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Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business

theatlantic.com

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Re: Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business

#201

Post by charleyma »

I signed up to be a Bird charger in SF and it's been quite difficult to find scooters to charge. All the scooters go offline at 9pm to be charged and then have to be dropped off by 7am the next morning in order to get paid. I've encountered a ton of issues trying to find more "valuable" scooters as they tend to appear to be in unsafe areas that I don't necessarily want to be at night (most of the high value scooters tend to be in the tenderloin and I'm guessing have already been broken down, I can usually tell if it's not there due to the last known location being a few days ago)

I've started to view the expensive Birds as a way for the company to have people try and find their lost scooters, in which case $25 is a pretty great deal...

Re: Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business

#202

Post by ralusek »

simias wrote: post #74
ralusek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So best case scenario, let's assume that each ride is 15 minutes, that means 24 rides in the 6 hours. If we also assume full 6 hour usage, we end up with (24 rides * $1) + (360 min * $0.15). So best case seems like $78 revenue per charge.

That's really a best case and that's not counting the maintenance costs (replacing the broken/stolen scooters in particular). They seem to pay the "chargers" extremely well currently, I'm sure they're still in the bootstrapping stage and not actually trying to make money. One person quoted in the article even says he expects the reward to be lowered eventually.

I actually didn't include any costs, just revenue.

Re: Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business

#203

Post by zrobotics »

lambda wrote: post #179
gambiting wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but at the moment(at least over here in UK) the tax on petrol and diesel covers road building/maintenance for the entire country. With this tax slowly disappearing, we will have to find another way to tax people who use the roads, and the best way to do that is to tax the fuel they use as it's directly proportional to their use. Same reason why heating/farming oil doesn't have this tax, even though it's technical…

It seems to me that taxing something based on its use is a pretty much just a way to set up exactly these kinds of loopholes that continually need plugging. Instead of taxing gasoline to help fill in the road budget, why not tax vehicles based on actual road usage, and their size and weight? Then you don't have all of the "electric cars and bikes don't pay gas taxes" stupid debates. An electric car uses just as much…

At least in most of the US (can't speak for all 50 states) vehicles are taxed based on weight- a 1 ton pickup will cost more each year to register than a compact car or motorcycle. And what is a better method to tax based on usage than taxing fuel? Do you really want to have to log every mile driven, and submit it to the IRS? Parent poster had a good point, in that this will need to be examined in regards to EV usage of roads, but how much $ do you think it would cost to have automatic toll collection points to cover the entire US road network, and where are those billions/trillions going to come from?

And I would also like to point out that the main reason to tax fuel isn't to cover emissions, it's to help pay for the incredibly expensive roads that we all use (regardless of mode of transport). Sure, it is a good side effect that inefficient vehicles are taxed higher than more efficient ones, but that is a side effect, not the goal. Your proposed solution is far more complicated than just metering EV charging separately and taxing a portion of it.

Re: Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business

#204

Post by floatrock »

nkrisc wrote: post #180
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting homes on fire seems like the highest risk -- there's no way standard domestic insurance is paying out if they know the fire is caused by business activities.

This seems like the biggest risk to me. Charging untold amounts of batteries that have been used/abused in unknown ways in my house while my family sleeps doesn't seem like a great idea.

Seems like a great idea to offload risk if you're Bird though! All those hoverboard battery explosions a year or two ago (and for example the FAA baggage bans that came as a result) really soured the image of chinese battery electronics.

Defining the heuristic now: the scooter market will truly be "mature" once Bird et al start incorporating commercial fire insurance add-ons into their charger programs, kinda like how Uber started providing commercial driver and liability insurance.

Re: Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business

#206

Post by jandrese »

rconti wrote: post #200
blaisio wrote: post #95

I love these scooters! It's such a fun way to get around. There's a charger in my building, so they always leave scooters right outside for me, ready to go when I need them. It's really an amazing experience. For a new user, it takes less than a minute to get started. The first time, as an engineer, I just was shocked that it was actually working so well! I feel like it unlocks a whole new way to see the city for a l…

Pretty cool. I was tempted to take a few and race them around our office as we've got a lot of open space. Had to ask a friend about how it works; he contacted the company and unfortunately he wouldn't be ALLOWED to take it home after work, charge it at home, then return it somewhere the next AM. Yup, it's more acceptable to their T&C to leave it on the sidewalk in front of his suburban house than to actually charge…

You can't sign up as both a rider and a charger? It seems like it should be pretty easy to ride home, sign out, then immediately "find" the scooter and get $5 while you charge it up.

I guess the can discourage this by making you drop it off at the nest before it can be checked out instead of letting you immediately check it out again the next day for the ride back to work or wherever.

If your house is near a nest you could still make it work I think. The only caveat being that the bird will probably disappear during the day while you are at work unless you hide it in your office.

I don't know, it seems kind of easy to game.

Re: Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business

#209

Post by andrewmunsell »

ehead wrote: post #20

Man, the gig economy is getting pretty surreal. Wait until the food delivery guys get on electric longboards. YT from Snow Crash might be a relatable character for my kids...

That isn't as unrealistic as you think, there's some people on Reddit posting about working for Uber Eats with Boosted Boards in NYC, and I know of at least one other that does it in SFO:

https://www.reddit.com/r/boostedboards/comments/8jzokl/11_an...

Re: Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business

#210

Post by petra »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #191
empath75 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only makes sense if we’re in a bubble.

i guess so. but what causes these persistently bubbly conditions? the top 1-2% have very large cash hoards they absolutely must invest. and they can't just go around opening laundromats, liquor stores and flipping houses. that's chicken feed. it requires too much attention. too much work. there are challenges investing in the really big global growth stories (e.g. China): state ownership has the upper hand. they can…

I don't understand the "it requires too much attention". Isn't that what managers are for ? Assuming your opportunities are profitable enough , just hire enough managers and be done with it?
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