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Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

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Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#81

Post by bransonf »

wufufufu wrote: post #66
bransonf wrote: post #42

Does anyone actually think this is a profitable market? Electric scooters are expensive, repair and charging is expensive. It’s a seasonal business. Vandalism/abuse is fairly common. In terms of any environmental benefit, I highly suspect more gasoline is being consumed to collect and distribute scooters than the offset of a few last mile transports. I suspect the cost to the consumer would have to double for it to m…

> Electric scooters are expensive, repair and charging is expensive Citation needed, at least to convince me. I think they could significantly bring down the cost at scale (production/maintenance wise at least).

Here are some estimates:

https://oversharing.substack.com/p/shared-scooters-dont-last...

These scooters are already at a fairly decent economy of production. Chinese factories are producing these in the thousands and companies are buying wholesale.

The core technology (batteries especially) is expensive, full stop. I’m curious where you think they could save money in larger scales? That’s not even to mention to get larger scale, they need more consumer adoption. I don’t have reliable data for this, but anecdotally I’ll say consumer interest is stagnant, and that’s already at unprofitable/heavily incentivized margins.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#82

Post by jxramos »

snuxoll wrote: post #62
jxramos wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a ton of Ninebots during my commute, seems like more and more people choose to own. Even folks at my company own various escooter variants.

I don't drive, don't even have a license - my Ninebot Max has been the best purchase I've made to my personal freedom of movement living in the suburbs of a city with lackluster public transit. Intercity bus routes only run M-F, so to go 10 miles downtown I have to get the whole way by myself. I can bike, but even if I were in better shape I would still be quite sweaty and exhausted by the time I make that trip. My s…

personal freedom of movement, that's an awesome phrase

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#83

Post by BrentOzar »

jonas21 wrote: post #44
ghaff wrote: post #13

I do a lot of travel and, anecdotally, there seems to be a huge variation in popularity of rental scooters by city (even just considering the cities where one or more companies operate). Wide bike/pedestrian paths are probably one factor and weather is another. But they seem very popular in some places and barely used in others for reasons that often aren't immediately obvious, at least to me.

> they seem very popular in some places and barely used in others for reasons that often aren't immediately obvious I think a lot of this has to do with regulation. Some cities actively encouraged scooters and bikes, some took a hands-off approach, and others banned or restricted them to the level where it was difficult to operate. You can really see the effect of this in San Diego, which at first welcomed the bikes…

> You can really see the effect of this in San Diego, which at first welcomed the bikes and scooters, then reversed course and banned them in a lot of places

I'm in San Diego, and that's exactly what happened. I live downtown, and at first, scooters were my favorite way to get around.

Then the city forced the scooter vendors to configure no-ride zones, 3mph speed limit zones (seriously, you can walk faster), and no-parking zones inside their apps, and geofence them. Overnight, the downtown scooter market just dried up. I stopped using all scooters downtown because of this, not just Lime, and since the regulation kicked in, I can't see any scooter company making it in downtown San Diego. The scooters just disappeared.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#84

Post by nishantvyas »

bransonf wrote: post #42

Does anyone actually think this is a profitable market? Electric scooters are expensive, repair and charging is expensive. It’s a seasonal business. Vandalism/abuse is fairly common. In terms of any environmental benefit, I highly suspect more gasoline is being consumed to collect and distribute scooters than the offset of a few last mile transports. I suspect the cost to the consumer would have to double for it to m…

> Why did the VCs value these as billion dollar companies? Desperation?

1. FOMO

2. Easy Access to Capital in last decade

3. Winner takes it all culture, which causes more FOMO

But then as a VC you also have to bet future with incomplete set of data... which is not truly a science... though there are some Midas in VC... reality/statistics is only 3-5% of all investment will hit home run, 5-15% will do average and other will just fail... we would not have many of the company/services around if someone would not have taken those bets (from UBER to AirBnB and others...)

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#85

Post by Symbiote »

dustinmoris wrote: post #27
ckuhl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest advantage scooters have over ebikes is that for a lot of people, there’s a place to store a scooter at both ends of a commute (under a desk) but not necessarily secure bike storage.

Also a huge advantage is the mobility of a scooter over a bike. With a scooter you are more flexible to changes in your day. Did a friend just message you during lunch to meet up for drinks in a different part of town? No probs, just take the scooter on the tube after work. Did the weather just change drastically? No probs, can quickly change to a different way of commute and the scooter doesn't feel like a huge show…

I no longer live in London, but these scooters seem a bit big to go on a metro train.

