17 ms·

Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

247 points by newy 8y ago

danans 8y ago
These e-scooters could be a really great way for many cities to decrease short-haul car dependency, but they really need to be off the sidewalks. A motor-propelled machine going 15 mph doesn't belong on the same surface as a baby stroller, a senior citizen, or a person with a disability. They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic These are great ideas. Write them into your representatives. Designated street-side scooter parking would also be a plus. Not only does it signal to drivers "consider another option," it also deals with the scooter litter problem. (To form, San Francisco chose the worst of all options and coronated two companies chosen by bureaucrats to run amok in the city.)
  - the_watcher 8y ago
    I was just in LA, and scooters are everywhere. However, they're all parked upright, and in most cases even organized into a nice, out of the sidewalk path, line (initially I thought that Bird/Lime/etc were paying people to do this, but I saw a mix of different brands aligned as often as just one). When they first launched in LA, this wasn't the case, it was just as much of a free for all as SF. SF succumbed to regulatory capture, but LA was able to figure out a way to allow all of the companies to exist in a better way. Note that I was told that in some parts of LA, the organization is still pretty bad, but I was in Brentwood, Santa Monica, downtown, and Venice, all of which were in reasonably good shape.
    - rock_hard 8y ago
      Same in Oakland
    - mgraczyk 8y ago
      Counterpoint, I live in downtown SF and walk everywhere (Lived in lower polk, work in fidi, now live in Nob Hill). Even at their peak, I never once had a scooter in my way. Characterizing the situation here, even at its worst, as a "free for all" is a gross exaggerating.
      - eldavido 8y ago
        So, an important lesson I've realized from the whole scooters thing is that if you have a bunch of inconsiderate idiots in your city, regulation isn't going to fix that problem. So I'm not surprised you have a totally different view. Your view is going to reflect the values of the people around you. You may be surrounded by polite people. Take riding on the sidewalks. Any sensible person would understand that operating a vehicle moving 15-20mph on a 3-foot wide sidewalk, in a dense urban area with people coming into/out of buildings, delivery personnel wheeling hand trucks, small children, parents with strollers, people walking cats and dogs, etc is just dumb. Yet, I see kids in Oakland doing this daily, and even though it's codified into the Oakland Municipal Code that this is illegal (motorized vehicles on the sidewalk), people do it anyway. I got so fed up with this, I (intentionally) veered about 6 inches left walking on the sidewalk last week, causing someone going ~15mph to get knocked off of the scooter. Other times, I just stand in the middle of the sidewalk and play chicken. I weigh 240lbs so it's usually pretty effective. It is indeed up to the law to legislate what is and isn't allowable behavior. But at the smallest scale, it's neither possible nor desirable to get a cop standing on every block, or surveillance cameras everywhere. You just have to trust people will exercise some level of decency and concern for others, which seems notably absent from day-to-day interaction where I live. You can't change that with laws.
        mgraczyk 8y ago
        Physical violence against strangers is not a solution.
  - pj_mukh 8y ago
    They did the same with their e-bikes and then capped them. Quite a dysfunctional solution.
  - zjaffee 8y ago
    Speaking of representatives and bikes, there's a massive bipartisan congressional caucus on biking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Bike_Caucus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Bike_Caucus), yet it's not really gone anywhere in the form of policy. It certainly would be amazing if national incentives could be set up to redesign streets nation wide to favor bikes and pedestrians in the same way we do cars.
- mattigames 8y ago
  I agree it's an issue but I propose the opposite solution, meaning side-walk devices should go at max 10 mph. Talking about such, is there any data on accidents caused by e-scooters? (percentage wise e.g. vs bikes)
  - danans 8y ago
    > meaning side-walk devices should go at max 10 mph. 10 mph is more than enough to injure someone on collision, especially if that person is frail. Average human walking speed is 3mph. Runners average 10mph, but a running human has a lot more control over their momentum than someone in a vehicle, because they are expending their own energy to move, rather than using an external propulsion system, and they aren't on wheels. > Talking about such, is there any data on accidents caused by e-scooters? (percentage wise e.g. vs bikes) I don't know, but except for small children, bikes are already banned on most sidewalks in cities with a lot of foot traffic. Some adults choose to ignore those rules, but that's a different issue.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      On the other hand, a 3,000lb car going 35mph is far far FAR more than enough to injure or more likely kill a human on a scooter if they're forced onto the roads. If the only argument is one of how much damage would happen in the case of a collision, bikes and scooters belong with pedestrians and not with cars. We don't need to speculate what happens when a car hits a bicyclist, it happens every day and the common outcome is that the biker dies. There has to be a better argument for sentencing bikers and scooter riders to death.
      - Retric 8y ago
        If scooters can’t operate on sidewalks then they should be banned from sidewalks. Saying they must have somewhere safe is fine, just build bike lanes.
        freehunter 8y ago
- jonlucc 8y ago
  In my city, we have a small conundrum. The scooters move more like bikes than walkers, but the language on our bike trail system explicitly forbids any "motorized vehicles". Of course, reasonable people could argue that such a law can be ignored, but I know I'm risking a ticket if an officer so chooses. Also, bicyclists seem to seriously hate the scooters. I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems to be that they're just not used to having much traffic on "their" paths.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ummonk 8y ago
    Bicyclists don't want transportation systems that are more accessible to the general public.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Nobody wants there preferred form of transit to be crowded.
    - wild_preference 8y ago
      People already walk in them. Might as well bring another vehicle into the mix to keep those pedestrians out!
    - dang 8y ago
      It's against the site guidelines to post flamebait, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - danans 8y ago
    > The scooters move more like bikes than walkers, but the language on our bike trail system explicitly forbids any "motorized vehicles" If the bike lane laws disallow motorized vehicles, then how does the sidewalk law allow it? It sounds like the laws need to be updated to allowed motorized electric vehicles capable of going up to some reasonable maximum speed in the bike lane. Basically the inverse of the law that prevents mopeds and golf carts from going on the freeway today.
- sudosteph 8y ago
  I think it does depend on the city though. I'm really excited to try these out next time I'm in Charlotte or Raleigh. The sidewalk network in those places tends to be pretty lacking in the first place, and as a result, there are only a few spots with anything close to dense foot traffic on sidewalks. It's also usually a pretty long walk to anywhere due to everything being built at car-scale. If anything, I'm hopeful that the adoption of these may pave the way to a better side-walked future in cities like those.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I don't know about the sidewalk network being lacking in Raleigh although I admittedly tend to stay within a fairly small area. Many of the sidewalks are wide and don't have a huge amount of foot traffic. The roads tend not to be too congested either in the city core. That said, I think it took about 4 hours from my arrival a few weeks back to nearly being run down from behind on one of the streets with a narrower sidewalk. A lot of riders definitely weave around people and generally expect walkers to get out of their way. On the plus side there weren't a lot of parked e-scooters blocking sidewalks but there were some and I saw even more in Atlanta this past week. Not enough to be a meaningful problem for pedestrians but certainly for anyone in a wheelchair or mobility scooter.
- ams6110 8y ago
  They just appeared seemingly overnight here recently. They seem quite popular, but aren't really practical on rainy days. Will see what happens when winter really hits. I can't imagine many people preferring them to a car on a snowy, slushy day or with temps below freezing. Also wondering how they'll handle salt exposure, and how the cold will affect battery life.
- randyrand 8y ago
  I've owned both a scooter and skateboard for 7 months. I disagree, you can ride a scooter on a sidewalk safely and I need to do it from time to time. Of course, I don't prefer it. But it's pretty easy to do safely and it shouldn't bother anyone if done correctly. The rules I follow: 1. Go much much slower. 2. Stay far away from other people and blind corners. 3. Always assume a person is about to make an erratic movement 4. Never pass closely to a person. When passing, go their walking speed + 1mph. It should be a similar speed differential to passing someone when you're walking. 5. If you have no space to pass, you need to go walking speed until space opens up. 6. if the sidewalk is too packed, just get off and walk it. 7. If you have far visibility (no blind corners, doorways, storefronts, etc) and there is no one in sight, let'er rip. It all depends on the conditions. You should never blow by people at 15 mph. I commuted partly on 5th street in downtown Los Angeles and never had an issue, a close call, or had someone bat an eye. The goal is to blend in with other people walking.
  - danielrhodes 8y ago
    I love these scooters -- but one thing I have found is they feel too fast for the sidewalk and too slow for the street.
    - olyjohn 8y ago
      Um. Can't you just ride slower on the sidewalk? Or are they the kinda that have an on/off switch for a throttle?
      - ghaff 8y ago
        The problem is that pretty much the whole point is to go faster than walking speed. If you can't, what's the point?
        ThrowawayR2 8y ago
        The "not having to walk" part is still kind of handy even at walking speed. My joints aren't what they used to be.
- qudat 8y ago
  I disagree. Bike lanes are extremely dangerous for cyclists and the current implementation of bike lanes in this country are really just big automobile lanes. It puts all the risk on the cyclist. I have had numerous friends get hit and run while riding bikes on bike lanes, most recently a friend died from it. I'll happily receive any citations for riding my bike or e-scooter on the sidewalk, and take full responsibility for any accidents I get into. It's not even up for discussion in my mind. In the UK: > In 2015, two pedestrians were killed and 96 seriously injured after being hit by a bicycle. But every year more than 100 cyclists are killed and more than 3,000 seriously injured on British roads https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cycle-safety-laws-new-kim-briggs-death-warning-against-witch-hunt-a7960291.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cycle-safety...
