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Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

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Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#271

Post by baud147258 »

bfuller wrote: post #144
neves wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like a marketing play. There are studies proving that Uber is increasing traffic and pollution (not even talking about workspace issues and drivers explotation). Bikes are eco-friendly and everybody like them.

>everybody like them. not entirely true concerning the bike share companies. when they are fighting for dominance like they are in Dallas, the city gets littered with the bikes and people start vandalizing them. This happened in Paris so much that the dockless bikeshares pulled out.

The dockless bikeshares pulled out of most of the city where they tried to deploy in France.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#272

Post by bogomipz »

maherbeg wrote: post #197
bogomipz wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities." Outside of Europe what would you consider the major non car-centric cities?

New york city, the chicago core (probably not greater chicagoland), SF, LA, Portland, Seattle proper would all be excellent candidates. An e-bike can go 20 miles comfortably which means you could take it to work, lock it up and charge at work, and ride back in the evening for most commutes. I'd guess about 30 minutes is the upper bound average for most commuters that would ride a bike to work. Seattle and SF are perf…

Your listing LA as a non car-centric city? You must be joking. LA is the absolute antithesis of a non-car centric city. Maybe you missed this?

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-traffic-los-angeles...

And maybe you haven't been to NYC in a while because although there is lots of mass mass transit, that does not make it non car-centric. It most certainly has a car traffic problem. Just because you don't have to own a car does not make a city non-car centric.

If you look at the inrix score care you will LA is number 1 for traffic and NYC is number 3.

http://inrix.com/scorecard/

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#273

Post by baud147258 »

bfuller wrote: post #75

I live in the biggest dockless bike market currently and its an eyesore. Our corrupt government has decided not to even think about making legislation about the companies until September. People are getting very sick of seeing them laying all around and its starting to go the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism. Someone cut one in half a…

> the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism.

I think you're confusing the cause for the vandalism, it is much more "casual", the bikes are vandalised because they are there and the companies stupidly provided fragile bikes. Also the opposition from the city council did not help.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#274

Post by bogomipz »

k_sh wrote: post #169
bogomipz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"los angeles is perfect for bike transport." Except that LA is a sprawl and almost nothing is close together. Maybe if you live at the beach its nice.

True, but generally folks live within 5 miles of 90% of the places they go. Also, a bicycle can serve as a last-mile connector to the transit system - imagine someone who lives at Wilshire and La Brea but works in West Hollywood, and would like to take the Red Line, but doesn't want to lose an hour to walking.

>"True, but generally folks live within 5 miles of 90% of the places they go"

I have never heard this before? Do you a citation for this? More likely in LA is that people simply "limit their tether to 5 miles."

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#275

Post by piva00 »

ams6110 wrote: post #177
phil21 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minneapolis? As someone who commuted via bike "before it was cool" in Minneapolis I want to ask what you're smoking :) The density simply isn't there, and the infrastructure is pretty horrible aside from some exceedingly small areas of the city proper, and of course the amazing bike paths (which typically are not useful for anything other than leisure). If that's what you consider a high bar for "bike infrastructure"…

I don't understand biking in Chicago or Minneapolis. What do you do when it rains, or snows, which is like 2/3 of the year? And after that it's 95 degrees and 98% humidity. There are probably no more than 30 to 45 days a year where it's really decent biking weather.

I bike here in Scandinavia through all fall and winter, not really sure what's stopping you except from proper clothing and gear.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#276

Post by paulie_a »

Qwertie wrote: post #264
askafriend wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60mph capabilities on a bicycle-like frame sounds very dangerous.

And illegal in most places. Usually you are capped at 25KM/h

Ebikes in general were and probably still illegal there at any speed.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#277

Post by usrusr »

wpietri wrote: post #7

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodg…

Acqui-ad? Doing something bike-related is the "politician posing with a baby" of car companies.

If they combine accounts there will be true synergy though: many people either have zero rideshare accounts or almost all of them, the famous lack of moat. The same is probably true where multiple bikeshares are available. Those who have zero accounts in one "x-share" group and multiple in the other would be 100% locked to Uber when they occasionally do cross over from bikeshare to rideshare or vice versa.

You are 100% right with this being just a drop in the bucket though.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#278

Post by reacweb »

wpietri wrote: post #7

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodg…

Uber has become an expert in handling legal frameworks (in particular grey areas), politicians, and precarious workers. Bikes are exactly in their expertise area. Diversification is (IMHO) a good strategy to increase strength.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#279

Post by dx034 »

codereflection wrote: post #128

We need to be aware of the problem that's happening in China with bike sharing [1]. There is a large saturation problem. Ofo seems to be one of the main contributors to the issue. In Seattle it seems like I see more and more Ofo bikes on the side of the road, and rarely do I see anyone riding them. [1] http://time.com/5218323/china-bicycles-sharing-economy/

I wonder how much of such a bike can be recycled? I'd think it's close to 100% and that it probably pays for costs of pick-up. If not, cities could make companies pay for costs of disposing of bikes. Shouldn't be a big environmental issue then, just Chinese subsidies that help recycling companies and consumers. Pretty similar to all those VC billions that provided free Uber/Lyft rides to millions.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#280

Post by dx034 »

ggregoire wrote: post #14
saudioger wrote: post #6

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

> The consumer benefits seem great How so? We have dockless bikes here (the Chinese Mobike) but it seems like you never know where to pick them up. At less with the public bikes, I know where is the closest docking station to my house.

Where is here? In London, you can see them in the app. They allow you to "block" it for 15 minutes so it's less of a gamble if you have to walk a few minutes for the next bike. Works well from my first tests and cheaper/easier than the official version.
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