
Charging electric scooters is a cut-throat business - bchallenor
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charging-electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business/560747/?single_page=true
======
lordnacho
I want to hear more about Bird's business model. How can it be worthwhile for
them to give hundreds of dollars out to have the scooters charged? What do
people pay for using the scooters?

As per the article, it also seems incentives are not quite thought out yet, so
people can grab the $20 "hard-to-find" fee reasonably easily. It sounds like
you can have a friend stash them until the fee goes up, then go and collect
it. If this happens to every bike, that's maybe $20 per week? $1k a year per
scooter? And I would guess a scooter itself costs a few hundred, as well?

Can you rent out a scooter for a sensible amount? My guess would be that the
scooters are not at 100% capacity, otherwise it would be hard to find one.
Kinda like the Boris Bikes in London. There's also infrastructure costs
involved with maintaining the fleet, making sure they're where rides are
likely to originate, marketing, and so on.

~~~
blocked_again
All of them are VC funded. The cash they are burning is of their investors.
The business model should be getting acquired or going public.

~~~
tom_
Many of these companies make a lot more sense to me if I think of the
founders(+select early employees) as the company, the company as the product,
the VCs as the customer, and product+customers as the sales pitch.

~~~
ccozan
Thanks for this very interesting point of view, a company as a product. If you
look this way, then a lot of stuff makes sense in the VC/Start-Up world.

~~~
empath75
It only makes sense if we’re in a bubble.

~~~
HillaryBriss
i guess so. but what causes these persistently bubbly conditions?

the top 1-2% have very large cash hoards they _absolutely must_ invest. and
they can't just go around opening laundromats, liquor stores and flipping
houses. that's chicken feed. it requires too much attention. too much work.

there are challenges investing in the really big global growth stories (e.g.
China): state ownership has the upper hand. they can be forced into a loss
position by the state.

yet, vanishingly few are smart enough to predict the rise of Facebook or
Google. so what can they do? take shots in the dark in the US tech economy
until they hit something large.

~~~
petra
I don't understand the "it requires too much attention". Isn't that what
managers are for ? Assuming your opportunities are profitable enough , just
hire enough managers and be done with it?

~~~
ccozan
Generally retail requires lots of efforts ( management must take care of
really very little details ) and produces a very limited capital gains. You
have a steady CF but you are always on the edge if you need to expand or
innovate.

------
blaisio
I love these scooters! It's such a fun way to get around. There's a charger in
my building, so they always leave scooters right outside for me, ready to go
when I need them.

It's really an amazing experience. For a new user, it takes less than a minute
to get started. The first time, as an engineer, I just was shocked that it was
actually working so well!

I feel like it unlocks a whole new way to see the city for a lot of people.

The only thing that sucks is the battery only lasts about an hour, so it's not
great for tourists who want to go on tour for a long time. Presumably a better
battery would be more expensive and people would be more likely to steal it.

~~~
rashomon
It's better than City Bike which forces you to 30-minute sessions and to pre-
established locking stations.

~~~
CydeWeys
Citibike (in NYC) allows unlimited length checkouts, but simply starts
charging by the hour past a certain grace threshold. It's not a huge surcharge
either, roughly comparable to the amount that the electric scooters cost
starting from the first minute.

You sure that Ford Bike (or whatever it's called) I'd wny different?

------
ehead
Man, the gig economy is getting pretty surreal.

Wait until the food delivery guys get on electric longboards. YT from Snow
Crash might be a relatable character for my kids...

~~~
andrewmunsell
That isn't as unrealistic as you think, there's some people on Reddit posting
about working for Uber Eats with Boosted Boards in NYC, and I know of at least
one other that does it in SFO:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/boostedboards/comments/8jzokl/11_an...](https://www.reddit.com/r/boostedboards/comments/8jzokl/11_an_hour_delivering_with_v2_in_brooklyn_one/)

------
danso
> _“Charging scooters for Bird is like Pokémon Go, but when you get paid for
> finding Pokémon”_

A modern version of Rip Van Winkle would only have to be asleep for 2 months
to be just as clueless and out-of-touch as the original Van Winkle was when he
took a 20-year nap.

~~~
dcposch
Pokemon Go was two years ago

------
woolvalley
I love how you can see the original less-clickbait headlines of 'Who charges
those electric bird scooters?' in the title tag and 'charging-electric-
scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business' in the url.

