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Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

nytimes.com

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Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#171

Post by rootusrootus »

TylerE wrote: post #98
mygo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been seeing cyclist blow through stop signs for 30 years. One reason cyclists don’t stop at stop signs is because it’s the biggest energy drain to have to come to a full stop, killing all momentum, and then pick up speed again from zero. If a cyclist approaching a stop sign sees that there is no traffic, and it’s not even a busy street, then that cyclist will likely just keep going. I’m not saying whether that…

Well, why can't a car do the same thing? Replace all the stop signs with yield signs.

Lots of places around here go one step farther. We have many city intersections with no signs at all. On an intersection of two one-lane roads it makes a certain sense, as long as everybody assumes someone may be coming.

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#172

Post by jaydubs »

splurge100 wrote: post #92

All of the commenters saying e-scooters shouldn't be allowed on sidewalks are right. Sidewalks in most densely populated US cities are too narrow and busy to safely allow a human gliding along at 15 mph within ~2 ft of a doorway where another human may be exiting, or past blind corners. The bigger issue is that e-scooter parking is fundamentally broken right now. Despite being told not to, users still park them in th…

Helmets are no longer required by law in California if the rider is over 18.

full text: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml...

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#173

Post by dfxm12 »

imgabe wrote: post #48
komali2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because cyclists are weird and it's okay to tell them to just ride in amongst trucks travelling 40mph. This is unsustainable. It's caused blowback from cyclists. "Fine, you want me to play in traffic, I'm going to start doing some dumb shit." I say this as a cyclist, I'm doing only 5 miles round trip but I do it every day. I see people blow red lights, weaving in and out of traffic, hopping onto the sidewalk, blast…

I also bike. Don't give me a bike lane? That's fine, I'll take the middle of the traffic lane. Honk all you like, I'm not going to give you room to try and squeeze between me and the oncoming traffic while I risk getting doored. Cars can wait.

I'll take the middle of the traffic lane.

When I'm driving, I want you to do this so I can see you most visibly.

As an aside, at least where I live, most of the lanes are sharrows anyway, so bikes are entitled to the whole lane. I think not many bikers or drivers are aware of this and it causes grief for everyone involved.

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#174

Post by rootusrootus »

matchbok wrote: post #119
andrewljohnson wrote: post #61

There I was, sitting at the busy intersection of Sacramento and Ashby in Berkeley, when I saw two boys that couldn't have been more than 8-10 years old fly by on Bird Scooters. And I thought to myself, some kid is going to die. And lots of people do die on these things: https://www.google.com/search?q=bird+scooters+deaths These scooter companies suck, I wish they'd all go away. If they weren't all going for hypergrow…

Google: auto vehicle deaths per DAY

That seems kinda pointless. How many vehicle-miles are driven every day in a car versus on a scooter?

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#175

Post by SteveCoast »

csours wrote: post #77

Can someone explain the valuation on these scooter companies?

Humans will always need to move around, yet it's not clear how we'll move around in the future. While self-driving cars have potential it's not clear that dense urban areas will make a ton of sense for them, and so perhaps bikes or scooters or something else will become the norm.

On the other hand, we spend enormous amounts of money on other solutions like busses or underground metro systems in dense urban areas which have significant problems like not taking you where you want to go. If there are systems which do get you where you want to go you might not have to make those up front and gigantic investments in future.

If you have systems which are point to point, then the value of real estate that isn't near a metro stop can go up since you don't have to price in the walk from that place to a metro stop. There are all kinds of fun implications.

Also, scooters might only be step 1. Maybe self-driving scooters with a 5 mile range are step 2, or something.

So if you compare to existing systems you can argue that scooter valuations are cheap if that's the direction we're going, though that isn't certain.

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#176

Post by abawany »

splurge100 wrote: post #92

All of the commenters saying e-scooters shouldn't be allowed on sidewalks are right. Sidewalks in most densely populated US cities are too narrow and busy to safely allow a human gliding along at 15 mph within ~2 ft of a doorway where another human may be exiting, or past blind corners. The bigger issue is that e-scooter parking is fundamentally broken right now. Despite being told not to, users still park them in th…

Agree on the sidewalk clutter - they are starting to turn into a nuisance in Austin downtown. I had to move two, parked side by side, on a sidewalk. My attempt to move them resulted in them squealing, causing me to feel like a thief for just trying to make room on the sidewalk to keep walking.

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#177

Post by culot »

qudat wrote: post #38
komali2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody follows these rules. Whenever a skater is coming at me I very much get a "get the fuck out of my way, peasant" vibe. That's why I believe they should be enforceable rules aka laws.

> Nobody follows these rules. This is exactly the reason why I ride my bike on the sidewalk even with a bike lane that is divided from the automobile lane with a white line. I don't care what laws exist, I am not risking my life riding in a bike lane that is really seen as a large automobile lane.

I've twice been mauled by pedalbikers on sidewalks. Not a fan of your plans.

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#178

Post by olyjohn »

danielrhodes wrote: post #24
randyrand wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've owned both a scooter and skateboard for 7 months. I disagree, you can ride a scooter on a sidewalk safely and I need to do it from time to time. Of course, I don't prefer it. But it's pretty easy to do safely and it shouldn't bother anyone if done correctly. The rules I follow: 1. Go much much slower. 2. Stay far away from other people and blind corners. 3. Always assume a person is about to make an erratic move…

I love these scooters -- but one thing I have found is they feel too fast for the sidewalk and too slow for the street.

Um. Can't you just ride slower on the sidewalk? Or are they the kinda that have an on/off switch for a throttle?

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#179

Post by justchilly »

the_watcher wrote: post #6

I used Bird, Lime, Lyft, and Jump scooters over the weekend in LA and they were great for getting around when I'd have otherwise considered driving (over a 45 minute walk). I tried a Skip scooter again when I got back to SF, and once again, it simply could not handle a minor (for SF) hill. I don't know what the solution is, since it seems like a bad idea to power them more to handle hills given the dangers that would…

The old Bird and Lime scooters had 250W motors. The new Skip scooters have 350W (plus suspension which is nice). The skips can get to a walking pace up to ~10% grade, but grind to a halt anywhere near Nob/Russian Hill. You need at least 750W to do the trick.

They also all have just a single break, which makes going down those hills dangerous.

Re: Ford Buying San Francisco-Area E-Scooter Startup Spin

#180

Post by mjg59 »

Of the scooter companies that have launched in the Bay area, Spin were by far the least technically advanced - the scooters were basically unmodified Xiaomis, to the extent of still having power buttons. Rather than an integrated location and management system, location data came from a off-the-shelf GPS tracker spliced off the battery lines. Since the scooter control board had no cellular link, there was no mechanism for Spin to directly manage the scooters which meant that handshaking involved the app notifying Spin's API that the user was going to hire a scooter and then sending an unlock code back to the scooter via Bluetooth. Locking was the inverse, which left plenty of opportunity for state to get out of sync (server thinks scooter is unlocked but the unlocking failed, or vice versa).

It's possible that their launch was very much an MVP and they've been doing a lot of engineering work in the background, but they were way behind Lime and Bird at launch time.

(Edited to clarify that the unlock code is sent via Bluetooth)

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