I have spent a lot of time observing this phenomenon in Venice; here are some of my thoughts.<p>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 <i>nuisance</i> of having to drive slow past people on these things, rather than the <i>nightmare</i> 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.<p>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.<p>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.
I live in Baltimore and these things have been awesome. Over the summer and early fall, I used them a lot for trips that were between 3-15 blocks. They were usually less than half the price of a Lyft, were fun to drive, don't directly use fossil fuels and were usually available (in one app or the other) within a block or two of my house. I used them to meet friends for brunch, to pick up my car from getting worked on, to go to bars near my house and to go vote in November.<p>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.<p>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.
These scooters and scooter companies seem pretty divisive, especially on HN. I understand they're operating in grey areas, I guess kinda like Uber before them, but they are causing (I think) positive disruption.<p>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.<p>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)
Facts are facts but to me this always seemed like the dumbest idea. I thought it was a dumb idea before the City Bike program was introduced here in NYC then I thought so many people would get hurt with the way Cabbies drive out here.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
My guess is that Lime and Bird's latest investors don't actually believe in these insane valuations. Instead, they see these companies as a safe place to park their money due to the limited downside provided by liquid preference terms.
In West Oakland I see many people using the Ford Bikes, but yet even more people using the Lime scooters. Kids, adults, techies, non-techies.<p>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.
I really liked riding them until I realized how expensive they were. When you use them everyday, it adds up quick. Hundreds of dollars a month. I now bike everywhere instead and wonder why others don't.<p>I could see using them when traveling, where I wouldn't have my bike with me.
Stand up scooters feel so unstable. Why not just add a seat and allow a seated scooter that’s foldable. The problem with last mile transport is that the laws in many countries need electric bikes to have peddles and peddle assistance. Just let people have a certain power and max speed and they will drop the car and replace it with a powered scooter. Aka, China.
Full disclosure, I'm anti scooter. People drive them on the sidewalks, leave them in front of my front door, and I genuinely hope that both of these companies, specifically, fail.<p>With that disclosure, was anyone else horrified that the lifespan of these scooters is only 3 months?<p>Are they really removing enough vehicle trips to make these a net positive from an environmental standpoint?
I have friends in London and commuter towns buying scooters for their own use- despite knowing that they can’t ride them legally. There are none for hire here. When are they arriving?
It's strange that even though SF approved 2 scooter companies to operate that I feel like I rarely see anyone actually use vs what I saw when Bird/Lime were here.
Interestingly I just noticed Lime-branded Fiat cars in Seattle for the first time yesterday. Looks like they're taking on Car2Go and ReachNow.<p>Looks like it launched a couple weeks ago:
<a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/bike-share-company-lime-launching-car-rental-service-in-seattle/" rel="nofollow">https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/bik...</a>
I am a frequent user of lime bikes. I think they have a few drawbacks that make them difficult to use all the time however. Mostly:<p>1. Consistently Well Working Bikes can be hard to find<p>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.<p>3. They really need some sort of limited reservation system. This would help mitigate the difficulty of getting multiple bikes.
This article says these scooters make $16/day in revenue?! Where are they making that kind of money? The scooters in my city just sit in the same place for DAYS without moving... I don't buy those numbers at all...
The problem with these scooters is that they are great as a user, but terrible for everyone else. They are a lot of fun to ride, but if you're just a regular old pedestrian they are a nightmare, people park them in the streets and pass by you way to quickly and closely on the sidewalk.<p>But riding them in the street pisses off drivers and is pretty dangerous, at least that's how it shakes out in Cincinnati.
I finally had a chance to try one out recently and was very frustrated with the experience. After attempting to use several shown on Bird's map I gave up. Some were broken, some were almost certainly being hoarded inside of apartment buildings, and some simply could not be found anywhere near the map marker. The experience was a huge letdown after being tempted to try the product so many times.
I loved using Lime, but I can see cities banning it like SF. You aren't supposed to ride the scooter on side walks and many people do it. People just leave it in random places and I know some cities don't like this.
