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I live in Baltimore and these things have been awesome. Over the summer and early fall, I used them a lot for trips that were between 3-15 blocks. They were usu
by Uehreka 8y ago
I live in Baltimore and these things have been awesome. Over the summer and early fall, I used them a lot for trips that were between 3-15 blocks. They were usually less than half the price of a Lyft, were fun to drive, don't directly use fossil fuels and were usually available (in one app or the other) within a block or two of my house. I used them to meet friends for brunch, to pick up my car from getting worked on, to go to bars near my house and to go vote in November.
Now that it's gotten colder, I think my range for using them will contract to something like 2-8 blocks, but I don't think I'll cut off using them entirely. I don't notice them being "piled up" anywhere (except for at a street festival, but lots of people were picking them up too), and I don't think I've ever run into a situation where my path was actively blocked by one.
Baltimore used to have a bike share, but I've heard it's being shut down and even when it was up they had a hard time keeping bikes in all the stalls.
- pfisch 8y ago"don't directly use fossil fuels" Looks like Maryland uses a significant amount of coal to power their grid, so is this even a good thing?
- MBlume 8y agoIt doesn't matter what's powering them, the power requirements are so much smaller than those for moving a 2-3 ton automobile that you still come out way ahead
- lostcolony 8y agoEasier to replace the energy powering the grid than to, say, power a vehicle directly with non-fossil fuel sources. It may still be using fossil fuels due to what is powering the grid, but that can be changed out over time; when using a gasoline powered car, you can't, until you replace the car. It's why electric cars are viewed as being friendly; the grid they're plugged into may still be fossil fuels, but that can change at any time. A gasoline powered car won't change its reliance on fossil fuels until you replace it.
- minitoar 8y agoYes, burning coal to generate electricity to power an electric vehicle is better than using an ICE to power that vehicle directly. Not sure about hybrid vehicles.
- Relys 8y agoYes, because in the long term electric vehicles consolidate fossil fuel emissions to a single large point (coal in this case) which can be eventually replaced with a clean energy source (i.e. solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, etc.).
- jeffwass 8y agoAdditionally, the emissions of that consolidated power plant can be better filtered (eg particulates) than the corresponding thousands of disparate engines.
- solarkraft 8y agoIt's also not directly in the city.
- knicholes 8y agoThis is a big one. I live in Lehi, UT, in a place we call "Utah Valley." It's a bowl surrounded by mountains. When there's an inversion or when there's no storm to blow out the pollution, it sometimes reaches the top of the "worst air quality regions" scale. Moving the pollution to an area outside the bowl is a huge deal for me.
- baroffoos 8y agoAlso coal powerplants run much more efficiently than a car engine.
- adtac 8y agoIs there a statistical report on this? I'm not contesting your claim, I'm just curious to see _how_ much more efficient.
- christophclarke 8y agoInternal combustion engines operate at about 25% efficiency (per this paper, page 54) https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/57640/mpapke_1.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/5764... Coal power plants operate in the range of 34% efficiency https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=107&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=107&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_02.html https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_02.html
- paulddraper 8y agoEven so, this is still a win. 1. Scooters use far less energy than larger vehicles. 2. Generating energy from fossil fuels can be done more efficiently at a power plant than in a small engine. 3. When power generation is centralized, it is easier to substitute it for better, more efficient forms in the future.
- sonofaplum 8y agodoes this calculus still work if each scooter only lasts 3 months, as is stated in the article?
- lingzb 8y agoThat is a legit concern. Hopefully, they engineer these scooters to be more durable over time. Also, hopefully user etiquette improves over time as well so people abuse these scooters less, resulting in far longer life spans.
- ams6110 8y agoI think if anything the etiquette will get worse. I've already heard of people throwing bunches of them in dumpsters, then when the dumpster is picked up and compacted the batteries catch fire setting the entire load of garbage on fire.
- paulddraper 8y agoMaybe. Depends on the usage and alternatives.
- randyrand 8y agoMy scooter goes 35 miles on 12 cents of electricity.
- wilg 8y agoIn computer science, we call this an "interface". Users can use energy without having to know it is generated, allowing the backend to be upgraded to a more efficient power source without users doing anything. Also, the argument you're making here is called "the long tailpipe" and has been debunked – it's still a win even if the grid has dirty energy because of efficiency gains.
- jaggederest 8y agoScooters get somewhere in the thousand-miles-per-gallon-equivalent efficiency.
- r1nkgrl 8y agoWhy is this post downvoted? They asked a relevant question which generated discussion.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- walshemj 8y agoHow far is a block on average for us non USA types?
