Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
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Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#2To the people manufacturing escooters almost certainly.
Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#3Are there weights on the business logic for the decision and how near/far have outcomes compared to expectations? Apparently Usain Bolts's investing in emerging tech left him empty handed.
Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#4It is just really expensive to ride. I use it sometimes where there are no good public transport options and it is like half a cab fare. I can’t see them maintain a market if they increase prices. Maybe if we had longer lasting batteries they could drop the prices since they would not need to be charged so often. But as it stands it is either a curiosity or replacing something already expensive like a taxi for a small subset of taxi rides.
Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#5Here in the U.K. scooters are only legal in specific trial areas and when hired from a company (normally one per city), which vets that the hirer has a driving license, and this ensures the person is riding them with insurance. But there are lots of people using privately owned e-scooters illegally - I live not far outside a trial area and regularly see people on them. This is despite a risk of large fines or even losing your driving license (most people need 12 penalty points to be banned from driving and being caught on one of these is 6 points).
I would be interested to see how profitable these startups are in the face of competition in this direction, because it looks like here there’ll be a liberalisation of the rules at some point. For e.g. I know a couple of people who commute on them, but it would seem to me to make sense for them to just buy one and charge it at home/work if it was legal.
Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#6It is just really expensive to ride. I use it sometimes where there are no good public transport options and it is like half a cab fare. I can’t see them maintain a market if they increase prices. Maybe if we had longer lasting batteries they could drop the prices since they would not need to be charged so often. But as it stands it is either a curiosity or replacing something already expensive like a taxi for a smal…
I read that batteries can last for dozens of miles.
Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#7Looking at the roadmaps for the core component (batteries) they definitely jumped the gun.
Sodium Ion batteries should produce dirt cheap scooters that will probably be 1/3 the cost of whatever they were using back when they invested.
And "sharing" is kind of stupid. If you own your escooter, the battery will probably be removable (for easy recharging) and you just lock up the shell. Sharing is basically only good for tourism. E-bike sharing? It is bigger/heavier, that does make slightly more sense.
I don't think their investment jumpstarted some fundamental movement either, maybe it helped nudge it a few years earlier, but ebikes/escooters are simply an inevitability of cheap dense batteries.
Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#8$5B and the best they could do was dump piles of scooters on the street and make people pay to use them via an app.
Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#9Looking at the roadmaps for the core component (batteries) they definitely jumped the gun. Sodium Ion batteries should produce dirt cheap scooters that will probably be 1/3 the cost of whatever they were using back when they invested. And "sharing" is kind of stupid. If you own your escooter, the battery will probably be removable (for easy recharging) and you just lock up the shell. Sharing is basically only good fo…
Afaik Taiwan has a network of swappable batteries for their (road) scooters so you can plug a fresh pack and go. Seems way more sensible than that SV shared scooter nonsense.
Edit: https://www.gogoro.com/
Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?
#10Here in the U.K. scooters are only legal in specific trial areas and when hired from a company (normally one per city), which vets that the hirer has a driving license, and this ensures the person is riding them with insurance. But there are lots of people using privately owned e-scooters illegally - I live not far outside a trial area and regularly see people on them. This is despite a risk of large fines or even lo…
In Bristol a provisonal driving license is enough, and anyone can get those. I think that's more about providing ID than proving that you can drive.