hardly point at other people disobeying the same rule. - They require a drivers license. I last drove a car half a decade ago or so so I tend to use my driver's license at home, especially on trips abroad. - Using the scooters on streets in STL feels a bit scary. I commute to work by bike every day but we have cycle lanes and drivers who are used to seeing cyclists everywhere so it is a rather safe environment.
I saw one pulled out of the Brisbane River the other day too.
Freedom is complicated when you don't live in a silo.
Society shouldn't have to spend any money on medical bills stemming from not wearing proper protection while riding any vehicle and injuries are usually very serious. Not sure how it works in the US but here in the EU society does basically cover those bills.
Fast forward a few years and the program is a huge success here in NYC, there was some accidents but no where near what I thought there would be. People obviously love Biking and I was completely wrong.
What’s even crazier now I think with the technology and access becoming even easier this has the power to completely transform cities. Obviously people love this and politicians that don’t support it will be voted out, it’s looking more and more like there could be entire roads dedicated to bikes and scooters as this becomes more popular.
Mayor Bloomberg wanted to limit the amount of cars in the city and put a toll on any any cars going below 95th street in Manhattan, people rebelled back then but if something like this had been in place the Cabbies and Car owners would be out of luck.
Also worth noting, none of the technology is itself "new", but rather bird & lime particularly have packaged existing technologies together to make a product with all the qualities mentioned above. Innovation is usually just a twist on something that's already out there.
Disruptive pioneer is not necessarily good investment even if the base idea is solid.
In the Dot-com bubble (1995-2000) many companies with good ideas eventually failed. There were several online book retailers, web search companies and online shopping sites, even online food delivery services. They were highly valued, but most of them went bankrupt. Amazon two Google survived (It took over decade for Amazon's stock valuation to recover).
We have now transportation boom. When the boom goes bust and regression hits, most run out of money and go bankrupt.
Softbank isn't like a traditional VC. They structured their fund like private equity where they retain a percentage of returns above x% per year. In addition to this, they take a 1% management fee regardless of returns.
For most VC's, you'd expect the carry to represent the majority of incentive. But, Softbank is unique in that their fund is $100bn. They take home a hefty $1b in management fees regardless of how their portfolio performs.
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they make 'safe' bets for the sake of boosting their allocation numbers, even if they think there's a nil chance of 3x EV.
I think they look kind of dorky, and some end up on the sidewalk and dumped in Lake Merritt. On the other hand, it appears that people are using these scooters a lot, possibly instead of driving. That seems like a positive outcome to me.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/23/17882996/teens-electric-s...
It would be good if more safety concerns were met though - I do think mandating helmet usage is a good thing.
I could see using them when traveling, where I wouldn't have my bike with me.
I think many Americans have a higher expectations for safety than many people in China. No way I am packing my kid onto a scooter and driving them around downtown.
I.e. to me, the problem is the US mentality towards car-minded transportation infrastructure, not the expectation of safety in a given culture.
Some EU countries have already announced that scooters will soon be treated similarly to e-bikes, i.e. max 250W and 25km/h for the ones that don't need registration and plates.
While more expensive and less portable, a bike is a lot safer and more versatile.
I think only familiarity leads people to think that bikes are safer than scooters. Given a choice between an electric bicycle and an electric scooter, now that I've ridden both, give me the scooter any day.
With that disclosure, was anyone else horrified that the lifespan of these scooters is only 3 months?
Are they really removing enough vehicle trips to make these a net positive from an environmental standpoint?
Being angry about a better alternative instead of the lack of infrastructure is just crotchety.
Also, are there planned improvements to the lifespan? These companies have been operating for a crazy short amount of time considering their growth...so hopefully they can improve this as they bring the scooter design in-house.
Where else would they drive them? On the road? They would just contribute to the thousands of cyclists that die or are seriously injured every year.
If you are suggesting that every electric vehicle be banned because sidewalks are for pedestrians only then I disagree. Streets are for cars only, don't let these fake bike lanes fool you.
Here's an FAQ from Cornell on this: http://www.bike.cornell.edu/pdfs/Sidewalk_biking_FAQ.pdf
You might just be thinking it used to be that way because when a new company/product becomes successful, their brand name becomes the term for the thing.
Kleenex
Xerox
Asprin
Hoover
> Looking for a term to differentiate its new system, Haloid coined the term xerography from two Greek roots meaning "dry writing".
"Aspirin" was named for the Spiraea ulmaria plant used in its synthesis.
"Borax" is sodium borate.
"Kleenex" helps keep your nose and face and surroundings clean.
Seriously, this city has convinced me democracy doesn't work. Maybe China should regime change us.
Edit: stingrae points lack of availability may be the City's fault, rather than Skip/Scoot. No sé -- but for sure the city's intervention took a useful, environmentally friendly transit option and made it non-useful.
Looks like it launched a couple weeks ago: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/bik...
1. Consistently Well Working Bikes can be hard to find
2. I often use these to get from the residential part of Seattle to the urban parts for date night... it can be very difficult to find two of these near each other.
3. They really need some sort of limited reservation system. This would help mitigate the difficulty of getting multiple bikes.
This is the average revenue, I am sure there are some that generate a lot less/barely any.