- Uehreka 8y agoI’ll admit it’s a bad unit of measurement given that Baltimore has weirdly shaped and non-standardized blocks. Looking at my Lime history, my rides seem to fall in the 0.5-2.5 mile range (0.8-4 km)
- EnderWT 8y agoHowever, as reference points for US cities, the standard square blocks of Portland, Houston, and Sacramento are 264 by 264 feet (80 m × 80 m), 330 by 330 feet (100 m × 100 m), and 410 by 410 feet (120 m × 120 m) respectively (to the street center line). Oblong blocks range considerably in width and length. The standard block in Manhattan is about 264 by 900 feet (80 m × 274 m); and in some U.S. cities standard blocks are as wide as 660 feet (200 m). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_block https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_block
- antcas 8y agoIt's different in every city, but in Baltimore they're probably in between the size of Portland, OR city blocks and New York City, NY city blocks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisZBL3_aW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisZBL3_aW8
- anonytrary 8y ago> Baltimore used to have a bike share, but I've heard it's being shut down and even when it was up they had a hard time keeping bikes in all the stalls. Sorry if these are stupid questions, but isn't this a problem with Bird? I see random birds all over the place. Can someone explain why bikes can't be left around randomly like a bird can?
- taneq 8y agoBikes are a lot bigger, for starters?
- hamandcheese 8y agoWell, a scooter is much smaller than a bike therefore less of a nuisance (though the last bit depends on who you ask/how much of a NIMBY you are). Also there are dockless bikes, see Jump in SF.
- anonytrary 8y agoI've seen birds left around private property around campuses (e.g. businesses). Why would a business complain about a bike leaning against their wall but not a bird? They are both foreign objects leaning up against their wall. Is size really important here?
- rcpt 8y agoShouldn't a business like having a signal attracting someone to their store?
- anonytrary 8y agoI can't tell if this is sarcasm. You don't get to decide what goes on someone else's property, it's simply not your property.
- anonytrary 8y ago
- 0xADEADBEE 8y agoI must be in a bit of a minority but my main objection to these would be the installation of an app to use them - I am perhaps too privacy-conscious and admit I haven't attempted the signup process but even with a throwaway email address, I'm not comfortable installing it on a device I take with me when I leave the house; I even Uber via the web interface and would probably stop using the service if they hamstrung that more than it is already. Is this something other HNers concern themselves with?
- mixmastamyk 8y agoIf they were all on the same system I might consider it, but the are like a dozen transportation options in my town.
- aantix 8y agoIsn't it exhausting to live like that? Will convenience ever win out for you? This is a serious question.
- 0xADEADBEE 8y agoIt's a great question! It's honestly not too bad, although every now and again I flirt with throwing in the towel on account of the fact I'm sure I'm not really making a difference to the data collection at large. I browse with Firefox, an ad-blocker CookieAutoDelete and NoScript also, which sounds horrific, but actually works well (although I'm under no illusions that combined with routing my traffic through a VPS and browser fingerprinting are not hiding me at all). Browsing on ios with Firefox Focus is needlessly laborious also, but other than that I've found it to be fine.
- kristianc 8y ago> I browse with Firefox, an ad-blocker CookieAutoDelete and NoScript also, which sounds horrific, but actually works well I’m interested by this as every time I have tried to browse with NoScript it has indeed been completely horrific.
- guelo 8y ago> don't directly use fossil fuels I feel like this is a bit of misleading marketing since a ton of fossil fuel is used to round them up and distribute them around town every day.
- throwawaymath 8y agoYes, the companies have trucks which drive around the city picking up all the parked bikes each night and recharging them. So while they don’t “directly use fossil fuels”, a lot of fossil fuel is indirectly used.
- Uehreka 8y agoFair, it’d be worth doing some math on this. Let’s assume a scooter Travels distance T on a full battery (across multiple trips of course) and has efficiency TE based on the efficiency of the (presumably fossil fuel) power plant and that the person picking it up for Charging drives distance C Picking Up PU scooters with a fossil fuel engine that has CE efficiency. Of course, we need to assume that TE and CE are measured in miles/kg-of-carbon-emission. So, the full equation would look something like: (TPU/C)(TE/CE) = Carbon Efficiency of using Lime/Bird I’ll admit that I don’t know all the numbers to plug in here (being HN, maybe someone else does) but given that even dirty power plants have better fuel efficiency than ICEs and that chargers don’t need to drive super far to find a ton of scooters my money is on this being better than driving, carbon-wise.
- masonic 8y agoThe distance the charger drives to/from the charging location and then to the vendor-determined deployment point has nothing to do with the distance the previous rider rode.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- baroffoos 8y agoA future solution would be having charging ports on streets and have people plug them in after a trip. The scooter/bike can then report back to the server that it was plugged in after use.
- shaklee3 8y agoThat doesn't seem comprable to lyft when you can't order one to show up wherever you want.
- Uehreka 8y agoMy order of operations (if the weather is good and I’m going somewhere in that range) is to look at Bird and Lime to see if there’s a scooter within a block or two and call a Lyft if there isn’t. If there is, I save the time I’d spend waiting for a Lyft. Given that I perceive fossil fuel savings, I feel it’s worth it to check and try to lean towards this method of transport.