  - cosmotron 8y ago
    I don't think you're making a very compelling justification for bicycling on sidewalks. Your statistic regarding UK pedestrians being killed/hit vs bicyclists being killed/hit isn't strong as it's probable that nowhere near as many bicyclists choose to ride on the sidewalk as compared to staying in bike lanes and roads. That is, if more bicyclists opted to ride on sidewalks, the incident rate would certainly increase. Additionally, rationalizing this in terms of the risk towards the bicyclist just comes off as selfish: "I'm not comfortable with the risk I'm facing while bicycling on the roads, therefore I will put pedestrians at risk instead." Perhaps instead of endangering pedestrians, something more constructive would be to engage politically to improve the situation (maybe you do this already, if so, awesome!).
    - rileymat2 8y ago
      In some ways civil disobedience is a form of political speech.
    - ndnxhs 8y ago
      In south Australia its legal to ride a bike on the sidewalk and every time I have seen someone do it they have done it safely and respectfully. There are some streets that are just too dangerous to ride on and hardly anyone ever walks on the sidewalk.
- andys627 8y ago
  > They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place) A bike lane really isn't safe enough to get people on bikes and scooters into it. It needs to be a separated cycle track like what is common in Copenhagen. This takes more space, but increases capacity of the whole road (the cycle track has more capacity than the driving lane it takes away). There are a zillion other benefits too - more active/healthier population, higher retail spending along the cycle track (https://its.ucdavis.edu/inthenews/the-complete-business-case-for-converting-street-parking-into-bike-lanes/ https://its.ucdavis.edu/inthenews/the-complete-business-case...), higher property values, only taking 30lbs of metal with you on every trip instead of 2000lbs, potentially local fuel source (food from nearby rather than oil or electricity from afar), etc etc etc.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  I'm not sure if I agree with the bike lane point (versus street anyway), but I will say that after visiting SF for the first time a few weeks ago one of the first things I noticed about downtown was the number of scooters and scooter/motorbike parking everywhere. You don't see much of anywhere near that much around Toronto.
- clairity 8y ago
  i'll reiterate my favored solution (for urban areas): turn parking lanes into protected bike/scooter lanes. that solves the safety problem both ways (cars on one side and pedestrians on the other). until then i'm fine with scooters being encouraged (but not forced) to use less busy roads, and tolerating them on sidewalks for major roads without bike lanes.
- nexuslab 8y ago
  For them to be off the sidewalks we need normal bike/scooter lanes. I do cycling and LA for example is pretty bad with bike lanes... sad!
- theptip 8y ago
  I agree with your comment, but this is the law already. I'm strongly in favour of more scooters/e-bikes in the city (and fewer cars), and I'm also strongly in favour of writing tickets for anyone who is antisocial enough to ride on the sidewalk. If traffic cops spent a week or two rigorously enforcing the law, I bet you'd see a sharp drop-off in this behaviour. (However given the number of cars, including cop cars, that I see blocking intersections after the lights change, I'm not sure that there's really a commitment to enforcing traffic laws in SF, even where this would be a revenue-generating activity).
- 8ytecoder 8y ago
  They are parked so haphazardly as well. Years long fight for the physically changed to have any mobility is being undone by these scooters blocking the sidewalks. I can walk around them but what will a person in a wheelchair do? The feature that makes them the most convenient and why people use this over bikesharing is the fact that they can be dropped of anywhere and that's exactly what the major problem with it as well.
  - briandear 8y ago
    If you care about disabled mobility, the NYC’s subways need to be at the top of the list for any outrage. Elevators are every half dozen stops, if that and the ones they have are used as urinals half the time. Disabled mobility in cities has bigger problems than scooters.
- b3b0p 8y ago
  > They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic. I live downtown Minneapolis and have been almost hit by scooters multiple times. They are everywhere. I have no problem with them, but please follow the rules. I've had people on the scooters yell at me to get out of the way both oncoming and from behind.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- chaoticmass 8y ago
  In Dallas (and elsewhere I imagine) we're supposed to use them on the street, and most people have been learning this. First time I rode one on the sidewalk I barely got down one block before people in cars were telling me to get off the sidewalk. Once on the street I had no trouble sharing the road with other cars, though this was downtown where the speed limit is lower. The scooters seem to have been a little more warmly accepted than the bikes, where parked bikes which take up more space were clogging up sidewalks. This summer when I was in San Diego for a half marathon I was standing on the sidewalk waiting when out of nowhere a scooter rider was crossing the street, hit the sidewalk curb, which was higher than they expected, and endo'ed right next to me. It was almost like the latest South Park episode. The scooters can be tricky to ride for new people, are fast, and really should only be used while wearing a helmet.
- glenntzke 8y ago
  Another perspective, from a skateboarder: In New York skateboarders are banned from sidewalks and have to skate in traffic. I've got a solid push and hold my own among bikes and cars but, regardless, get all kinds of flack from drivers. When I take the to sidewalk due to dangerous road conditions pedestrians are simply far too unpredictable, scared, and oblivious to permit me on board so I reluctantly walk. You know who I never see walking when they're on the sidewalk? Scooter riders, electronic and otherwise.
poulsbohemian 8y ago
Would be really nice to see F turn around: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/f?ltr=1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/f?ltr=1
- umichguy 8y ago
  They really are running out of ideas for turning the stock around. The funny thing is their current product lineup isn't too bad. And of course, they decided they will ditch ALL cars (except the Mustang) and just got with crossovers and trucks instead. The F-series is a money printer, keeping the entire company afloat.
- karpodiem 8y ago
  Detroiter here - I'm off of Adams Ave. downtown, next to Grand Circus Park/Comerica. Ford needs - 1) Better styling. I just bought a Grand Cherokee, and despite the 2020 Ford Explorer being RWD, I would never consider a Ford vehicle. Their exterior/interior styling is bland. 2) An off-road sub brand to compete against Jeep. The upcoming Bronco/baby Bronco/Ranger is a start, but Jeep is making a killing with the brand image despite 95% of people only taking their Wranglers over curbs in a mall parking lot. The 'dream' sells. They need to compete with Jeep in off-road prowess to sell the dream. 3) High performance trim levels for 2020+ vehicles high margin vehicles (Nautilus, Explorer, Aviator, F150, Mustang, Navigator) with hybrid/electric options that have a sub 10.5 second quarter mile.
  - rhinoceraptor 8y ago
    I have no idea what I’m going to get when my 17 Focus ST dies, hopefully there will still be manual (or at least sporty electric) hatchbacks...
    - csours 8y ago
      Miata Is Always The Answer? Maybe there will be a hatchback Miata by that point.
    - Marsymars 8y ago
the_watcher 8y ago
I used Bird, Lime, Lyft, and Jump scooters over the weekend in LA and they were great for getting around when I'd have otherwise considered driving (over a 45 minute walk). I tried a Skip scooter again when I got back to SF, and once again, it simply could not handle a minor (for SF) hill. I don't know what the solution is, since it seems like a bad idea to power them more to handle hills given the dangers that would pose on flat (or downhill) terrain, but I can't imagine them really taking hold in the same way in hilly cities.
- hammock 8y ago
  You probably got one with low battery. It's not possible to "overpower" them as you suggest because they have a governor that limits the top speed.
  - asaph 8y ago
    Even on a 100% charge, a typical e-Scooter used by Bird, Spin, etc. struggle on steep uphill climbs.
    - komali2 8y ago
      You gotta kick a bit, I don't think they're meant to be fully driven on those hills. Just like ebikes - you're still pedaling.
      - asaph 8y ago
        No. The bikes are "e-assisted" and you're supposed to pedal. The e-scooters are not designed to be "e-assisted". You're only supposed to kick to start your ride and the motor takes over from there. There is a max incline the scooters are designed to handle. The intent is not that the scooter goes into an e-assisted mode on a steep incline.
        dzhiurgis 8y ago
        Here in Auckland even road-illegal 1500W e-bike with throttle kinda struggles to climb uphill, just like Limebike.
notatoad 8y ago
>They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place) the problem is the existence of bike lanes. If public officials start saying "scooters belong in the bike lane", then they have to confront the fact that their cities have no cohesive network of bike lanes that can actually support a real journey. This has been acceptable up until now, because cyclists are weird and it's okay to tell them to just ride in amongst trucks travelling 40mph when a bike lane abruptly ends. But e-scooters are for "normal people" who aren't as content with being told to go play in traffic.
- komali2 8y ago
  > because cyclists are weird and it's okay to tell them to just ride in amongst trucks travelling 40mph. This is unsustainable. It's caused blowback from cyclists. "Fine, you want me to play in traffic, I'm going to start doing some dumb shit." I say this as a cyclist, I'm doing only 5 miles round trip but I do it every day. I see people blow red lights, weaving in and out of traffic, hopping onto the sidewalk, blasting through crosswalks inbetween pedestrians. I mean yea, don't give them bikelanes, this is what happens, they feel scorned or something and start breaking the law.
  - imgabe 8y ago
    I also bike. Don't give me a bike lane? That's fine, I'll take the middle of the traffic lane. Honk all you like, I'm not going to give you room to try and squeeze between me and the oncoming traffic while I risk getting doored. Cars can wait.
    - beatgammit 8y ago
      Hey, if they're honking, they see you, and that's the most important thing. I get far more close calls when I stay to the right than when I take up the whole lane. I fully support these scooters doing the same. People may complain about scooters and bikes in a traffic lane, but if it catches on, we should see less total traffic since they're more compact and they'll probably avoid the more busy, higher speed roads anyway.
    - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
samontar 8y ago
Interesting scheme. You corner a scarce resource and then sell it. I wonder what new permit schemes we’re going to see and how we can capitalize on this.
floatrock 8y ago
What you're seeing is car companies trying to transition to "mobility" companies -- the difference being the former is a manufacturing company with 3% margins and the latter being a services company with much fatter margins. Autonomous car fleets are the main "mobility services" prize of course -- all the major OEMs have autonomous research labs -- but you're seeing more interest in scooters and bikes (there was a headline about GM releasing an e-bike last week).
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  No, I don't think this is a transition. What we're likely seeing is M&A people caught up in the hype and trends. In some ways, it's worth spending some amount as a hedge against something happening, but I don't believe these scooters will represent any meaningful change ... personally I think they are kind of a fad. The logistics, cost, narrow use cases of all of it just don't work out well enough. Truly - what % of people could actually commute using these things? It's very small. Of those, who would actually do it? In winter? Up and down hills? Are they a little bit too old for this, or maybe not so open minded? Are there status issues, i.e. if you are a 'serious professional' in many industries it just doesn't bode well to be bouncing around on a scooter (I know this might seem foreign maybe to HN readers but this is a thing). And then of course - if it was useful for commuting, why wouldn't people just end up buying one so they always have it when needed? I think the use cases for these scooters is very narrow. While I agree the general attitude of 'moving beyond traditional cars' is a strategic impetus, and it makes a lot of sense to 'participate' in these things early on ... I don't think this is a secular shift. Not yet anyhow. America is a very spread out place - even LA. And we're only just starting to see the regulatory and populist backlash.
  - tomatotomato37 8y ago
    I agree. Besides taking an Uber approach to sidewalk limitations, I don't really see any use case for this that a moped or bike doesn't do better.
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
whoisjuan 8y ago
First Chariot and now Spin (also investments and partnerships with Lyft and Zoom Car in India). Seems like Ford is betting on a future where they see people rejecting the idea of owning a car and where car companies are just mobility providers.
yayitswei 8y ago
Congrats to the Spin team!
Sephr 8y ago
Am I the only one who wants to see more seated scooter innovation? I would much prefer riding one of these self-balancing scooters/microcycles to the standing scooters that everyone is using. 1. http://rynomotors.com http://rynomotors.com (launches April 16, 2019) 2. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/newest-fat-tyre-electric-unicycle-one_60748336939.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/newest-fat-tyre-elect... 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZk9zn82-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZk9zn82-g
- tln 8y ago
  Why not just rent/ride an ebike? Once you put a seat on a normal 2-wheeled scooter it's not much smaller than a bike. I'm not sure I'd trust the balancing capabilities of the unicycles you've linked to, especially in the face of shitty roads. Have you tried one?
  - Sephr 8y ago
    These are much safer than small-wheeled scooters as their larger wheels allows them to more gracefully handle bumps in the road. Also, unlike most ebikes I can actually sit stationary on these without falling over. I'm very short and most ebikes are not designed for short people.
    - tln 8y ago
      Yeah rental ebikes don't scale down very well. You should be able to buy a bike that fits you well, and add ebike capabilities via a kit (yourself or have someone do it). I haven't used a balancing unicycle, but based on experience with other balancing vehicles, I doubt I'd feel safe going as fast as on a scooter. Sounds like you might own one?
  - dzhiurgis 8y ago
    Ebikes start to feel unsafe over 50kmh. Mopeds can do 70kmh (see Niu) and more.
- neal_jones 8y ago
  I might prefer these as well, but I think the standing ones fit more use cases than the sitting ones. For example, what if a woman was wearing a pencil skirt?
andrewljohnson 8y ago
There I was, sitting at the busy intersection of Sacramento and Ashby in Berkeley, when I saw two boys that couldn't have been more than 8-10 years old fly by on Bird Scooters. And I thought to myself, some kid is going to die. And lots of people do die on these things: https://www.google.com/search?q=bird+scooters+deaths https://www.google.com/search?q=bird+scooters+deaths These scooter companies suck, I wish they'd all go away. If they weren't all going for hypergrowth, they'd be less of a menace. I can see the boon for commuters on the last mile, but when I weight that against how they endanger children, encourage illegal usage of sidewalks, ruin pedestrian experiences, and don't provide helmets - I think the industry is in need of a reckoning. They also totally wrecked the coastal street/"boardwalk" in San Diego. As a pedestrian, you're constantly looking over your shoulder for drunk idiots on scooters.
- dangwu 8y ago
  You have to be 18 years old with a driver's license to ride Bird scooters.
  - andrewljohnson 8y ago
    Theoretically.
    - dangwu 8y ago
      Legally. And the app makes you take a screenshot of your license
      - Balgair 8y ago
        I've not tried it, but how easy is it to fake the ID? Like, does the photo feed to a person that OKs the ID manually, or does it just look for some vaguely rectangulary shaped object?
        Cristian_knur 8y ago
        It scans the barcode and makes sure the id is valid. If it can't determine that it will ask people to take a picture of the id, which then gets manually reviewed by a human. Disclosure: I work for one of the big scooter companies.
csours 8y ago
Can someone explain the valuation on these scooter companies?
- SteveCoast 8y ago
  Humans will always need to move around, yet it's not clear how we'll move around in the future. While self-driving cars have potential it's not clear that dense urban areas will make a ton of sense for them, and so perhaps bikes or scooters or something else will become the norm. On the other hand, we spend enormous amounts of money on other solutions like busses or underground metro systems in dense urban areas which have significant problems like not taking you where you want to go. If there are systems which do get you where you want to go you might not have to make those up front and gigantic investments in future. If you have systems which are point to point, then the value of real estate that isn't near a metro stop can go up since you don't have to price in the walk from that place to a metro stop. There are all kinds of fun implications. Also, scooters might only be step 1. Maybe self-driving scooters with a 5 mile range are step 2, or something. So if you compare to existing systems you can argue that scooter valuations are cheap if that's the direction we're going, though that isn't certain.
  - csours 8y ago
    Thanks. I guess I was trying to imagine an amount income over time per device multiplied by a number of devices that would lead to a valuation of over a billion dollars.
ENadyr 8y ago
Nice one @newy, congratulations!
splurge100 8y ago
All of the commenters saying e-scooters shouldn't be allowed on sidewalks are right. Sidewalks in most densely populated US cities are too narrow and busy to safely allow a human gliding along at 15 mph within ~2 ft of a doorway where another human may be exiting, or past blind corners. The bigger issue is that e-scooter parking is fundamentally broken right now. Despite being told not to, users still park them in the middle of a pedestrian walkway. Even if the user parks them correctly, they get knocked over or blow over into the walkway. This product is broken until these companies do what Jump did, and INTEGRATE A LOCK INTO THE PRODUCT, and make users lock it to something at the end of their ride. This almost entirely eliminates the problem of blocking a walkway, and also reduces the loss of product to theft, accidental damage, etc. Since they're required by law in California, I'd also like helmets to be integrated into the locking mechanism, but that's a nice-to-have. E-scooter companies: Build locks into your products. It fixes many of your problems.
- jaydubs 8y ago
  Helmets are no longer required by law in California if the rider is over 18. full text: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB2989 http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml...
  - romwell 8y ago
    Very good bill! Definitely moving in the right direction. Some thoughts: 1)Helmet laws: I've always found helmet requirements pretty arbitrary: if runners who run at 10-15mph aren't required to wear helmets, why force them onto cyclists and scooter users? Such laws have been known to adversely affect ridership, which, in turn, decreases safety for everyone because drivers don't expect cyclists/scooter users. I've seen a study that found that the net effect is that helmet laws decrease safety. 2)No sidewalk riding: Good. I'd argue that even if bicycles could be OK on sidewalks, e-scooters/e-bikes should not be, because there's no incentive for e-vehicles to go slowly on sidewalks. For cyclists, intermittent slowdowns enforce a low speed, because it takes effort to accelerate. But on an e-scooter, all it takes is a turn of a handle to get to 15mph in a very short span of time. So, while there's a physical cost for cyclists going too fast, there isn't one for e-scooter users.
SeanFerree 8y ago
Been seeing these around my area...They are called Bird scooters here. Seems like a good thing
madeuptempacct 8y ago
"Scoot" is where it's at anyway.
dawhizkid 8y ago
I talked to a self-driving PM recently and he said that self-driving cars are a extremely expensive and complex way to reduce cost per mile urban transit/taxis and admitted scooters might be a much cheaper way to accomplish the same thing.
- adrr 8y ago
  The biggest issue for urban transit is safety. I don't think scooters can be a valid replacement for cars until the streets are redesigned or all the cars are self-driving. I used to bike to work until a couple close calls. I don't feel comfortable riding a bike or a scooter unless its a dedicated bike lane away from parked cars so I don't get doored.
- danans 8y ago
  Except during bad weather, or when you need to carry more than yourself and a backpack. For those scenarios, a vehicle sealed from the elements is important. It doesn't need to be a full sized car, but it does need some more amenities and space than a scooter.
mjg59 8y ago
