The word "liability" is something they don't want to risk. Donating 150 bicycles to a school, and due to bad maintenance 10 children have an accident. The bad

The word "liability" is something they don't want to risk. Donating 150 bicycles to a school, and due to bad maintenance 10 children have an accident. The bad publicity would be huge. "You donated killer bicycles to our children". Not an easy front page to recover from. Plus the lawsuits etc. The cost of scrapping is worth absorbing much more than risking the above scenario. Selling: they don't want people to ride their own electric bicycles, they want people to rent for their rides. Selling e.g. 10k bicycles to 10k people, converts potential renters to no-renting-anymore-coz-I-got-my-sweet-ride, whoever bought the business will definitely have 10k less potential customers. Selling them will also mean that they need to give "some" guarantees about spare parts, maintenance shops, etc.. In Europe when you buy something you automatically have (per EU law) 2 years guarantee. They want to drop that business, not be prisoners of such a deal for the next 2 years. When they sell to a business, the new owner takes up these responsibilities. Edit: I understand in the USA the guarantee period is 1y. Still a long time, when you want to get rid of something "now" to have to stick with it for one more year. It makes for a bad breakup. Edit2: typos