~~~
danso
How do you know that the <title> tag contains the "original" headline? It
seems to be more tailored for SEO, i.e. to attract the people who wonder (and
then Google), "Who charges the electric scooters?"

~~~
Illniyar
Never thought about that. Do they really do different titles for different
entry points?

The webarchive supports that this has always been the title.

[https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.theatlantic.com/te...](https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charging-
electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business/560747/?single_page=true)

~~~
namdas
For a popular article that will earn a lot of links its also a good strategy
to change the title multiple times during its viral phase. Since many
people/cm systems link with the title tag it means you get a wider mix of
anchor text which can help the article to rank for a more diverse set of key
phrases

~~~
tedmiston
I've noticed New York Times does this too.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/nyt_diff](https://mobile.twitter.com/nyt_diff)

------
flashman
This reads like an in-universe article from a Cory Doctorow YA novel.

------
joosters
Bird talk about making transportation more environmentally friendly, yet it
turns out people are driving the scooters to and from their locations every
day... it wouldn't be surprising if the scooters are traveling more miles in
the back of a gas powered vehicle than they do each day in actual rides.

~~~
eriken
This is an awesome example of how tricky it is to innovate and regulate
towards cleaner environmental behaviour.

~~~
isostatic
Tax the fuel to cover the total externalities

~~~
gambiting
Going forward we'll have to figure out how to tax electricity used for
charging electric cars(probably special chargers that have a car-taxed
tariff).

~~~
isostatic
Why? Does electricity used by cars have more externalities than electricity
used by a washing machine?

~~~
gambiting
No, but at the moment(at least over here in UK) the tax on petrol and diesel
covers road building/maintenance for the entire country. With this tax slowly
disappearing, we will have to find another way to tax people who use the
roads, and the best way to do that is to tax the fuel they use as it's
directly proportional to their use.

Same reason why heating/farming oil doesn't have this tax, even though it's
technically just diesel and your diesel car would happily run on it. Yes, the
electricity used in your car is the same as the one used in your washing
machine, but it should be taxed more because of its use, exactly the same as
we do with oil already.

~~~
lambda
It seems to me that taxing something based on its use is a pretty much just a
way to set up exactly these kinds of loopholes that continually need plugging.

Instead of taxing gasoline to help fill in the road budget, why not tax
vehicles based on actual road usage, and their size and weight? Then you don't
have all of the "electric cars and bikes don't pay gas taxes" stupid debates.
An electric car uses just as much (if not more, due to weight) of the road as
a gasoline car, while a bicycle uses so much less (and pretty much equivalent
to any use of public space like walking, using a scooter, etc) that it makes
the most sense for that to just be accounted for out of the general fund.

You could do this based on odometer, or based on automatic toll collection
devices, or whatever. Automatic toll collection devices are probably better,
because you could also include congestion charges for places where roadway
real estate is low and congestion is high, like big cities.

The main reason to have taxes on something like fossil fuels would be for
emissions reasons, as there is an external cost being imposed on everyone else
by their emissions, and that money could go towards paying for health care
costs, providing tax breaks for HVAC systems with air purification, carbon
offsetting, and the like. But such a tax should be imposed regardless of use,
as any use is going to wind up with the same or similar emissions.

~~~
zrobotics
At least in most of the US (can't speak for all 50 states) vehicles are taxed
based on weight- a 1 ton pickup will cost more each year to register than a
compact car or motorcycle. And what is a better method to tax based on usage
than taxing fuel? Do you really want to have to log every mile driven, and
submit it to the IRS? Parent poster had a good point, in that this will need
to be examined in regards to EV usage of roads, but how much $ do you think it
would cost to have automatic toll collection points to cover the entire US
road network, and where are those billions/trillions going to come from?