The smallest folding bicycles (e.g. Brompton) are fine, but scooters must either be balanced upright, exposing dirty wheels, or take up a lot of floor space. No thanks!

In the largest cities like London, if my plans changed I'd just leave the bicycle at work, and take public transport to the party, home, and to work the next day (unless my way home passes work, then I can collect the bicycle).

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#86

Post by arafa »

jeffnappi wrote: post #21

Lime has the worst bikes on the planet - they are complete garbage compared to the Uber/JUMP bikes (and probably others). The Lime bikes seemed to constantly be falling apart and were actually pretty terrifying to ride. On the other hand, the JUMP bikes feel very robust and I feel safe riding them. I would rather walk half a mile to find a JUMP bike than ride a Lime bike. No wonder they are failing. Source: Rode both…

Jump bikes are also safer as the brake lines are a lot harder to cut than the Lime ones (since they're shielded). This happens quite frequently to people I know.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#87

Post by dole »

ravenstine wrote: post #73
jeffnappi wrote: post #21

Lime has the worst bikes on the planet - they are complete garbage compared to the Uber/JUMP bikes (and probably others). The Lime bikes seemed to constantly be falling apart and were actually pretty terrifying to ride. On the other hand, the JUMP bikes feel very robust and I feel safe riding them. I would rather walk half a mile to find a JUMP bike than ride a Lime bike. No wonder they are failing. Source: Rode both…

I didn't even realize they still had bikes. In my town, they rolled out the Lime bikes and then pulled out a year and a half later. Now there are a bunch of abandoned green squares around the neighborhood where they used to be deployed.

Surprising how quick cities were to carve out parking spaces and create signage for rental bikes and scooters just to have them pull out a year later.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#88

Post by algesten »

dustinmoris wrote: post #27
ckuhl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest advantage scooters have over ebikes is that for a lot of people, there’s a place to store a scooter at both ends of a commute (under a desk) but not necessarily secure bike storage.

Also a huge advantage is the mobility of a scooter over a bike. With a scooter you are more flexible to changes in your day. Did a friend just message you during lunch to meet up for drinks in a different part of town? No probs, just take the scooter on the tube after work. Did the weather just change drastically? No probs, can quickly change to a different way of commute and the scooter doesn't feel like a huge show…

I love my brompton foldable bike. much handier than a scooter :)

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#89

Post by ravenstine »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #67

Thank $deity. I'm tired of seeing these humongous bikes taking up space on sidewalks, and threatening to fall onto unsuspecting people and animals. Here's hoping they fail in other markets as well.

If you have a cane or a wheelchair then good luck when you come across a pile of bikes on the sidewalk. Even one of those JUMP bikes tipped over can be a problem. I used to see this all the time in Santa Monica. Bikes lined up close together would either fall like dominoes or get kicked over by hoodlums, blocking walking paths or potential parking spots. What's hilarious is the number of believers willing to say about anything to defend the the almighty bicycle, no matter how obstructive and unsightly they can be.

No, no! A pile of fallen over bikes and scooters isn't unsightly! Cars driving on roads designed for them is what's unsightly!

Uh huh. (look up previous HN threads and you'll see that exact argument)

If there's one thing I'm looking forward to with the next economic recession, it's the disappearance of these bikes and scooters.

Re: Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100

#90

Post by munificent »

ASinclair wrote: post #30
TacticalTable wrote: post #18

Of the e-scooter startups I've tried, Lime is my favorite. In my smaller city (Indianapolis) we just have Bird and Lime, and Bird's restrictions on hours, locations, and parking make them very difficult to use (They turn themselves off if they leave their range, and many pieces of downtown are considered 'out of bounds'). Meanwhile, the Limes are better distributed around the city, easier to park, and have much more…

> I'm surprised that it was warmer climate cities that underperformed in the US, because I would have expected those to have a much better chance for profit, as cold winter seasons dramatically reduce scooter usage. Too much competition? I was surprised about this too. Though, from my anecdotal experience, there are a ton of micromobility companies operating in San Diego.

I wonder how much of this is because warmer climate cities have greater homeless and/or drug addict problems.

Here in Seattle, I saw lots of trashed Lime bikes and lots of unsavory folks using them, often with enough stuff piled onto them to imply they had forcibly unlocked them and were using them long-term. I ran into a couple of managers at Lime once and they said vandalism and theft was a big problem.

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