Of the scooter companies that have launched in the Bay area, Spin were by far the least technically advanced - the scooters were basically unmodified Xiaomis, to the extent of still having power buttons. Rather than an integrated location and management system, location data came from a off-the-shelf GPS tracker spliced off the battery lines. Since the scooter control board had no cellular link, there was no mechanism for Spin to directly manage the scooters which meant that handshaking involved the app notifying Spin's API that the user was going to hire a scooter and then sending an unlock code back to the scooter via Bluetooth. Locking was the inverse, which left plenty of opportunity for state to get out of sync (server thinks scooter is unlocked but the unlocking failed, or vice versa). It's possible that their launch was very much an MVP and they've been doing a lot of engineering work in the background, but they were way behind Lime and Bird at launch time. (Edited to clarify that the unlock code is sent via Bluetooth)
- rootsudo 8y ago
  Is the unlock code unique, or the same for that specific bluetooth serial number?
  - mjg59 8y ago
    This is an excellent question that I am going to decline to answer.
    - Relys 8y ago
      eScooterKeyGen.exe lol ;p
      - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
        You joke, but there are android apps that will bruteforce the admin password on the current router you're connected to using the standard admin logins for each manufacturer.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    If Spin is indeed just a rebadged Liubike (which itself is a rebadged Xiaomi (which itself is rebadged Aima in custom bodywork,)) then it will be md5 + counter
androidgirl 8y ago
Are any of these electric scooters worthwhile for hilly commutes? I live about a mile from the closest train stop, and currently I walk to and from because the entire way is steep coming back, at 10% grade. My gut tells me a scooter would need to be unreasonably powerful to work in this area.
- madeuptempacct 8y ago
  "Scoot" is absolutely fine on hills. Drove it from Pier 1 to Golden Gate park on California and back with zero problems on hills. Of course, BMWs will make it a point to shoot by you to show their superiority, but you won't be holding up traffic up hills. I do wonder what would have happened if my phone died before I parked the Scoot. Seems like it would be a pain in the ass.
  - mertd 8y ago
    You must be talking about the Scoot motorcycles. I don't see the little scooters lasting from Pier 1 to GGP and back.
    - madeuptempacct 8y ago
      I am - the ones that aren't legal on the sidewalk. I don't see why you would get the little scooters. There didn't seem to be that much price difference.
- velobro 8y ago
  10%? I don't think any scooter (via a share company) will have the torque needed to get up at a reasonable speed. It appears the Xiomi M365 had a rated motor of 250W with a max of 500W. I cycle with a power meter, and going up a 10% grade requires 300 or so watts. Bear in mind the bike has gears that allow going up hills with lower torque. The scooters have a single ratio.
- timboslice 8y ago
  There are slightly more expensive models that are 500W-1000W+. The Segway and M365 are ~350W. I had a hard time with the battery life on the Segway ES2 on hills, but am a little bit over the supported weight limit Source: own escootercartel.com
nonatribusernm 8y ago
Own a Segway/Ninebot ES2 w/ the extended battery pack. Top speed 20mph. Have clocked over 300 miles on it. I live in Boston, Bird tried to launch this summer and Cambridge/Somerville local gov freaked out (rightfully so). I use my scooter for 10 mile rides on the bike path, communing and short haul trips. It gets locked up in my apartment when I’m done with it. I honestly don’t know if I’d trust public scooters, purely for safety reasons. (I use Zipcar which is a hit or miss most of the time, some of the cars are really filthy and broken since you can use it at 18) How often are they inspected? Do the scooter companies keep maintenance logs? Who fixes them? Do they use contractors or have in-house staff? Where are they souring the parts? These things are used way more than mine. I’ve fallen off my scooter twice and really fucked myself up and I always wear a helmet. One fall I hit the back of my head behind my right ear on the pavement first. You can easily kill or cripple yourself or someone else. An adult at 165lbs going 19mph packs a punch. They are not toys. There’s huge liability here. This feels like when Uber rolled out. Nobody trusted them and it took time for regulators to catch up. These tiny electric vehicles are awesome and represent way more to come. I just hope nobody gets seriously hurt in the process.
dba7dba 8y ago
I just wanted to point out that Hyundai Motor demoed a electric scooter as an accessory for the Ioniq line in Jan 2017 at CES. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/pictures/hyundais-ioniq-scooter-concept-looks-more-fun-that-its-car-ces-2017/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/pictures/hyundais-ioniq-scoote... And BIRD was founded in Apr 2017. Some staff PM/engr/marketer folks at Hyundai Motor had the right idea. Too bad they were not in a position to start a startup. edit: I'm not saying BIRD or any other copied Hyundai. Coming up with the idea and executing it is a big accomplishment. Electric motor scooters have been around a long time too.
groth 8y ago
These scooters aren't suppose to replace lyft or bart or muni. They're suppose to let you get from 24th mission to 16th mission with minimum context switching & waiting. This translates less well to manhattan but would (if theft weren't a problem) to Brooklyn, most 2nd tier cities in the U.S., and college campuses. I think it's a good investment.
- dcosson 8y ago
  Why not Manhattan? The sidewalk docking might be an issue in some neighborhoods but if they managed to get street docking areas like the citi bikes it would be a perfect fit in Manhattan as well.
jahewson 8y ago
Perhaps we need a self-driving scooter?
phil248 8y ago
There is simply no space in most inner cities for this mode of transportation. Which is fine, since inner cities are the most walkable places in the world, and the most well-served by public transit. Unless we're prepared to spend billions on new construction over decades, there is just no infrastructure for a mode of transport that conflicts with all of the existing modes. If anything, we should be building more bike lanes (on a gargantuan scale) since they are proven, efficient and already have substantial infrastructure.
maybebad 8y ago
I am enjoying all of the comments here. I was lucky enough to study traffic-as-density-waves in younger days, and I think the future will be very positive. For this particular argument, I think the common themes to solve are lack of infrastructure, and the resulting safety hazards from casual users: The setbacks: The infrastructure currently does not support the reality of the populous renting scooters (and bikes and mopeds). City planning was not developed around the recent technological availability of motorized personal transportation. Humans are irresponsible, and will leave scooters in disruptive locations. Humans are reckless, and a large portion won't abide by the established traffic safety. This "last-mile" transportation movement is a result of public transportation being a poor experience: slow-moving, dirty, congested, mismanaged. Positive thoughts: "last-mile" transportation is highly effective if it could be implemented properly. Proper implementation would require responsible user behavior and infrastructure compatibility. An anecdote: The company Scoot, at least in SF, gave access to moped-like vehicles for casual commute. Great idea. Give people the ability to personally navigate dense populations without vehicle ownership. The problem: driving a personal motorized vehicle in dense large-vehicle traffic is a major responsibility. For instance, riding a motorcycle is extremely dangerous, and the vast majority of motorcycle riders take their safety incredibly seriously. They vehemently abide by traffic laws because small mistakes can lead to major physical consequences. Scoot riders have unilaterally behaved like inexperienced idiots in traffic. Running lights, making last minute decisions, and ignoring speed of traffic sensibility The casual nature of that commute style leads people to behave like they are on bicycles, when they are riding around already-frustrated car and truck drivers. The same me-first attitude was clearly visible when scooters were widely available. Even with city permits, people are still selfish. Solutions: There are conscious decisions to make city-wide improvements in efficient transportation. Mass transit combined with low-impact personal vehicles would be a utopia. But no large city was designed with that reality in mind, and the "disruptive" companies that make these technologies accessible, often with the "ask-for-forgiveness" mantra, are very disruptive to both the pedestrian reality and the detriment of too many cars. Tl:dr, people are selfish and reckless, and even smart and available technologies will be abused unless infrastructure is designed to handle human habits.
- jessriedel 8y ago
KKKKkkkk1 8y ago
How does the investment in Spin compare to the one in Argo AI? Are electric scooters hotter than self-driving cars?
Hippocrates 8y ago
I’ve recently visited Santa Cruz, where I rode my first jump bike. I had an absolute blast with it, raved about it to friends non-stop for weeks. More recently, I experienced my first Bird scooter (and Lime) in Indianapolis. I did many fun things there so I didn’t expect that these silly scooters to be the highlight of the trip, but they were. Aside from being an insanely fun and effective way to get around a city, my favorite thing about them stems from my hatred of cars. I own a car. But selfishly only like cars when its _my_ car and _I_ am driving it. Other than that, I think they’re dangerous, loud, expensive, terrible for the environment, and far too plentiful in crowded city streets. They crash and congest roads shared with public transit, wreaking havoc daily commutes, oh and they frequently murder the more tender specimens on the road. I get disappointed when I see people complaining about these scooters and bikes “cluttering up the walkways” and pedestrians having “dangerous encounters”. I will admit it I saw a fair number of scooters that had fallen over on walkways. It really didn’t faze me. Walk around it. Step over it. Pick it up if you’re in a great mood. Maybe society needs time to adjust and develop more etiquette. It could be handled better, but to call this an immediate “problem” is just wrong— And what are the stats on scooter vs. pedestrian fatalities? This debate reminds me of the hiker vs. equestrian vs. mountain biker tension. We all want to use the same trails and it’s a bit contentious. Hikers feel threatened by the fast moving bikers. Bikers are inconvenienced by people walking slowly on the trails. The horses are just taking 6LB dumps all over the path for everyone else to step in and ride through. They all try to lobby and ban one another from using the trails. Nobody seems to care about anything they aren’t partaking in. In the end, people should be open to alternative forms of transportation that are effective regardless of whether they utilize it. I think these bike and scooter shares represent a massive objective improvement over cars, and even public transit. It might take some time for etiquette and city planning to catch up, but we need to check the hall monitor mentality and give it time, for the greater good.

