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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

#141

Post by asdff »

rdiddly wrote: post #101

Can we please just make this (scooters, bikes) public transit? Not profitable - check Good for society - check In need of regulation - check

I wish, but corruption and graft has lead LA's metrobikes to cost something like $2500 each and that program is quickly spiraling out of existence.

Greedy contractors and privatization aside, you need infrastructure for transit, and for these scooters and bikes that means building bike lanes. Otherwise, it's no surprise that ridership is declining as they aren't safe on roads with LA drivers who kill more pedestrians every year. The LA bike lane network is currently an embarrassment with little political support for improvement, in fact there are councilmen actively working to remove bike lanes from their neighborhoods.

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

#142

Post by smileybarry »

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…

> 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 agree, however, it's obscured by an Uber-style gig: a lot of these startups incentivize random people to drive around, collect & charge their scooters. That allows them to set the financial cost of charging and ignore the underlying environmental cost.

I suspect it's one way they hide the maintenance costs while pretending to contribute to the "gig economy".

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

#143

Post by cityofdelusion »

I worked in downtown San Antonio, one of the markets being pulled from. Scooters were very popular when they first arrived, but pretty much none of my coworkers used them any more. The main issues are cost and time. It takes too long to open the app and get riding and it costs too much. Downtown here is also pretty walkable, so the high costs don’t make much sense when I could be getting exercise. The scooters are also fairly miserable when it’s 104F in the summer and 40F in the winter, making them very seasonal. They are banned on sidewalks here, but I had no issues riding them in the slow downtown SA traffic.

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

#144

Post by snuxoll »

jxramos wrote: post #82
snuxoll wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is, yet it's something most people take for granted. When I moved out from closer to the metro center with my wife I lost access to the bus system, restricting my ability to get around without needing her to drive me. Buying my bike and scooter this year gave my lost freedom back, which just feels good.

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

#145

Post by yalogin »

At a high level this will be sold as “Uber for cycles” but it’s not. They own the hardware which makes it a really tough business to be in. TBH I don’t why even U ee is in this space. There isn’t enough volume outside of tourist heavy sites to justify it, even in tourist heavy places I don’t know how attractive an option this is what not attractive to a select group.

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

#146

Post by asdff »

ProAm wrote: post #132
rory096 wrote: post #96

Curious how many of the scooter-haters in this thread drive cars daily. In my experience they're a huge boon to walkable, car-free or car-lite lifestyles, and all but useless in the suburban parking-minimum wastelands that characterize most of the United States' postwar built environment.

It's makes urban sidewalks look like they are strewn with litter. It's the reason why Im glad to see they are banned. They make walkable cities less walkable.

The civil engineers in downtown santa monica have engineered a brilliant solution: stencil a scooter and box on the sidewalk. This is some serious space grade stuff considering JPL isn't too far away, unsure if we have the engineering capabilities to apply this solution in other cities. Better ban them outright, right?

In all seriousness, the apps let cities geofence arbitrary areas. You could just spray paint an orderly and designated parking spot on the corner and have the app only let you lock up if you are parked in the designated parking spot, validated with the photo you take after the ride.

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

#147

Post by the_imp »

Hasz wrote: post #127

This whole model is incredibly, impossibly, flawed. 9/10 times, my net displacement for the day is 0. If my net displacement is zero, I would prefer to own the medium I'm using to move. Bike, car, scooter etc. Only exception is stuff with really high capital costs, like planes and trains, in which case I pay a small fee to avoid owning a railway or airline. For scooters, there are no high capitals costs; the cost of…

The whole model of needing to own your own transportation devices is flawed.

9/10 times, I'm moving from one location with many other people in it to another location with many other people. I would prefer not needing to own any medium in order to move between them, but instead be able to use a public service to do so. Bus, tram, metro, citybike, scooter. I'd really rather not own stuff with really high capital costs, like cars.

At this point, the only reason to own anything more expensive than a bike is bad city planning and infrastructure.

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

#148

Post by dkarl »

013a wrote: post #39
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…

Same story with their scooters IMO. I would rather walk a block or two and find a Bird than settle for a Lime. On at least one occassion my options were Grab a Lime or walk 10 blocks; I walked. Though, I feel like the reasoning is opposite for the scooters; they're absolutely huge vehicles that were clearly built to last in the harsh environments they're deployed in, and in doing so gained a ton of weight and volume.…

I have the opposite experience with the Lime scooters; they're my go-to. I've had a few duds, and of course anything on the street is subject to abuse and vandalism, but it's nice that outside of battery and motor issues, a five second inspection will give you a reliable indicator of how it will ride. All the electronic brakes I tried from any company make a very dangerous assumption that stopping time and distance don't matter as long as you come to a stop gently, so I stopped using scooters without mechanical brakes. The number one thing I appreciate about Lime is that they have gone entirely to mechanical brakes, atl least in my market. Bird scooters are okay, too, but I've relegated them to second choice after having some bad experiences with their speed regulators kicking in really hard (similar to the braking experience you describe, but without any warning, much less any action by the user.) Early on I experienced some inconsistency and frustration with their top speed, as well. Aggression from drivers is more likely to kill me than anything else, so when I set out on a one- or two-mile trip on city streets and realized I couldn't top 13mph, it was scary enough to make me stop and look for a different scooter.

Most of all, though, I wonder how much of my brand preferences are entirely the result of randomness.

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

#149

Post by usaphp »

the_imp wrote: post #147
Hasz wrote: post #127

This whole model is incredibly, impossibly, flawed. 9/10 times, my net displacement for the day is 0. If my net displacement is zero, I would prefer to own the medium I'm using to move. Bike, car, scooter etc. Only exception is stuff with really high capital costs, like planes and trains, in which case I pay a small fee to avoid owning a railway or airline. For scooters, there are no high capitals costs; the cost of…

The whole model of needing to own your own transportation devices is flawed. 9/10 times, I'm moving from one location with many other people in it to another location with many other people. I would prefer not needing to own any medium in order to move between them, but instead be able to use a public service to do so. Bus, tram, metro, citybike, scooter. I'd really rather not own stuff with really high capital costs…

For a single person - probably, but most people have kids. It’s much more complicated to use public transport with small kids, they require a lot of stuff to be carried around for them

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

#150

Post by ProAm »

asdff wrote: post #146
ProAm wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's makes urban sidewalks look like they are strewn with litter. It's the reason why Im glad to see they are banned. They make walkable cities less walkable.

The civil engineers in downtown santa monica have engineered a brilliant solution: stencil a scooter and box on the sidewalk. This is some serious space grade stuff considering JPL isn't too far away, unsure if we have the engineering capabilities to apply this solution in other cities. Better ban them outright, right? In all seriousness, the apps let cities geofence arbitrary areas. You could just spray paint an ord…

I agree there is probably a solution for this, but these companies could have discussed this with the cities prior to dumping thousands of discarded scooters everywhere. It's being a bad neighbor to force the city to deal with a problem it didnt have last week because you have VC funding and dont mind littering. So yes, Id rather ban them and subsequently address the issue.
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