And I would also like to point out that the main reason to tax fuel isn't to
cover emissions, it's to help pay for the incredibly expensive roads that we
all use (regardless of mode of transport). Sure, it is a good side effect that
inefficient vehicles are taxed higher than more efficient ones, but that is a
side effect, not the goal. Your proposed solution is far more complicated than
just metering EV charging separately and taxing a portion of it.

~~~
lambda
> At least in most of the US (can't speak for all 50 states) vehicles are
> taxed based on weight- a 1 ton pickup will cost more each year to register
> than a compact car or motorcycle

Registration fees and taxes are frequently based on weight; and tolls are
frequently based on number of axles.

But the relationship between weight or axles and fees is generally linear,
while the actual wear and tear on roads is quartic (to the power of 4) in the
weight per axle, times the number of axles. If taxes and fees were properly
proportional, there would be a much bigger difference in price between a
motorcycle and 1 ton pickup truck, let alone an 18 wheeler.

> Do you really want to have to log every mile driven, and submit it to the
> IRS?

You can use odometer readings that you collect at annual inspections. I
realize that not every state does this, but every state I have ever lived in
does; you have an annual vehicle safety and emissions inspection, and at that
point they can check your odometer too and include that in the calculation.

You could also use the current automated toll collection systems, which are
based on transponder or license plate for those who don't have transponders,
for highways and congestion charges for cities, if you want to be able to
charge different rates in different areas, and just subtract those numbers
from the odometer readings afterwards.

Metering EV charging separately does't really solve the problem. Gas taxes are
not in proportion to actual maintenance costs of the roads, and are currently
a fixed amount, not tied to the price of gas or inflation, so they don't cover
the full costs. If you just applied the same kinds of laws to EV charging,
you'd be left with the same kinds of problems.

By not charging proportional to road wear and tear, there is an effective
subsidy of those who drive larger vehicles, and in particular commercial cargo
transport on the highways, by those who drive smaller vehicles. If you were to
change the way vehicles were taxed, the larger vehicles would pay more of the
burden, which would mean they might switch to alternatives like train
transport, or moving production closer to consumption, or the like.

A similar problem exists in cities and on busy highways used by commuters,
where congestion is a substantial externality. There it's the square footage
of vehicle footprint that makes the biggest difference.

~~~
isostatic
> where congestion is a substantial externality

It is, however if you tax people based on congestion they cause, shouldn't you
refund them based on congestion they receive?

------
bschwindHN
Wouldn't it make more sense to make the batteries replaceable? Just have them
locked in place until a "charger" person authenticates through the app, then
allow them to swap in a fresh one. At that point transport would be reduced to
just moving the batteries around instead of the whole scooter. They could
still be charged at home.

People might steal them but the article already mentions that some people
steal them already.

~~~
aembleton
It would but that would require custom designed scooters. These are Xiaomi
M365 with some additional electronics -
[https://www.gearbest.com/skateboard/pp_596618.html](https://www.gearbest.com/skateboard/pp_596618.html)

~~~
bschwindHN
Ohhh, that explains it! I wonder if they'll have to switch to that kind of
charging system in the future, this current model doesn't seem all that
economical.

------
themagician
It will disappear just as fast as it arrived. Maybe one will survive. Just
like Sprig, Spoonrocket, Maple, Eatclub, etc and the legion of instant food
delivery services came and went, this too will pass.

~~~
trixie_
Really? What will replace it? In the LA beach cities it is super useful.

~~~
ghaff
The LA beach cities seem a good environment for them. I'm skeptical how
successful they'll be more broadly especially to the degree cities get more
aggressive about keeping riders off sidewalks. It's not a big problem in less
crowded areas and a relatively small number of users but it's a problem with
more riders and more crowded areas.

------
mkbkn
Meanwhile, Ather Energy, an electric scooter startup based in Bangalore, India
is launching charging stations across the city and it'd be free to use for the
next six months (for any type of electric vehicle).

[https://blog.atherenergy.com/ev-adoption-made-easy-with-
athe...](https://blog.atherenergy.com/ev-adoption-made-easy-with-athergrid-
ebca4c22b869)

------
dalbasal
Dunno about the way charging works, at least long term. Scooter sharing
through, that's kind of promising.

Beijing (and other cities) have proven that bike sharing can become a major
transport type if the city will allow bike sharing companies to just dump
bikes all over the sidewalk. It's crude, but it at least let's us see how far
bike sharing can go if/when stations are a non-problem.

Besides the mess (I could not imagine buttoned down European city like Vienna
or even a messy one like Amsterdam allowing it), there's a problem of space.
Scooters are space saving.

In my ideal world, there are "public" scooter stations that can be used by any
bike sharing enterprise. These provide efficient, space saving storage and
power. With the same footprint we currently use for city bikes, we could
probably store 2X-4X as many scooters. One parking space could be converted
into a unit. Scooters everywhere!

~~~
apexalpha
>I could not imagine buttoned down European city like Vienna or even a messy
one like Amsterdam allowing it)

I don't really see benefit over a bike. Except that bikes don't require
charging.

~~~
rkangel
The main one would be that you are a pedestrian rather than a road user.
People who take bikes along sidewalks and footpaths are a hazard but a scooter
is less of an issue.

