5 ms·

Bird has officially raised a whopping $300M as the scooter wars heat up

28 points by johnomarkid 8y ago

gcb0 8y ago
> scooters you’ll see pretty much all over the place in cities like Los Angeles. have to laugh at this. The touristy areas are indeed packed with them. you can't even see the floor on 3rd street promenade because it is now covered in five companies' scooters. Maybe you see a couple in the silicon beach (which is not around snapchat house, and neither on the beach anymore). but actual places you'd call Los Angeles? none.
- wwweston 8y ago
  West LA east of the 405 is... definitely LA municipality. There's absolutely lots of Bird scooters in Westwood. I think I've seen some in Hollywood.
  - gcb0 8y ago
    west LA is also a mix of college city and tourist destination.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    Yep, the Daily Bruin has written about their proliferation — and the enforcement/arrests due to violations of helmet laws — on several occasions. https://dailybruin.com/2018/04/08/ucpd-to-crack-down-on-electric-scooters-issue-citations-over-warnings/ https://dailybruin.com/2018/04/08/ucpd-to-crack-down-on-elec... I can see how they'd be useful on the hills at UCLA!
    - throwaway413 8y ago
      Except they don’t have nearly enough power to get up hills. You end up pushing it up the hill with you, which is worse than walking!
  - gcb0 8y ago
    the grove, miracle mile, west LA, ucla, pier... those are all three things: (mostly) tourist (or university) destinations, flat and isolated. meaning you will use the scooters to circle around a small flat area. those things are hardly transportation for people that live walking distance to work. it wont replace anything but the $3 to $5 lyft/uber ride.
    - wwweston 8y ago
      Oh, yeah. If you live walking distance to work, you'd... continue to walk. The $3-5 crowdcab... what we're really talking about here is the last mile, and it's been enough of a subject of conversation that it's not a market I'd estimate low lightly. Also, West LA contains enough people who are doing other phases of life besides school or touring that there's no way everybody who's using the scooters on/around my block is a student or tourist.
- wjossey 8y ago
  I live near Fairfax and Wilshire (near The Grove) and they’ve just started cropping up on the sidewalks up and down Fairfax. I moved there from SaMo and it’s definitely not nearly as bad yet, but I can see the wave coming. I’m not a huge fan at this point, but I’m trying to not be too closed minded about them. They seem to serve a purpose, but I’m getting annoyed with people scootering on the sidewalks and it added to our already dirty / littered streets. On a health note, I’m amazed at how many people use them without helmets (basically 100% of people I observe). Given what we know about brain injury and trauma in 2018, I’m shocked people put their brains at such risk to just get from point A to point B slightly faster. Walking in LA feels dangerous enough to me at times with inattentive drivers, let alone adding some additional speed to any potential impact.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
compsciphd 8y ago
dockless bicycles have taken over San Jose. They are worse than scooters by far. The only advantage I can see bicycles having over the scooters is not being "dead" due to battery issues, but plenty of other things can also take bicycles out of commission. They also take up more more room and can't be packed as close together.
- jiveturkey 8y ago
  do scooters require more juice for a short trip, or more current draw, than a portable usb-c battery pack can provide? if not, scooters should have external ports for BYO power.
  - lrajlich 8y ago
    It requires ~250W. Most portable USB batteries you can buy put out like 20W or so, this idea isn't really feasible.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    I think the Gen2 scooters will have solar panels on the standing pads to slowly recharge during the day when not in use.
    - alonmower 8y ago
      No chance. The batteries are 280 Watt hours, solar cells generate about 20 Watt hours per square foot, and the standing pads are probably no more than half a square foot (being generous) so even if you could have an edge to edge panel it would take 28 hours of direct sunlight to fully charge. Even if they were perfectly positioned all day they wouldn’t get more than 7 hours of sun, only 3-4 of those at peak power so it would take something like 6 days to charge. That’s assuming they’re aimed in the right direction and not blocked. Riding them covers the panel and gets them dirty which reduces efficiency and adding the panel increases the cost and maintenance of the scooter considerably.
      - 8y ago
jiveturkey 8y ago
dammit. i knew i should have gotten a job when they were just at $1bn cap ...
alottafunchata 8y ago
please bring them back to sf
- DeonPenny 8y ago
  I miss them so much
- randyrand 8y ago
  they're gone?
- bytematic 8y ago
  Madison, WI did the same thing a few months before sf. In Madison they were everywhere.
randyrand 8y ago
If every city had dedicated lanes and parking spots for scooters (like we do for cars) - electric scooters would be an obviously amazing compliment to city travel.