247 points by newy 8y ago

These e-scooters could be a really great way for many cities to decrease short-haul car dependency, but they really need to be off the sidewalks. A motor-propelled machine going 15 mph doesn't belong on the same surface as a baby stroller, a senior citizen, or a person with a disability. They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic These are great ideas. Write them into your representatives. Designated street-side scooter parking would also be a plus. Not only does it signal to drivers "consider another option," it also deals with the scooter litter problem. (To form, San Francisco chose the worst of all options and coronated two companies chosen by bureaucrats to run amok in the city.)
- the_watcher 8y ago
  I was just in LA, and scooters are everywhere. However, they're all parked upright, and in most cases even organized into a nice, out of the sidewalk path, line (initially I thought that Bird/Lime/etc were paying people to do this, but I saw a mix of different brands aligned as often as just one). When they first launched in LA, this wasn't the case, it was just as much of a free for all as SF. SF succumbed to regulatory capture, but LA was able to figure out a way to allow all of the companies to exist in a better way. Note that I was told that in some parts of LA, the organization is still pretty bad, but I was in Brentwood, Santa Monica, downtown, and Venice, all of which were in reasonably good shape.
  - rock_hard 8y ago
    Same in Oakland
  - mgraczyk 8y ago
    Counterpoint, I live in downtown SF and walk everywhere (Lived in lower polk, work in fidi, now live in Nob Hill). Even at their peak, I never once had a scooter in my way. Characterizing the situation here, even at its worst, as a "free for all" is a gross exaggerating.
    - eldavido 8y ago
      So, an important lesson I've realized from the whole scooters thing is that if you have a bunch of inconsiderate idiots in your city, regulation isn't going to fix that problem. So I'm not surprised you have a totally different view. Your view is going to reflect the values of the people around you. You may be surrounded by polite people. Take riding on the sidewalks. Any sensible person would understand that operating a vehicle moving 15-20mph on a 3-foot wide sidewalk, in a dense urban area with people coming into/out of buildings, delivery personnel wheeling hand trucks, small children, parents with strollers, people walking cats and dogs, etc is just dumb. Yet, I see kids in Oakland doing this daily, and even though it's codified into the Oakland Municipal Code that this is illegal (motorized vehicles on the sidewalk), people do it anyway. I got so fed up with this, I (intentionally) veered about 6 inches left walking on the sidewalk last week, causing someone going ~15mph to get knocked off of the scooter. Other times, I just stand in the middle of the sidewalk and play chicken. I weigh 240lbs so it's usually pretty effective. It is indeed up to the law to legislate what is and isn't allowable behavior. But at the smallest scale, it's neither possible nor desirable to get a cop standing on every block, or surveillance cameras everywhere. You just have to trust people will exercise some level of decency and concern for others, which seems notably absent from day-to-day interaction where I live. You can't change that with laws.
      - mgraczyk 8y ago
        Physical violence against strangers is not a solution.
- pj_mukh 8y ago
  They did the same with their e-bikes and then capped them. Quite a dysfunctional solution.
- zjaffee 8y ago
  Speaking of representatives and bikes, there's a massive bipartisan congressional caucus on biking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Bike_Caucus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Bike_Caucus), yet it's not really gone anywhere in the form of policy. It certainly would be amazing if national incentives could be set up to redesign streets nation wide to favor bikes and pedestrians in the same way we do cars.
mattigames 8y ago
I agree it's an issue but I propose the opposite solution, meaning side-walk devices should go at max 10 mph. Talking about such, is there any data on accidents caused by e-scooters? (percentage wise e.g. vs bikes)
- danans 8y ago
  > meaning side-walk devices should go at max 10 mph. 10 mph is more than enough to injure someone on collision, especially if that person is frail. Average human walking speed is 3mph. Runners average 10mph, but a running human has a lot more control over their momentum than someone in a vehicle, because they are expending their own energy to move, rather than using an external propulsion system, and they aren't on wheels. > Talking about such, is there any data on accidents caused by e-scooters? (percentage wise e.g. vs bikes) I don't know, but except for small children, bikes are already banned on most sidewalks in cities with a lot of foot traffic. Some adults choose to ignore those rules, but that's a different issue.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    On the other hand, a 3,000lb car going 35mph is far far FAR more than enough to injure or more likely kill a human on a scooter if they're forced onto the roads. If the only argument is one of how much damage would happen in the case of a collision, bikes and scooters belong with pedestrians and not with cars. We don't need to speculate what happens when a car hits a bicyclist, it happens every day and the common outcome is that the biker dies. There has to be a better argument for sentencing bikers and scooter riders to death.
    - Retric 8y ago
      If scooters can’t operate on sidewalks then they should be banned from sidewalks. Saying they must have somewhere safe is fine, just build bike lanes.
      - freehunter 8y ago
jonlucc 8y ago
In my city, we have a small conundrum. The scooters move more like bikes than walkers, but the language on our bike trail system explicitly forbids any "motorized vehicles". Of course, reasonable people could argue that such a law can be ignored, but I know I'm risking a ticket if an officer so chooses. Also, bicyclists seem to seriously hate the scooters. I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems to be that they're just not used to having much traffic on "their" paths.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ummonk 8y ago
  Bicyclists don't want transportation systems that are more accessible to the general public.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Nobody wants there preferred form of transit to be crowded.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    People already walk in them. Might as well bring another vehicle into the mix to keep those pedestrians out!
  - dang 8y ago
    It's against the site guidelines to post flamebait, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- danans 8y ago
  > The scooters move more like bikes than walkers, but the language on our bike trail system explicitly forbids any "motorized vehicles" If the bike lane laws disallow motorized vehicles, then how does the sidewalk law allow it? It sounds like the laws need to be updated to allowed motorized electric vehicles capable of going up to some reasonable maximum speed in the bike lane. Basically the inverse of the law that prevents mopeds and golf carts from going on the freeway today.
sudosteph 8y ago
I think it does depend on the city though. I'm really excited to try these out next time I'm in Charlotte or Raleigh. The sidewalk network in those places tends to be pretty lacking in the first place, and as a result, there are only a few spots with anything close to dense foot traffic on sidewalks. It's also usually a pretty long walk to anywhere due to everything being built at car-scale. If anything, I'm hopeful that the adoption of these may pave the way to a better side-walked future in cities like those.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I don't know about the sidewalk network being lacking in Raleigh although I admittedly tend to stay within a fairly small area. Many of the sidewalks are wide and don't have a huge amount of foot traffic. The roads tend not to be too congested either in the city core. That said, I think it took about 4 hours from my arrival a few weeks back to nearly being run down from behind on one of the streets with a narrower sidewalk. A lot of riders definitely weave around people and generally expect walkers to get out of their way. On the plus side there weren't a lot of parked e-scooters blocking sidewalks but there were some and I saw even more in Atlanta this past week. Not enough to be a meaningful problem for pedestrians but certainly for anyone in a wheelchair or mobility scooter.
ams6110 8y ago
They just appeared seemingly overnight here recently. They seem quite popular, but aren't really practical on rainy days. Will see what happens when winter really hits. I can't imagine many people preferring them to a car on a snowy, slushy day or with temps below freezing. Also wondering how they'll handle salt exposure, and how the cold will affect battery life.
randyrand 8y ago
I've owned both a scooter and skateboard for 7 months. I disagree, you can ride a scooter on a sidewalk safely and I need to do it from time to time. Of course, I don't prefer it. But it's pretty easy to do safely and it shouldn't bother anyone if done correctly. The rules I follow: 1. Go much much slower. 2. Stay far away from other people and blind corners. 3. Always assume a person is about to make an erratic movement 4. Never pass closely to a person. When passing, go their walking speed + 1mph. It should be a similar speed differential to passing someone when you're walking. 5. If you have no space to pass, you need to go walking speed until space opens up. 6. if the sidewalk is too packed, just get off and walk it. 7. If you have far visibility (no blind corners, doorways, storefronts, etc) and there is no one in sight, let'er rip. It all depends on the conditions. You should never blow by people at 15 mph. I commuted partly on 5th street in downtown Los Angeles and never had an issue, a close call, or had someone bat an eye. The goal is to blend in with other people walking.
- danielrhodes 8y ago
  I love these scooters -- but one thing I have found is they feel too fast for the sidewalk and too slow for the street.
  - olyjohn 8y ago
    Um. Can't you just ride slower on the sidewalk? Or are they the kinda that have an on/off switch for a throttle?
    - ghaff 8y ago
      The problem is that pretty much the whole point is to go faster than walking speed. If you can't, what's the point?
      - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
        The "not having to walk" part is still kind of handy even at walking speed. My joints aren't what they used to be.
qudat 8y ago
I disagree. Bike lanes are extremely dangerous for cyclists and the current implementation of bike lanes in this country are really just big automobile lanes. It puts all the risk on the cyclist. I have had numerous friends get hit and run while riding bikes on bike lanes, most recently a friend died from it. I'll happily receive any citations for riding my bike or e-scooter on the sidewalk, and take full responsibility for any accidents I get into. It's not even up for discussion in my mind. In the UK: > In 2015, two pedestrians were killed and 96 seriously injured after being hit by a bicycle. But every year more than 100 cyclists are killed and more than 3,000 seriously injured on British roads https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cycle-safety-laws-new-kim-briggs-death-warning-against-witch-hunt-a7960291.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cycle-safety...
- cosmotron 8y ago
  I don't think you're making a very compelling justification for bicycling on sidewalks. Your statistic regarding UK pedestrians being killed/hit vs bicyclists being killed/hit isn't strong as it's probable that nowhere near as many bicyclists choose to ride on the sidewalk as compared to staying in bike lanes and roads. That is, if more bicyclists opted to ride on sidewalks, the incident rate would certainly increase. Additionally, rationalizing this in terms of the risk towards the bicyclist just comes off as selfish: "I'm not comfortable with the risk I'm facing while bicycling on the roads, therefore I will put pedestrians at risk instead." Perhaps instead of endangering pedestrians, something more constructive would be to engage politically to improve the situation (maybe you do this already, if so, awesome!).
  - rileymat2 8y ago
    In some ways civil disobedience is a form of political speech.
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    In south Australia its legal to ride a bike on the sidewalk and every time I have seen someone do it they have done it safely and respectfully. There are some streets that are just too dangerous to ride on and hardly anyone ever walks on the sidewalk.
andys627 8y ago
> They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place) A bike lane really isn't safe enough to get people on bikes and scooters into it. It needs to be a separated cycle track like what is common in Copenhagen. This takes more space, but increases capacity of the whole road (the cycle track has more capacity than the driving lane it takes away). There are a zillion other benefits too - more active/healthier population, higher retail spending along the cycle track (https://its.ucdavis.edu/inthenews/the-complete-business-case-for-converting-street-parking-into-bike-lanes/ https://its.ucdavis.edu/inthenews/the-complete-business-case...), higher property values, only taking 30lbs of metal with you on every trip instead of 2000lbs, potentially local fuel source (food from nearby rather than oil or electricity from afar), etc etc etc.
52-6F-62 8y ago
I'm not sure if I agree with the bike lane point (versus street anyway), but I will say that after visiting SF for the first time a few weeks ago one of the first things I noticed about downtown was the number of scooters and scooter/motorbike parking everywhere. You don't see much of anywhere near that much around Toronto.
clairity 8y ago
i'll reiterate my favored solution (for urban areas): turn parking lanes into protected bike/scooter lanes. that solves the safety problem both ways (cars on one side and pedestrians on the other). until then i'm fine with scooters being encouraged (but not forced) to use less busy roads, and tolerating them on sidewalks for major roads without bike lanes.
nexuslab 8y ago
For them to be off the sidewalks we need normal bike/scooter lanes. I do cycling and LA for example is pretty bad with bike lanes... sad!
theptip 8y ago
I agree with your comment, but this is the law already. I'm strongly in favour of more scooters/e-bikes in the city (and fewer cars), and I'm also strongly in favour of writing tickets for anyone who is antisocial enough to ride on the sidewalk. If traffic cops spent a week or two rigorously enforcing the law, I bet you'd see a sharp drop-off in this behaviour. (However given the number of cars, including cop cars, that I see blocking intersections after the lights change, I'm not sure that there's really a commitment to enforcing traffic laws in SF, even where this would be a revenue-generating activity).
8ytecoder 8y ago
They are parked so haphazardly as well. Years long fight for the physically changed to have any mobility is being undone by these scooters blocking the sidewalks. I can walk around them but what will a person in a wheelchair do? The feature that makes them the most convenient and why people use this over bikesharing is the fact that they can be dropped of anywhere and that's exactly what the major problem with it as well.
- briandear 8y ago
  If you care about disabled mobility, the NYC’s subways need to be at the top of the list for any outrage. Elevators are every half dozen stops, if that and the ones they have are used as urinals half the time. Disabled mobility in cities has bigger problems than scooters.
b3b0p 8y ago
> They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic. I live downtown Minneapolis and have been almost hit by scooters multiple times. They are everywhere. I have no problem with them, but please follow the rules. I've had people on the scooters yell at me to get out of the way both oncoming and from behind.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chaoticmass 8y ago
In Dallas (and elsewhere I imagine) we're supposed to use them on the street, and most people have been learning this. First time I rode one on the sidewalk I barely got down one block before people in cars were telling me to get off the sidewalk. Once on the street I had no trouble sharing the road with other cars, though this was downtown where the speed limit is lower. The scooters seem to have been a little more warmly accepted than the bikes, where parked bikes which take up more space were clogging up sidewalks. This summer when I was in San Diego for a half marathon I was standing on the sidewalk waiting when out of nowhere a scooter rider was crossing the street, hit the sidewalk curb, which was higher than they expected, and endo'ed right next to me. It was almost like the latest South Park episode. The scooters can be tricky to ride for new people, are fast, and really should only be used while wearing a helmet.
glenntzke 8y ago
Another perspective, from a skateboarder: In New York skateboarders are banned from sidewalks and have to skate in traffic. I've got a solid push and hold my own among bikes and cars but, regardless, get all kinds of flack from drivers. When I take the to sidewalk due to dangerous road conditions pedestrians are simply far too unpredictable, scared, and oblivious to permit me on board so I reluctantly walk. You know who I never see walking when they're on the sidewalk? Scooter riders, electronic and otherwise.

