“Wheelmageddon” – the rise and stall of shared electric scooters

So bike-sharing is taking over the world, e-bikes are a thing, but scooters like the classic Razor are so “naughties”.

Put them all together and you’ve got the latest trend in Silicon Valley (which, for our sins, tends to be where the next new thing in our lives will come from).

And that’s shared electric scooters, of which Bird is the first (and most likely not the last).

Calling itself a “a reliable last mile electric scooter rental service”, it raised US$15m a month ago and now wants $100m more.

And as you might imagine, there’s already been some backlash.

It’s “wheelmageddon” in San Fransisco, and the brown bombers of Santa Monica have them in their sights (and have already settled a $300,000 fine with the company). The usual issues of helmets and riding on footpaths will undoubtedly arise.

Maybe the answer is more of  Tesla-style own-it-but-get-free-charging model – which is already being tried.

Comments

8 responses to ““Wheelmageddon” – the rise and stall of shared electric scooters”

  1. Rod Avatar
    Rod

    I think the clashes with pedestrians will limit these. Sort of too fast for footpaths and not fast or safe enough for the road.
    I’ve noticed a company in Adelaide doing guided tours on Segways. Walking is so old school it seems.

    1. Joe Avatar
      Joe

      Do the eScooters or your Segways need to be registered?

      1. Rod Avatar
        Rod

        I’ve only seen Segways on shared paths and I don’t think I have ever seen a powered scooter on a road so my guess would be no.

    2. Ren Stimpy Avatar
      Ren Stimpy

      Give it another twenty thousand years and humans will have evolved wheels instead of legs … and TV remotes instead of hands.

      1. Rod Avatar
        Rod

        Yes, texting thumb injury is already a thing. Maybe we could have an implant and wave at our TVs
        https://www.healthhype.com/how-to-prevent-texting-thumb-repetitive-strain-injury-rsi.html

        1. Ren Stimpy Avatar
          Ren Stimpy

          Could put a TV remote implant in the front lower torso and change channels with a gesture of some kind ……..for example

  2. Miles Harding Avatar
    Miles Harding

    Here we have it, an electric version of China’s dockless bike hire fiasco.

    See here for a pic of an ENORMOUS pile of discarded bikes:
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/25/chinas-bike-share-graveyard-a-monument-to-industrys-arrogance

    In China, the business model only went as far as soliciting funds and manufacturing bikes for the start-up. The game was hoovering up the investor’s funds, so there was no consideration given for a viable business.

    I don’t see this as being very different, with the added bonus that the scooter is unusable when the battery runs down, so will be discarded even more indiscriminately than was the case in China, if that’s possible.

  3. Electric Boogaloo Avatar
    Electric Boogaloo

    The scooters are fantastic for getting around downtown fast. $1 to unlock plus 15c per minute of riding. They do about 30-35km on a charge, which is ample in a city that measures just 12x12km.

    The other weekend we gave them a try and rode a couple from the Ferry Building to the Golden Gate Bridge and back, which was round trip of 18km. I’ve used them a few times again during the week since when heading out for lunch. Pretty cool to be able to zip over to North Beach from SoMa for a couple of dollars.

    This is the future for getting around downtown – faster than walking and driving/uber/lyft/taxi, cheap as chips and much more convenient than having your own bicycle which you have to worry about being vandalised or stolen.

    Just not really good for winter when it’s raining, but then that’s no good for walking or cycling either so it’s kind of a moot point.

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