Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike • Hacker News Board

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#141

Post by woolvalley » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

masonic wrote: post #113

woolvalley wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unit economics make sense, since you don't have to pay a human for every trip. A $500 scooter, with about a $2-$3 charge per trip breaks even in 166-250 trips, which is about 83 days if there are 3 trips a day. So in 2-3 months the devices pay for themselves. Yes there is vandalism and paying chargers, but the general principle stays about the same. And if you have bikes then you don't need chargers, just occasional…

Using your numbers, that's $6-9 of total gross revenue per day, with up to 3 pickup/charge/redeploy charges per day. That would mean a lot of days with a net operating loss even before fixed costs and debt service are considered.

Pickups to recharge only happen once a day with birds AFAIK, and I don't know if half charged scooters are recharged. Most people do not use the full battery capacity of these things, which are 20+ miles. More charge used usually means more time used, which means more money.

Lime's scooters have a 20 mile range and charge $.15/min + $1 per use[1]. So assuming an average speed of 10mph, using the full battery would be 120 minutes of use, which is $18. Then you add the $1 unlock fees which would of happened multiple times, and you have something of at least $20 average gross revenue per day of a 'fully used scooter'.

These scooter companies probably have better data on average usage, which is probably why they are getting such huge funding amounts due to the $$$ potential.

[1] https://www.limebike.com/electric-scooter

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#142

Post by rocketpastsix » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

robotmay wrote: post #114

We had a bike rental system launch in Cardiff very recently, run by NextBike. It has been a massive success, and fills a pretty gaping hole in our city's transportation. Cardiff is basically entirely flat, and has a few separate parts (like Cardiff Bay) which are a not-inconsiderable walk away, as well as a strangely awkward train journey. It's a city pretty well known for being easy to walk everywhere, but the bikes…

Your mix of past and present tense makes me wonder if the bike share is still in Cardiff or not.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#143

Post by analog31 » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 2:20 AM UTC

jsemrau wrote: post #129

ams6110 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copenhagen in the summer is about 75° F and fairly low humidity. Ok for a comfortable cycle to work. Many midwest American cities reach mid 90's temp and high humidity. If you cycle to work you'll need a shower when you get there, assuming you don't get heatstroke on the way. Cycling is not viable transportation in many areas, and you can't cherry pick a place like Copenhagen and use that to support a claim that it w…

You could argue that in winter its getting below 40 in Copenhagen and in you midwest American cities it might not?

I live in the Midwest US (specifically southern Wisconsin). Our temperature generally ranges from maybe -10 to +90 F or roughly -20 to +30 C, with occasional weeks that go beyond this range.

I commute to work by bike throughout the year. Admittedly, I avoid the worst of the summer heat by adjusting my work hours so I leave for work before it gets too hot. Also, I'm kind of a freak in the sense that I don't sweat a lot.

If you're curious about this, the weather history feature for Weather Underground will produce nice graphs for most places worldwide.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#144

Post by Paul-ish » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #23

godzillabrennus wrote: post #2

If they can offer these without the inconvenient docking stations it’ll be a much more popular transportation option.

I don't agree. With permanent, known stations, a dock system can be more easily integrated into the existing public transportation network. This way the two systems can work together, and make the transportation of the region more efficient in general. These bike share startups should honestly all be to some degree folded into the public transportation network in general. It should be a mid to long term goal for buse…

What your describing sounds a lot like Zagster on my campus. From what I understand, they work with universities, corporations, and cities to build out their bike sharing network. It seems like Zagster is trying to play the role of bike sharing contractor.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#145

Post by StudentStuff » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 3:41 AM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #108

pj_mukh wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love taking trains. BART is my jam. Buses being at the whim of traffic while costing only 15-20% less than Uber Express for 5-10miles while offering none of the live-information means its a no-go for me. I've spent far too long waiting in various weather conditions, hoping the bus arrives on time. So even up to a 30-40% premium to just hop into a car makes sense to me.

> Buses being at the whim of traffic while costing only 15-20% less than Uber Express for 5-10miles while offering none of the live-information means its a no-go for me. In Seattle, buses have had GPS trackers for years. A lot of stops use that data for "time of arrival" displays. There is also a publicly available feed of that data, lots of apps out there that remind people when to leave their office to go out and c…

Most of the busses are GPS tracked, but some less frequent lines still have no GPS, while others mix fixed data with busses that have GPS data. Its a patchwork, better than many other cities bus tracking systems, but still we have a ways to go.