poulsbohemian 8y ago

Would be really nice to see F turn around: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/f?ltr=1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/f?ltr=1

umichguy 8y ago
They really are running out of ideas for turning the stock around. The funny thing is their current product lineup isn't too bad. And of course, they decided they will ditch ALL cars (except the Mustang) and just got with crossovers and trucks instead. The F-series is a money printer, keeping the entire company afloat.
karpodiem 8y ago
Detroiter here - I'm off of Adams Ave. downtown, next to Grand Circus Park/Comerica. Ford needs - 1) Better styling. I just bought a Grand Cherokee, and despite the 2020 Ford Explorer being RWD, I would never consider a Ford vehicle. Their exterior/interior styling is bland. 2) An off-road sub brand to compete against Jeep. The upcoming Bronco/baby Bronco/Ranger is a start, but Jeep is making a killing with the brand image despite 95% of people only taking their Wranglers over curbs in a mall parking lot. The 'dream' sells. They need to compete with Jeep in off-road prowess to sell the dream. 3) High performance trim levels for 2020+ vehicles high margin vehicles (Nautilus, Explorer, Aviator, F150, Mustang, Navigator) with hybrid/electric options that have a sub 10.5 second quarter mile.
- rhinoceraptor 8y ago
  I have no idea what I’m going to get when my 17 Focus ST dies, hopefully there will still be manual (or at least sporty electric) hatchbacks...
  - csours 8y ago
    Miata Is Always The Answer? Maybe there will be a hatchback Miata by that point.
  - Marsymars 8y ago

the_watcher 8y ago

I used Bird, Lime, Lyft, and Jump scooters over the weekend in LA and they were great for getting around when I'd have otherwise considered driving (over a 45 minute walk). I tried a Skip scooter again when I got back to SF, and once again, it simply could not handle a minor (for SF) hill. I don't know what the solution is, since it seems like a bad idea to power them more to handle hills given the dangers that would pose on flat (or downhill) terrain, but I can't imagine them really taking hold in the same way in hilly cities.

hammock 8y ago
You probably got one with low battery. It's not possible to "overpower" them as you suggest because they have a governor that limits the top speed.
- asaph 8y ago
  Even on a 100% charge, a typical e-Scooter used by Bird, Spin, etc. struggle on steep uphill climbs.
  - komali2 8y ago
    You gotta kick a bit, I don't think they're meant to be fully driven on those hills. Just like ebikes - you're still pedaling.
    - asaph 8y ago
      No. The bikes are "e-assisted" and you're supposed to pedal. The e-scooters are not designed to be "e-assisted". You're only supposed to kick to start your ride and the motor takes over from there. There is a max incline the scooters are designed to handle. The intent is not that the scooter goes into an e-assisted mode on a steep incline.
      - dzhiurgis 8y ago
        Here in Auckland even road-illegal 1500W e-bike with throttle kinda struggles to climb uphill, just like Limebike.

notatoad 8y ago

>They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place) the problem is the existence of bike lanes. If public officials start saying "scooters belong in the bike lane", then they have to confront the fact that their cities have no cohesive network of bike lanes that can actually support a real journey. This has been acceptable up until now, because cyclists are weird and it's okay to tell them to just ride in amongst trucks travelling 40mph when a bike lane abruptly ends. But e-scooters are for "normal people" who aren't as content with being told to go play in traffic.

komali2 8y ago
> because cyclists are weird and it's okay to tell them to just ride in amongst trucks travelling 40mph. This is unsustainable. It's caused blowback from cyclists. "Fine, you want me to play in traffic, I'm going to start doing some dumb shit." I say this as a cyclist, I'm doing only 5 miles round trip but I do it every day. I see people blow red lights, weaving in and out of traffic, hopping onto the sidewalk, blasting through crosswalks inbetween pedestrians. I mean yea, don't give them bikelanes, this is what happens, they feel scorned or something and start breaking the law.
- imgabe 8y ago
  I also bike. Don't give me a bike lane? That's fine, I'll take the middle of the traffic lane. Honk all you like, I'm not going to give you room to try and squeeze between me and the oncoming traffic while I risk getting doored. Cars can wait.
  - beatgammit 8y ago
    Hey, if they're honking, they see you, and that's the most important thing. I get far more close calls when I stay to the right than when I take up the whole lane. I fully support these scooters doing the same. People may complain about scooters and bikes in a traffic lane, but if it catches on, we should see less total traffic since they're more compact and they'll probably avoid the more busy, higher speed roads anyway.
  - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

samontar 8y ago

Interesting scheme. You corner a scarce resource and then sell it. I wonder what new permit schemes we’re going to see and how we can capitalize on this.