DC had a scooter death a couple months ago marking among the first in the country: <a href="https://dc.curbed.com/2018/9/26/17905378/electric-scooter-death" rel="nofollow">https://dc.curbed.com/2018/9/26/17905378/electric-scooter-de...</a><p>The wheels are way too small for some of the pot holes in cities.
As a cyclist, I'm hopeful that these bike/scooter/wheel-shares programs will force governments to examine their plans for keeping people safe. More low-speed travel lanes for bikes, scooters, one-wheels, hoverboards, etc. Keep the sidewalks for walking and wheelchairs.<p>Otherwise we are sure to end up like China in these photos:
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversup...</a>
Lime and Bird have collectively raised nearly a billion dollars within 14 months of founding at valuations of $1.1 billion and $2 billion, respectively.<p>For reference, American Airlines has market cap of $18 billion and 950 jet planes.
One interesting thing about these scooters is that their lifetime CO2 emissions are actually slightly less than a that of a vegan on a bicycle.<p>That is given the following assumptions are correct:<p>-A vegan on a bicycle has a carbon footprint of 22g/km of CO2.<p>-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).<p>-Electricity comes exclusively from coal(1kg/kWh of CO2).<p>With these assumptions the break-even point is 7500km or 4700 miles - that's approx. one charge each workday.
> The big wild card, though, is whether Uber or Lyft buy Lime or Bird. Uber is talking to both companies about an acquisition so this is not just a hypothetical question.<p>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?<p>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.
A lot of this evaluation assumes the price stays the same. $1 + 15 cents a minute.<p>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.<p>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.
Will be interesting if Uber or Lyft will postpone IPO in favor or buying one of them. Cant imagine it's possible to acquire one of them and still IPO in near future - but who knows. Exciting to see scooters and bikes get nice adoption! Changing the form factor to be more like a mini car (with at least a seat) would be neat, scooters just dont feel that safe.
Reading the comments here make me chuckle. I honestly find it mind boggling that people would complain of bicycles taking up space, let alone scooters.<p>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.<p>Why this is such an issue in the West, I can’t understand...
I cannot <i>stand</i> the Limes and Birds around Santa Monica.<p>I walk out of my apartment, and the streets are <i>littered</i> 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.<p>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.
It would be cool if these things helped cities make streets safer for all cyclists and small vehicles.<p>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.<p><a href="https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/09/24/e-scooter-deaths-underscore-the-urgent-need-for-safer-streets/" rel="nofollow">https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/09/24/e-scooter-deaths-unde...</a>
They're a menace to society given the un-insured nature of their services. A local journalist had some scooter doofus run into her vehicle badly enough to damage the ability to open the driver's side door, then he turned around and claimed she hit him. So she was facing having a record of striking a pedestrian on her driver's and insurance records and was only saved by footage from a surveillance camera. What a joy!
It's funny to see this just after in Nashville a Bird user ran a red light and got hit by a car. Now I know this user is not indicitive of all users, but it's enough to galvinize the people against them.<p>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.
Remind me again why they are allowed to litter all the public sidewalks and street corners with their scooters?<p>Regulation hasn't caught up yet?
Just waiting to be able to ride one in San Francisco without a driver license (which is impossible right now). I can’t wait to be able to commute short distances without having to take cabs everywhere.
I would love to see some stats on repeat usage.<p>Is this a fad where people just want to try something new? Or are people actually shifting regular transportation to these?
“Lime recently indicated their latest scooters have an average lifespan of 4 months.”<p>I wonder what happens to the scooter after that. Landfill? Recycle?
Uber for scooters. How many times was that autogenerated by one of the million (ironic) startup creator sites? These companies are not worth billions. They have an app, thousands of scooters and a near-slavery workforce. The charade of companies like this being displayed as marvels of capitalism and technology isn't going to last much longer. Uber is wearing out its welcome worldwide already.