Also, less skill to ride and less risk.

~~~
mschuetz
These electric scooters travel at speeds that exceed that of an average
cyclist. They are not pedestrian friendly and they have no place on sidewalks.
Usually you see them only on roads, bike paths or shared spaces where cars and
pedestrians are both allowed, though. At least in vienna.

------
exDM69
I sure hope they have safe chargers. Cheap chinese scooter and balance board
chargers and batteries are a major cause of house fires, at least here in
Europe (import regulations may affect this).

------
jondumbau
how can they possibly allow strangers _with no background check_ to plug in
scooters.

~~~
F_r_k
What could they do wrong ? Plug it backwards ?

~~~
caf
Poe's Law.

------
guessmyname
I wonder if the company is asking these teens, during the registration as
contractors, if they have permission from their parents to charge all those
scooters at home. I can imagine several parents getting angry for excessive
increments in the electricity bills every month without having a clue about
their children's "business". Of course, many of them will probably find the
scooters in the garage in a regular morning walk around the house, but then…

\- Do they [the parents] get a percentage of that money to pay for the bills?

\- Is it even legal for these independent contractors to use home electricity
to charge a 3rd-party business asset?

\- Are damages to the house, in case of a fire, covered by their contracts?

\- If the scooters are out of battery, how do these companies know where they
are?

\- Can these teenagers hold the scooters "hostage"?

\- Can they charge extra money for dropping the scooters to places with some
people can find it more convenient? Say, if I want to find one of them right
in front of my house every morning, I would pay one of these teenagers some
extra money for the arrangement.

\- Are these houses in risk of over-charging their electricity net?

I have so many questions about all this, it seems so weird to me.

~~~
Illniyar
The article says that electricity cost for charging scooters is practically
nothing. If we believe it or assume that electricity cost is trivial compared
to the payment, then I don't see any parent that'll say no to their nearly-
adult children making money on the side by such an activity.

At worst they'll ask for compensation.

~~~
josefresco
* The article says that electricity cost for charging scooters is practically nothing.*

The article actually qualifies that for people in large apartment buildings
with a "bike room" \- so essentially these people are freeloading.

 _Charging a Bird doesn’t require a ton of electricity, so minus the labor
cost, charging a few scooters overnight is essentially free—especially if you
live in a large apartment building and can do so in your bike room_

------
zhoujianfu
The video of the guy piling six birds on one and riding away is
pricelesssssss!

~~~
theNJR
I see this all the time biking around Santa Monica / Venice.

------
charleyma
I signed up to be a Bird charger in SF and it's been quite difficult to find
scooters to charge. All the scooters go offline at 9pm to be charged and then
have to be dropped off by 7am the next morning in order to get paid. I've
encountered a ton of issues trying to find more "valuable" scooters as they
tend to appear to be in unsafe areas that I don't necessarily want to be at
night (most of the high value scooters tend to be in the tenderloin and I'm
guessing have already been broken down, I can usually tell if it's not there
due to the last known location being a few days ago)

I've started to view the expensive Birds as a way for the company to have
people try and find their lost scooters, in which case $25 is a pretty great
deal...

------
jpao79
I'm surprise they haven't tried old school kick powered scooters with an
additional electronic GPS unit:

[http://goped.com/know-ped/](http://goped.com/know-ped/)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtn5kg3ZH3M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtn5kg3ZH3M)

Or something like this: Micro
PedalFlow[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfIzZo6ouDo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfIzZo6ouDo)

It would reduce the speed concerns too.

~~~
icebraining
The speed might be a concern, but it's a selling point too. As is the lack of
effort. Plus there's a goofiness value in kick-scooting.

------
lifeisstillgood
Do the economics stack up?

"""Bird pays Brandon, a contract worker, up to several hundred dollars a
night. On one particularly successful night, Brandon brought home $600."""

The article does not have many specifics but roughly Brandon seems to get 10
or so scooters on each trip, two trips a night(?). so that's something between
10 bucks and 30 bucks per charged scooter cost to Bird. Even if it's just 10
bucks that becomes the cost of the bike every quarter or so - that kind of
opex must be killing them?

~~~
zootam
Lot of decent discussion and more info here:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/8l12oj/electric...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/8l12oj/electric..).

------
hiharryhere
This sounds like something out of BladeRunner. Scavengers pulling scooters out
of the trash on the fringes of town, fighting off other scavengers and thieves
to collect their bounty.

------
anfilt
Out of control? Does not seem like it.

------
kaptain
Reminds me of bike sharing in China. Now THAT is out of control. In China, the
companies pay committed employees or contractors to gather bikes, as opposed
to crowd-sourcing it. There's pros//cons to that (as per the article itself).