floatrock 8y ago

What you're seeing is car companies trying to transition to "mobility" companies -- the difference being the former is a manufacturing company with 3% margins and the latter being a services company with much fatter margins. Autonomous car fleets are the main "mobility services" prize of course -- all the major OEMs have autonomous research labs -- but you're seeing more interest in scooters and bikes (there was a headline about GM releasing an e-bike last week).

sonnyblarney 8y ago
No, I don't think this is a transition. What we're likely seeing is M&A people caught up in the hype and trends. In some ways, it's worth spending some amount as a hedge against something happening, but I don't believe these scooters will represent any meaningful change ... personally I think they are kind of a fad. The logistics, cost, narrow use cases of all of it just don't work out well enough. Truly - what % of people could actually commute using these things? It's very small. Of those, who would actually do it? In winter? Up and down hills? Are they a little bit too old for this, or maybe not so open minded? Are there status issues, i.e. if you are a 'serious professional' in many industries it just doesn't bode well to be bouncing around on a scooter (I know this might seem foreign maybe to HN readers but this is a thing). And then of course - if it was useful for commuting, why wouldn't people just end up buying one so they always have it when needed? I think the use cases for these scooters is very narrow. While I agree the general attitude of 'moving beyond traditional cars' is a strategic impetus, and it makes a lot of sense to 'participate' in these things early on ... I don't think this is a secular shift. Not yet anyhow. America is a very spread out place - even LA. And we're only just starting to see the regulatory and populist backlash.
- tomatotomato37 8y ago
  I agree. Besides taking an Uber approach to sidewalk limitations, I don't really see any use case for this that a moped or bike doesn't do better.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago

whoisjuan 8y ago

First Chariot and now Spin (also investments and partnerships with Lyft and Zoom Car in India). Seems like Ford is betting on a future where they see people rejecting the idea of owning a car and where car companies are just mobility providers.

yayitswei 8y ago

Congrats to the Spin team!

Sephr 8y ago

Am I the only one who wants to see more seated scooter innovation? I would much prefer riding one of these self-balancing scooters/microcycles to the standing scooters that everyone is using. 1. http://rynomotors.com http://rynomotors.com (launches April 16, 2019) 2. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/newest-fat-tyre-electric-unicycle-one_60748336939.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/newest-fat-tyre-elect... 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZk9zn82-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZk9zn82-g

tln 8y ago
Why not just rent/ride an ebike? Once you put a seat on a normal 2-wheeled scooter it's not much smaller than a bike. I'm not sure I'd trust the balancing capabilities of the unicycles you've linked to, especially in the face of shitty roads. Have you tried one?
- Sephr 8y ago
  These are much safer than small-wheeled scooters as their larger wheels allows them to more gracefully handle bumps in the road. Also, unlike most ebikes I can actually sit stationary on these without falling over. I'm very short and most ebikes are not designed for short people.
  - tln 8y ago
    Yeah rental ebikes don't scale down very well. You should be able to buy a bike that fits you well, and add ebike capabilities via a kit (yourself or have someone do it). I haven't used a balancing unicycle, but based on experience with other balancing vehicles, I doubt I'd feel safe going as fast as on a scooter. Sounds like you might own one?
- dzhiurgis 8y ago
  Ebikes start to feel unsafe over 50kmh. Mopeds can do 70kmh (see Niu) and more.
neal_jones 8y ago
I might prefer these as well, but I think the standing ones fit more use cases than the sitting ones. For example, what if a woman was wearing a pencil skirt?

andrewljohnson 8y ago

There I was, sitting at the busy intersection of Sacramento and Ashby in Berkeley, when I saw two boys that couldn't have been more than 8-10 years old fly by on Bird Scooters. And I thought to myself, some kid is going to die. And lots of people do die on these things: https://www.google.com/search?q=bird+scooters+deaths https://www.google.com/search?q=bird+scooters+deaths These scooter companies suck, I wish they'd all go away. If they weren't all going for hypergrowth, they'd be less of a menace. I can see the boon for commuters on the last mile, but when I weight that against how they endanger children, encourage illegal usage of sidewalks, ruin pedestrian experiences, and don't provide helmets - I think the industry is in need of a reckoning. They also totally wrecked the coastal street/"boardwalk" in San Diego. As a pedestrian, you're constantly looking over your shoulder for drunk idiots on scooters.

dangwu 8y ago
You have to be 18 years old with a driver's license to ride Bird scooters.
- andrewljohnson 8y ago
  Theoretically.
  - dangwu 8y ago
    Legally. And the app makes you take a screenshot of your license
    - Balgair 8y ago
      I've not tried it, but how easy is it to fake the ID? Like, does the photo feed to a person that OKs the ID manually, or does it just look for some vaguely rectangulary shaped object?
      - Cristian_knur 8y ago
        It scans the barcode and makes sure the id is valid. If it can't determine that it will ask people to take a picture of the id, which then gets manually reviewed by a human. Disclosure: I work for one of the big scooter companies.

csours 8y ago

Can someone explain the valuation on these scooter companies?

SteveCoast 8y ago
Humans will always need to move around, yet it's not clear how we'll move around in the future. While self-driving cars have potential it's not clear that dense urban areas will make a ton of sense for them, and so perhaps bikes or scooters or something else will become the norm. On the other hand, we spend enormous amounts of money on other solutions like busses or underground metro systems in dense urban areas which have significant problems like not taking you where you want to go. If there are systems which do get you where you want to go you might not have to make those up front and gigantic investments in future. If you have systems which are point to point, then the value of real estate that isn't near a metro stop can go up since you don't have to price in the walk from that place to a metro stop. There are all kinds of fun implications. Also, scooters might only be step 1. Maybe self-driving scooters with a 5 mile range are step 2, or something. So if you compare to existing systems you can argue that scooter valuations are cheap if that's the direction we're going, though that isn't certain.
- csours 8y ago
  Thanks. I guess I was trying to imagine an amount income over time per device multiplied by a number of devices that would lead to a valuation of over a billion dollars.

ENadyr 8y ago

Nice one @newy, congratulations!

splurge100 8y ago

All of the commenters saying e-scooters shouldn't be allowed on sidewalks are right. Sidewalks in most densely populated US cities are too narrow and busy to safely allow a human gliding along at 15 mph within ~2 ft of a doorway where another human may be exiting, or past blind corners. The bigger issue is that e-scooter parking is fundamentally broken right now. Despite being told not to, users still park them in the middle of a pedestrian walkway. Even if the user parks them correctly, they get knocked over or blow over into the walkway. This product is broken until these companies do what Jump did, and INTEGRATE A LOCK INTO THE PRODUCT, and make users lock it to something at the end of their ride. This almost entirely eliminates the problem of blocking a walkway, and also reduces the loss of product to theft, accidental damage, etc. Since they're required by law in California, I'd also like helmets to be integrated into the locking mechanism, but that's a nice-to-have. E-scooter companies: Build locks into your products. It fixes many of your problems.

jaydubs 8y ago
Helmets are no longer required by law in California if the rider is over 18. full text: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB2989 http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml...
- romwell 8y ago
  Very good bill! Definitely moving in the right direction. Some thoughts: 1)Helmet laws: I've always found helmet requirements pretty arbitrary: if runners who run at 10-15mph aren't required to wear helmets, why force them onto cyclists and scooter users? Such laws have been known to adversely affect ridership, which, in turn, decreases safety for everyone because drivers don't expect cyclists/scooter users. I've seen a study that found that the net effect is that helmet laws decrease safety. 2)No sidewalk riding: Good. I'd argue that even if bicycles could be OK on sidewalks, e-scooters/e-bikes should not be, because there's no incentive for e-vehicles to go slowly on sidewalks. For cyclists, intermittent slowdowns enforce a low speed, because it takes effort to accelerate. But on an e-scooter, all it takes is a turn of a handle to get to 15mph in a very short span of time. So, while there's a physical cost for cyclists going too fast, there isn't one for e-scooter users.

