
Bird One - $1299 - mariusz331
https://shop.bird.co/index.html
======
ak217
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19859632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19859632)

------
redka
I think electric unicycles are superior to electric scooters in most of the
ways. If you're thinking about buying an electric scooter I'd recommend you to
consider a one-wheeler instead. Once you learn how to ride, which takes about
a week, it's much more comfortable and mobile than a scooter. You can take
your wheel with you to a mall or a cinema and be on the go whenever.

~~~
jhloa2
Would it be easier to learn if you already know how to ride a pedal unicycle?

~~~
redka
I don't know. Probably -> riding pedal unicycle seems crazy difficult
compared.

------
kristopolous
Successful pivoting from service to products isn't common. I'm guessing their
financials on the rental model aren't panning out.

This is an attempt to Tesla/iPhone the scooter market. Let's see what the
consumer appetite is. I'm guessing the Bird brand is already tarnished with
adjectives like "cheap" and "broken" so this may be an uphill battle.

~~~
nerfhammer
If they stocked _n_ -thousand of these scooters, why not see how many people
are willing to buy them (at 600% markup)? They already have whatever economies
of scale for stocking the scooters for their rental business.

~~~
kristopolous
Yeah why not? Just charge a price and see what happens. Willingness to pay is
based on value perception and that's a hard thing to gauge.

I'm not seeing a rosy path to victory though.

------
ericabiz
I bought a Xiaomi Mi scooter on Amazon last year for $499. This is the same
scooter Bird started with.

So far it’s been great. There’s a “Mi Home” app that shows you remaining
charge and an estimate of miles left, plus total miles driven. It’s also got a
charge indicator on the scooter itself.

The owned scooters go a bit faster than the rental ones, and the battery lasts
about 15 miles total.

So far it’s been useful to eliminate short drives or Lyfts (coming back from
dropping off the car to get new tires is one example; going to local
restaurants is another.) It folds up easily and can lock to a bike rack or
stow under a table at a restaurant.

We’ve put 110 miles on it so far, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but
considering most of our trips on it are far less than a mile, it’s been worth
the money.

At $1299, though, I can’t see why this Bird scooter would be worth so much
more than the Xiaomi. This landing page doesn’t help; it seems to assume the
people reading don’t know about $500 scooters. Perhaps that is their target
market, but in that case, I don’t think this will sell that well.

------
oldgun
Part of me thought this is parody.

~~~
beenBoutIT
It's a practical joke and the punchline hits when you find yourself $1299 and
tax lighter struggling to maintain 10mph with buses and rideshare cars
whizzing past you and the curb.

------
cwkoss
Won't people steal this?

~~~
beenBoutIT
The rule is anything with 2 wheels will get stolen.

------
tyopiuy
20 free rides maxed at $5 per ride. They raised prices recently to around
0.25$ a minute.

Terrible incentive. Why be so cheap? Should be incentivizing purchase of a
$1200 scooter with way more free rides.

~~~
kristopolous
I'm guessing their investors had them over hot coals and this was a negotiated
number.

------
mmastrac
Is this going to be $800 better than the cheapo Aliexpress scooters?

~~~
momentmaker
nope

------
jmmcd
Please choose an informative title.

------
Skunkleton
With all costs factored in, I wonder how many hours you would have to save on
rented birds to start saving money?

Weird move for a rental company imo.

------
jitl
> The owner of this website (shop.bird.co) has banned the country or region
> your IP address is in (KR) from accessing this website.

Wonderful.

------
foobarbecue
Are there specs anywhere? Some of my questions:

\- Range on a charge

\- Max hill slope with 150lb person

\- Ground clearance

~~~
beenBoutIT
All 3 are going to be far worse than a 2-stroke powered scooter that costs 1/6
the price.

------
thereisnospork
Marketing copy for scooter company selling a scooter: "This isn't a scooter"

Insert eye-roll here. Honestly this is so bad it feels like an April fools
joke or something.

------
momentmaker
rather get a onewheel instead