At least in China, people don't respect the bikes. They trash them. They leave
them everywhere. It sounds like a similar attitude exists with these Bird
scooters. As societies/cities grow larger, people take less responsibility for
things they use and spaces they exist in. I suspect it's partly a cultural
thing (see Japan) but I'm pretty sure Japan has litter too. Bird has to
incentivize the right behavior and disincentivize (i.e. even enforcement of
charging policy) poor behavior.

~~~
HillaryBriss
so, did Bird (and other scooter companies) simply copy their business model
from existing business models which had already been pioneered in China?

------
zhdc1
The idea itself sounds ok, but the article reads like a paid placement.

------
seongboii
I saw these for the first time during my trip in SF and it just seemed crazy
from first bat; maybe i'm missing something

------
angel_j
Why don't they use removable batteries?

~~~
jpao79
Seriously this would be the way to go. As part of membership they send you a
small juice pack style battery which you manage the charging of and insert as
needed.

[http://www.mophie.com](http://www.mophie.com)

------
ponderatul
Why don't you just buy the damn thing ?

~~~
kinos
I owned an electric scooter a few months ago. It lasted only about two months
before I put too much weight on the handlebars and permanently damaged the hub
motor.

This was probably inevitably going to happen as the hub motor is constantly in
direct contact with the ground, which means that a bad impact can dislodge a
magnet.

I wanted to fix it myself, and the cost of the part would have had been almost
the same price as just scrapping the scooter and buying a new one.
Additionally, I had trouble going beyond about 5 miles, with the lights off
and with conservative battery use, before running out of power.

------
hmd_imputer
one of the advantages of living in the US. Nowhere in the world can a high
school student earn 600$ a night by doing a simple, effortless side-activity.
Even in countries like Germany max you can earn as a student would be less
than a 1000$ per month.

~~~
Cthulhu_
You're not thinking creatively enough. Bitcoin trading, prostitution, that
kinda thing. It's only a matter of time before highly VC-funded companies
become more of a presence in Europe.

~~~
hmd_imputer
care to elaborate?

------
asdkjanskd
nice

------
Illniyar
Doesn't seem at all out of control. Seems like an awesome idea and the process
needs to be refined to dissuade bad behavior. Considering the company was
founded about a year ago is probably a lot of room for improvements and
innovation (and angering your contractors in the process).

~~~
piokoch
Is it legal in US to use electricity at home for business purposes? In some
countries that's against contract with electricity provider, as they have
different tariffs for business.

~~~
hmd_imputer
the lack of strict regulations is one of the reasons start-up businesses
flourish in the US. Although I am pro-regulation in some issues, I think that
European style pain-in-the-ass regulations only hinder technological
advancement. Would UBER ever be successful in Europe? Nope.

~~~
shp0ngle
...uber _is_ successful in Europe. There are cities that banned it, but there
are as many that didn't.

Conversely, Uber is not very successful in South-East Asia, but not for the
abundance of regulation but for the lack of it - Grab, a local copy-paste of
Uber, has become so dominant that Uber had to leave most of the markets there

~~~
hmd_imputer
yeap, the ones who didn't ban are the ones who didn't apply all these useless
strict regulations.

In Germany, it is still not possible to take an Uber ride, for example.
Besides, if it started in Europe as a small start-up it would be killed right
away with tons of regulations anyways. So the only reason that you have Uber
in Europe is that it has become a giant company in the US, due fertile
environment, and thus could afford all these legal battles to enter the
market.

South-East Asia is a different story. It has nothing to do with regulations at
all. It is just a completely different mindset there. The fact is though,
businesses in those countries can easily flourish as well.

~~~
131012
And they make a lot of direct lobbying toward local government to make sure
they don't enforce existing taxi laws.

~~~
hmd_imputer
which they should, don't you think? sometimes being disruptive is the only way
to go.

~~~
s73v3r_
No, because they're just trying to get an exemption for themselves. If they
were advocating for a change for all, that'd be better.

~~~
hmd_imputer
you cannot advocate for a change for all if you are the only company in that
field. Uber was literally a revolution of transportation. However, as a side
effect, the changes you advocate sets a precedence, thus also affects
everyone, which was the case in the US. There were a few other companies who
also benefited from the changes, such as Lift.

~~~
s73v3r_
"you cannot advocate for a change for all if you are the only company in that
field."

But they're not. They're a taxi company. There are tons of those around.

------
microcolonel
Out of control? Seems pretty cool that there's a company offering young people
a rewarding, competitive, and productive after school activity.

~~~
stef25
Wait until they get unionized

~~~
dsego
Never cross a picket line.

------
OrganicMSG
People are providing a useful service and getting paid, the madness, the
madness!

