Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

sifted.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#21

Post by yrro »

e40 wrote: post #14

I know two people who were seriously injured on them. One required facial reconstructive surgery and the other had a broken arm. Both happened soon after they became ubiquitous. I also had many close calls as a pedestrian. Some could have been very serious had I not jumped out of the way. Perhaps 5 or so of those. From my perspective they are not worth it.

How fast do they go where you are? In the UK there are various hire schemes trialling their use. Riders must have a driving license and they are limited to 15.5 mph (depending on area, in Oxford for instance they only go up to 12.4 mph). And they are not allowed on pavements, only streets!

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#22

Post by yrro »

rjh29 wrote: post #10
rpep wrote: post #5

Here 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.

Well you can't get them if you've been banned for driving, at least...

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#23

Post by xyzzy123 »

qball wrote: post #20
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #7

Looking 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…

>And "sharing" is kind of stupid. If you own your escooter Then it gets stolen. The main value of the rentables comes in making it so you never have to deal with that eventuality. The fact that they're far more difficult for the average thief to turn a profit from stealing compared to a private vehicle is a bonus for the company (getting away with stealing one requires a Faraday cage or some similar way to jam GPS, a…

Agree, low ROI on theft, at least until we run into a supervillain who is short on cash and needs thousands of powerful hub motors and batteries.

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#24

Post by mc32 »

SilverBirch wrote: post #12
nasmorn wrote: post #4

It 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 don't think it's just the batteries, the whole economic model makes no sense. First, they're expensive - they need to be built for commercial use, so they're $500+ each. Second, demand is massively inefificent, a hundred thousand people want to travel from the train station to their office in the morning, and then back in the evening. Either you pay someone to keep riding the scooters back to the train station in t…

There is something I don't understand. Why are people throwing these things into the river, so to speak? The more you break these the more units will have to be bought and the more expensive the ride becomes and the more resources "energy" is necessary to keep the system going --which seems ironic since riders are the ones who opt to ride in order to use fewer energy resources to begin with...

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#25

Post by WeylandYutani »

e40 wrote: post #14

I know two people who were seriously injured on them. One required facial reconstructive surgery and the other had a broken arm. Both happened soon after they became ubiquitous. I also had many close calls as a pedestrian. Some could have been very serious had I not jumped out of the way. Perhaps 5 or so of those. From my perspective they are not worth it.

Lost count the number of times I almost got run over by an ebike- those go 30 kilometres an hour. It is a concrete jungle out there.

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#26

Post by KptMarchewa »

nasmorn wrote: post #4

It 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…

In Poland they are already more expensive than cab. It makes zero sense to me that scooter that I ride on without needing to be driven by other people, and which only needs to have battery switched daily, can cost even close to cab.

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#27

Post by goosedragons »

mc32 wrote: post #24
SilverBirch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's just the batteries, the whole economic model makes no sense. First, they're expensive - they need to be built for commercial use, so they're $500+ each. Second, demand is massively inefificent, a hundred thousand people want to travel from the train station to their office in the morning, and then back in the evening. Either you pay someone to keep riding the scooters back to the train station in t…

There is something I don't understand. Why are people throwing these things into the river, so to speak? The more you break these the more units will have to be bought and the more expensive the ride becomes and the more resources "energy" is necessary to keep the system going --which seems ironic since riders are the ones who opt to ride in order to use fewer energy resources to begin with...

Drunk tourists don't care? At least where I live scooters are just littered all over until they get picked up which can be hours. Might not even be the rider dumping them in the river.

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#28

Post by northwest65 »

mc32 wrote: post #24
SilverBirch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's just the batteries, the whole economic model makes no sense. First, they're expensive - they need to be built for commercial use, so they're $500+ each. Second, demand is massively inefificent, a hundred thousand people want to travel from the train station to their office in the morning, and then back in the evening. Either you pay someone to keep riding the scooters back to the train station in t…

There is something I don't understand. Why are people throwing these things into the river, so to speak? The more you break these the more units will have to be bought and the more expensive the ride becomes and the more resources "energy" is necessary to keep the system going --which seems ironic since riders are the ones who opt to ride in order to use fewer energy resources to begin with...

Maybe because they're an eye sore?

Some people probably resent that if they were the ones leaving their product lying around all over common areas, such as footpaths, so they could make a buck, they would feel the weight of the local municipality. But they have to put up with it because a VC backed company can move faster than local government because DiSruPtive?

Yeah, fuck 'em, harvest them for 18650s I say.

Re: Was the $5B that VCs plugged into escooters worth it?

#30

Post by wkat4242 »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #26
nasmorn wrote: post #4

It 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…

In Poland they are already more expensive than cab. It makes zero sense to me that scooter that I ride on without needing to be driven by other people, and which only needs to have battery switched daily, can cost even close to cab.

In Barcelona too. There's no point over a cab really.
Post reply on HN