28 points by johnomarkid 8y ago

gcb0 8y ago

> scooters you’ll see pretty much all over the place in cities like Los Angeles. have to laugh at this. The touristy areas are indeed packed with them. you can't even see the floor on 3rd street promenade because it is now covered in five companies' scooters. Maybe you see a couple in the silicon beach (which is not around snapchat house, and neither on the beach anymore). but actual places you'd call Los Angeles? none.

wwweston 8y ago
West LA east of the 405 is... definitely LA municipality. There's absolutely lots of Bird scooters in Westwood. I think I've seen some in Hollywood.
- gcb0 8y ago
  west LA is also a mix of college city and tourist destination.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  Yep, the Daily Bruin has written about their proliferation — and the enforcement/arrests due to violations of helmet laws — on several occasions. https://dailybruin.com/2018/04/08/ucpd-to-crack-down-on-electric-scooters-issue-citations-over-warnings/ https://dailybruin.com/2018/04/08/ucpd-to-crack-down-on-elec... I can see how they'd be useful on the hills at UCLA!
  - throwaway413 8y ago
    Except they don’t have nearly enough power to get up hills. You end up pushing it up the hill with you, which is worse than walking!
- gcb0 8y ago
  the grove, miracle mile, west LA, ucla, pier... those are all three things: (mostly) tourist (or university) destinations, flat and isolated. meaning you will use the scooters to circle around a small flat area. those things are hardly transportation for people that live walking distance to work. it wont replace anything but the $3 to $5 lyft/uber ride.
  - wwweston 8y ago
    Oh, yeah. If you live walking distance to work, you'd... continue to walk. The $3-5 crowdcab... what we're really talking about here is the last mile, and it's been enough of a subject of conversation that it's not a market I'd estimate low lightly. Also, West LA contains enough people who are doing other phases of life besides school or touring that there's no way everybody who's using the scooters on/around my block is a student or tourist.
wjossey 8y ago
I live near Fairfax and Wilshire (near The Grove) and they’ve just started cropping up on the sidewalks up and down Fairfax. I moved there from SaMo and it’s definitely not nearly as bad yet, but I can see the wave coming. I’m not a huge fan at this point, but I’m trying to not be too closed minded about them. They seem to serve a purpose, but I’m getting annoyed with people scootering on the sidewalks and it added to our already dirty / littered streets. On a health note, I’m amazed at how many people use them without helmets (basically 100% of people I observe). Given what we know about brain injury and trauma in 2018, I’m shocked people put their brains at such risk to just get from point A to point B slightly faster. Walking in LA feels dangerous enough to me at times with inattentive drivers, let alone adding some additional speed to any potential impact.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

compsciphd 8y ago

dockless bicycles have taken over San Jose. They are worse than scooters by far. The only advantage I can see bicycles having over the scooters is not being "dead" due to battery issues, but plenty of other things can also take bicycles out of commission. They also take up more more room and can't be packed as close together.

jiveturkey 8y ago
do scooters require more juice for a short trip, or more current draw, than a portable usb-c battery pack can provide? if not, scooters should have external ports for BYO power.
- lrajlich 8y ago
  It requires ~250W. Most portable USB batteries you can buy put out like 20W or so, this idea isn't really feasible.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  I think the Gen2 scooters will have solar panels on the standing pads to slowly recharge during the day when not in use.
  - alonmower 8y ago
    No chance. The batteries are 280 Watt hours, solar cells generate about 20 Watt hours per square foot, and the standing pads are probably no more than half a square foot (being generous) so even if you could have an edge to edge panel it would take 28 hours of direct sunlight to fully charge. Even if they were perfectly positioned all day they wouldn’t get more than 7 hours of sun, only 3-4 of those at peak power so it would take something like 6 days to charge. That’s assuming they’re aimed in the right direction and not blocked. Riding them covers the panel and gets them dirty which reduces efficiency and adding the panel increases the cost and maintenance of the scooter considerably.
    - 8y ago

jiveturkey 8y ago

dammit. i knew i should have gotten a job when they were just at $1bn cap ...

alottafunchata 8y ago

please bring them back to sf

DeonPenny 8y ago
I miss them so much
randyrand 8y ago
they're gone?
bytematic 8y ago
Madison, WI did the same thing a few months before sf. In Madison they were everywhere.

randyrand 8y ago

If every city had dedicated lanes and parking spots for scooters (like we do for cars) - electric scooters would be an obviously amazing compliment to city travel.