SeanFerree 8y ago

Been seeing these around my area...They are called Bird scooters here. Seems like a good thing

madeuptempacct 8y ago

"Scoot" is where it's at anyway.

dawhizkid 8y ago

I talked to a self-driving PM recently and he said that self-driving cars are a extremely expensive and complex way to reduce cost per mile urban transit/taxis and admitted scooters might be a much cheaper way to accomplish the same thing.

adrr 8y ago
The biggest issue for urban transit is safety. I don't think scooters can be a valid replacement for cars until the streets are redesigned or all the cars are self-driving. I used to bike to work until a couple close calls. I don't feel comfortable riding a bike or a scooter unless its a dedicated bike lane away from parked cars so I don't get doored.
danans 8y ago
Except during bad weather, or when you need to carry more than yourself and a backpack. For those scenarios, a vehicle sealed from the elements is important. It doesn't need to be a full sized car, but it does need some more amenities and space than a scooter.

mjg59 8y ago

Of the scooter companies that have launched in the Bay area, Spin were by far the least technically advanced - the scooters were basically unmodified Xiaomis, to the extent of still having power buttons. Rather than an integrated location and management system, location data came from a off-the-shelf GPS tracker spliced off the battery lines. Since the scooter control board had no cellular link, there was no mechanism for Spin to directly manage the scooters which meant that handshaking involved the app notifying Spin's API that the user was going to hire a scooter and then sending an unlock code back to the scooter via Bluetooth. Locking was the inverse, which left plenty of opportunity for state to get out of sync (server thinks scooter is unlocked but the unlocking failed, or vice versa). It's possible that their launch was very much an MVP and they've been doing a lot of engineering work in the background, but they were way behind Lime and Bird at launch time. (Edited to clarify that the unlock code is sent via Bluetooth)

rootsudo 8y ago
Is the unlock code unique, or the same for that specific bluetooth serial number?
- mjg59 8y ago
  This is an excellent question that I am going to decline to answer.
  - Relys 8y ago
    eScooterKeyGen.exe lol ;p
    - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
      You joke, but there are android apps that will bruteforce the admin password on the current router you're connected to using the standard admin logins for each manufacturer.
- baybal2 8y ago
  If Spin is indeed just a rebadged Liubike (which itself is a rebadged Xiaomi (which itself is rebadged Aima in custom bodywork,)) then it will be md5 + counter

androidgirl 8y ago

Are any of these electric scooters worthwhile for hilly commutes? I live about a mile from the closest train stop, and currently I walk to and from because the entire way is steep coming back, at 10% grade. My gut tells me a scooter would need to be unreasonably powerful to work in this area.

madeuptempacct 8y ago
"Scoot" is absolutely fine on hills. Drove it from Pier 1 to Golden Gate park on California and back with zero problems on hills. Of course, BMWs will make it a point to shoot by you to show their superiority, but you won't be holding up traffic up hills. I do wonder what would have happened if my phone died before I parked the Scoot. Seems like it would be a pain in the ass.
- mertd 8y ago
  You must be talking about the Scoot motorcycles. I don't see the little scooters lasting from Pier 1 to GGP and back.
  - madeuptempacct 8y ago
    I am - the ones that aren't legal on the sidewalk. I don't see why you would get the little scooters. There didn't seem to be that much price difference.
velobro 8y ago
10%? I don't think any scooter (via a share company) will have the torque needed to get up at a reasonable speed. It appears the Xiomi M365 had a rated motor of 250W with a max of 500W. I cycle with a power meter, and going up a 10% grade requires 300 or so watts. Bear in mind the bike has gears that allow going up hills with lower torque. The scooters have a single ratio.
timboslice 8y ago
There are slightly more expensive models that are 500W-1000W+. The Segway and M365 are ~350W. I had a hard time with the battery life on the Segway ES2 on hills, but am a little bit over the supported weight limit Source: own escootercartel.com

nonatribusernm 8y ago

Own a Segway/Ninebot ES2 w/ the extended battery pack. Top speed 20mph. Have clocked over 300 miles on it. I live in Boston, Bird tried to launch this summer and Cambridge/Somerville local gov freaked out (rightfully so). I use my scooter for 10 mile rides on the bike path, communing and short haul trips. It gets locked up in my apartment when I’m done with it. I honestly don’t know if I’d trust public scooters, purely for safety reasons. (I use Zipcar which is a hit or miss most of the time, some of the cars are really filthy and broken since you can use it at 18) How often are they inspected? Do the scooter companies keep maintenance logs? Who fixes them? Do they use contractors or have in-house staff? Where are they souring the parts? These things are used way more than mine. I’ve fallen off my scooter twice and really fucked myself up and I always wear a helmet. One fall I hit the back of my head behind my right ear on the pavement first. You can easily kill or cripple yourself or someone else. An adult at 165lbs going 19mph packs a punch. They are not toys. There’s huge liability here. This feels like when Uber rolled out. Nobody trusted them and it took time for regulators to catch up. These tiny electric vehicles are awesome and represent way more to come. I just hope nobody gets seriously hurt in the process.

dba7dba 8y ago

I just wanted to point out that Hyundai Motor demoed a electric scooter as an accessory for the Ioniq line in Jan 2017 at CES. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/pictures/hyundais-ioniq-scooter-concept-looks-more-fun-that-its-car-ces-2017/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/pictures/hyundais-ioniq-scoote... And BIRD was founded in Apr 2017. Some staff PM/engr/marketer folks at Hyundai Motor had the right idea. Too bad they were not in a position to start a startup. edit: I'm not saying BIRD or any other copied Hyundai. Coming up with the idea and executing it is a big accomplishment. Electric motor scooters have been around a long time too.

groth 8y ago

These scooters aren't suppose to replace lyft or bart or muni. They're suppose to let you get from 24th mission to 16th mission with minimum context switching & waiting. This translates less well to manhattan but would (if theft weren't a problem) to Brooklyn, most 2nd tier cities in the U.S., and college campuses. I think it's a good investment.

dcosson 8y ago
Why not Manhattan? The sidewalk docking might be an issue in some neighborhoods but if they managed to get street docking areas like the citi bikes it would be a perfect fit in Manhattan as well.

jahewson 8y ago

Perhaps we need a self-driving scooter?

phil248 8y ago

There is simply no space in most inner cities for this mode of transportation. Which is fine, since inner cities are the most walkable places in the world, and the most well-served by public transit. Unless we're prepared to spend billions on new construction over decades, there is just no infrastructure for a mode of transport that conflicts with all of the existing modes. If anything, we should be building more bike lanes (on a gargantuan scale) since they are proven, efficient and already have substantial infrastructure.

maybebad 8y ago

I am enjoying all of the comments here. I was lucky enough to study traffic-as-density-waves in younger days, and I think the future will be very positive. For this particular argument, I think the common themes to solve are lack of infrastructure, and the resulting safety hazards from casual users: The setbacks: The infrastructure currently does not support the reality of the populous renting scooters (and bikes and mopeds). City planning was not developed around the recent technological availability of motorized personal transportation. Humans are irresponsible, and will leave scooters in disruptive locations. Humans are reckless, and a large portion won't abide by the established traffic safety. This "last-mile" transportation movement is a result of public transportation being a poor experience: slow-moving, dirty, congested, mismanaged. Positive thoughts: "last-mile" transportation is highly effective if it could be implemented properly. Proper implementation would require responsible user behavior and infrastructure compatibility. An anecdote: The company Scoot, at least in SF, gave access to moped-like vehicles for casual commute. Great idea. Give people the ability to personally navigate dense populations without vehicle ownership. The problem: driving a personal motorized vehicle in dense large-vehicle traffic is a major responsibility. For instance, riding a motorcycle is extremely dangerous, and the vast majority of motorcycle riders take their safety incredibly seriously. They vehemently abide by traffic laws because small mistakes can lead to major physical consequences. Scoot riders have unilaterally behaved like inexperienced idiots in traffic. Running lights, making last minute decisions, and ignoring speed of traffic sensibility The casual nature of that commute style leads people to behave like they are on bicycles, when they are riding around already-frustrated car and truck drivers. The same me-first attitude was clearly visible when scooters were widely available. Even with city permits, people are still selfish. Solutions: There are conscious decisions to make city-wide improvements in efficient transportation. Mass transit combined with low-impact personal vehicles would be a utopia. But no large city was designed with that reality in mind, and the "disruptive" companies that make these technologies accessible, often with the "ask-for-forgiveness" mantra, are very disruptive to both the pedestrian reality and the detriment of too many cars. Tl:dr, people are selfish and reckless, and even smart and available technologies will be abused unless infrastructure is designed to handle human habits.

jessriedel 8y ago

KKKKkkkk1 8y ago

How does the investment in Spin compare to the one in Argo AI? Are electric scooters hotter than self-driving cars?

Hippocrates 8y ago

I’ve recently visited Santa Cruz, where I rode my first jump bike. I had an absolute blast with it, raved about it to friends non-stop for weeks. More recently, I experienced my first Bird scooter (and Lime) in Indianapolis. I did many fun things there so I didn’t expect that these silly scooters to be the highlight of the trip, but they were. Aside from being an insanely fun and effective way to get around a city, my favorite thing about them stems from my hatred of cars. I own a car. But selfishly only like cars when its _my_ car and _I_ am driving it. Other than that, I think they’re dangerous, loud, expensive, terrible for the environment, and far too plentiful in crowded city streets. They crash and congest roads shared with public transit, wreaking havoc daily commutes, oh and they frequently murder the more tender specimens on the road. I get disappointed when I see people complaining about these scooters and bikes “cluttering up the walkways” and pedestrians having “dangerous encounters”. I will admit it I saw a fair number of scooters that had fallen over on walkways. It really didn’t faze me. Walk around it. Step over it. Pick it up if you’re in a great mood. Maybe society needs time to adjust and develop more etiquette. It could be handled better, but to call this an immediate “problem” is just wrong— And what are the stats on scooter vs. pedestrian fatalities? This debate reminds me of the hiker vs. equestrian vs. mountain biker tension. We all want to use the same trails and it’s a bit contentious. Hikers feel threatened by the fast moving bikers. Bikers are inconvenienced by people walking slowly on the trails. The horses are just taking 6LB dumps all over the path for everyone else to step in and ride through. They all try to lobby and ban one another from using the trails. Nobody seems to care about anything they aren’t partaking in. In the end, people should be open to alternative forms of transportation that are effective regardless of whether they utilize it. I think these bike and scooter shares represent a massive objective improvement over cars, and even public transit. It might take some time for etiquette and city planning to catch up, but we need to check the hall monitor mentality and give it time, for the greater good.