At this point, I think signal prioritization and finishing the planned bus/streetcar jumps should yield significant reliability improvements in Seattle. If the #8 could just be timely, it would be a boon for anyone going from Queen Anne to downtown, Cap Hill, South Seattle or vice versa. Its sad that the I-5 commuters essentially wreck its schedule by parking in the road on Denny.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#146

Post by megablast » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:14 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #37

Can someone explain the economics of services like this? I just get the feeling that these bike-sharing services are running on a good sales pitch and a market which seems obvious but isn't really there. There are probably four or five competing services in my city and yet I have never actually seen a single person actually riding them. There are certainly people riding bikes but it's always their own bike. Complicat…

> yet I have never actually seen a single person actually riding them.

I hear this all the time, in my own city. I am not sure what you people are doing, but I have seen all the share bikes in my city used at different times, and quite a lot. I used them myself when I was a tourist in cities.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#147

Post by megablast » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:16 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #61

bajaj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bike networks make for a great commuter option in crowded cities, for a few reasons: - Storing a bike is a problem in cities like NYC and SF due to space constraints - Electric bikes offer faster commute option than a regular bike but are more expensive to buy - Bike theft is a really big problem in cities - It's very convenient to have the option to ride a bike somewhere without worrying about carrying it around

I could see a service doing extremely well if they offered something for people who want to bring their own.

You mean somewhere where you can lock your bike up? These exist all other the place.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#148

Post by megablast » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 4:17 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #128

shadytrees wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to know where you live that you have four competing bike-sharing services. That, at least, is surprising to me. Here in NYC the Citibike program has been massively successful, with bike ridership doubling almost overnight (I recommend Sadik-Khan's book STREETFIGHT where she talks about being the commissioner of the DOT and overseeing the deployment). But it was successful because it had buy-in from the…

> They're great for groups and for late-night insobriety Bikes have to obey the same traffic rules as cars and you can get a DUI if you're intoxicated and riding.

You are less likely to get stopped though, and more importantly you are much less likely to kill anyone else.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#149

Post by adrianmonk » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 7:12 AM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #12

godzillabrennus wrote: post #2

If they can offer these without the inconvenient docking stations it’ll be a much more popular transportation option.

In Dallas, dockless bikes are nothing but problematic. People have gotten in the habit of dumping their bikes on strangers' front lawns and laying them down on sidewalks without using the kickstand. There was a pretty public case of a blind man being seriously injured because someone left a bike just laying on the sidewalk. In retaliation, much of the citizenry has taken to vandalizing the bikes. There are pictures o…

It seems like there's a lot of potential for self-policing in that regard. Just a few random ideas:

1. The bikes could have an orientation sensor that would require them to be upright before you can end your rental.

2. When a user picks up a bike, have them rate the appropriateness of how and where it was parked. Obviously, bad parking is not always the previous rider's fault, but if a consistent pattern emerges, you could penalize them in some way.

3. Dockless bikes presumably have GPS, so they could warn you if you're parking in an area that you shouldn't, if they had (crowd-sourced?) maps of what areas are good and bad.

4. If a bike is left somewhere that GPS says isn't good, offer other users incentives (free rental, etc.) if they will go pick it up. Basically this creates cheap labor to clean up messes.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#150

Post by zhoujianfu » Tue, Jul 03, 2018, 7:22 AM UTC

aventrix wrote: post #5

How does the popularity of bikes compare to electric scooters? Anecdotally, I see a lot more Bird and Lime S scooters flying around than I do bicycles these days - and we do have docked bicycle and Lime bikes and Ofo options available in my city. Having tried many of these services, I find the electric scooters to be the most enjoyable, although the electric bikes are quite fun too and can be a better experience if y…

A few months after bird first launched in Santa Monica I decided to start scraping the app to see how many rides they were doing and estimate their revenue.

I was surprised at how much, so started to do the same thing with the local bike share which had been around for a couple years and covered exactly the same area (with more bikes than bird had scooters at the time).

Bird was already doing 7x the daily rides that the bike share was!