When I spent a week in Denver they were being used everywhere as well.
But riding them in the street pisses off drivers and is pretty dangerous, at least that's how it shakes out in Cincinnati.
So, like cars?
The answer to this is better bicycle infrastructure, and I'm hopeful that scooter popularity helps accelerate this.
Pain in the ass, and the company, in typical Silicon Valley fashion, didn't have any information on their website about how to contact a real person or to report an abandoned scooter. If this is going to be a regular thing, where I have to be an impromptu scooter wrangler, I want my cut :)
Disclaimer: I work for Bird.
The wheels are way too small for some of the pot holes in cities.
If you search for news on scooter accidents you will see they are more likely with Limes. Why not Bird? Because Bird throttles the speed according to the current laws (15mph) while Limes go sometimes up to 20mph.
Disclaimer: I work for Bird.
Only a matter of time before these Lime and Bird sidewalk riders kill a pedestrian.
Otherwise we are sure to end up like China in these photos: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversup...
For reference, American Airlines has market cap of $18 billion and 950 jet planes.
Companies are far too complicated to compare based on single numbers. Try not to make this mistake —- it’s great for clickbait, not so much for critical thinking.
Yes they do have debt. $44B of revenue. Still Lime and Bird valuations are insane.
That is given the following assumptions are correct:
-A vegan on a bicycle has a carbon footprint of 22g/km of CO2.
-The scooters are Xiaomi Mi electric scooters with a 330Wh(approx based on specs) battery of the type with the biggest CO2 footprint(250kg/kWh).
-Electricity comes exclusively from coal(1kg/kWh of CO2).
With these assumptions the break-even point is 7500km or 4700 miles - that's approx. one charge each workday.
Why would Uber buy either of these companies? Uber already has JUMP scooters. Can't they afford to create way more scooters than either Lime or Bird?
Sure, Uber isn't one of the two companies who are part of the scooter pilot in SF. Still, I doubt that justifies spending hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on buying a company.
I think we'll see prices come down 80%. These scooter companies will face more competition than uber and Lyft do because people are happy grabbing the first scooter they see when walking.
My personal scooter costs a third of a cent per mile of electricity + $350 to buy it. I'm at 150 miles so far, and could easily see this thing lasting a few thousand. So ~20 cents a mile.
They can only be ridden for 50 minutes before they need charged, which costs $20, which comes down to $0.40 a minute.
I don't see the unit cost economics, let alone how the prices could come down by 80%.
Its 12 cents to charge, and I imagine there will be city infrastructure added to accommodate charging on the streets. Pay someone a dollar to plug it in to the nearest streetlamp at the end of their ride.
For a time they were $300 on amazon. And then I also bought an external battery pack for cheap somewhere else.
Uber is on track to run out of money in 2019, so a financial event is inmminent. I don't know if we will see an Uber 2019 IPO, but if it doesn't happen is more likely due to the current bear market and not so much because they are considering a large acquisition.
If they acquire a scooter company I presume they will do it through a mix of debt and a heavy stock component. In fact it seems that they already raised another 2 billion through private placement bonds.
I love the bike share programs in Taiwan and China. I haven’t used a car in years. Yeah some people trash the bikes but most people at least seem to give a shit.
Why this is such an issue in the West, I can’t understand...
I walk out of my apartment, and the streets are littered with them. It's annoying when walking, it's even more annoying when jogging, and riders are constantly riding them (without helmets) on sidewalks even though we have bike lanes. They're even a nuisance when driving.
I'm hoping for some legislation that will ban them -- I might set up a grassroots campaign myself. It's mostly the tourists using them, anyway.
In all seriousness, they should have dedicated docking spots but even one parking spot per block would be more than enough and would solve the problem.
At least realize that they aren't so ridiculously overpopulated in other places -- it's probably the tourists that make it financially worth it to put out a deluge of them.
At the very least, people should actually get licensed to ride these things. I know that it requires they have a driver's license, but that doesn't mean they're actually trained to ride these scooters around in traffic. At that rate, why even bother having licenses for motorcycle riders? A regular driver's license and training for a regular car is apparently all they need.
I've seen it in snapshots over the last 6 months
regarding your banning campaign, outgoing Governor Brown basically enshrined them into the California fabric just now
I can imagine that VC's won't like articles like this and that may have a knock on effect of making cities better in the long term.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/09/24/e-scooter-deaths-unde...
I say this as someone who loves them. I hope they stick around, but its only a matter of time someone in a party city like Nashville is drunk and ends up getting hit leading to a death.
Regulation hasn't caught up yet?
Let's leave the "get off my lawn" comments off HN.
Is it really that big of a nuisance? You literally walk around them, I don't see the issue.
You should give them a ride one day to "see what all the fuss is about." They really are an incredible idea and allowing them to be "parked" anywhere is one of its main appeals.
Is this a fad where people just want to try something new? Or are people actually shifting regular transportation to these?
I wonder what happens to the scooter after that. Landfill? Recycle?
That said they are cool when used properly, but they're being regulated and towns are starting to charge taxes/fees to make sure they're not a nuisance and require them to leave them in low income areas.
Are there any servicing companies popping up to re-sale end of life/refurbished scooters?
