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)

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 the middle of a pedestrian walkway. Even if the user parks them correctly, they get knocked over or blow over into the walkway. This product is broken until these companies do what Jump did, and INTEGRATE A LOCK INTO THE PRODUCT, and make users lock it to something at the end of their ride. This almost entirely eliminates the problem of blocking a walkway, and also reduces the loss of product to theft, accidental damage, etc.

Since they're required by law in California, I'd also like helmets to be integrated into the locking mechanism, but that's a nice-to-have.

E-scooter companies: Build locks into your products. It fixes many of your problems.

What you're seeing is car companies trying to transition to "mobility" companies -- the difference being the former is a manufacturing company with 3% margins and the latter being a services company with much fatter margins.

Autonomous car fleets are the main "mobility services" prize of course -- all the major OEMs have autonomous research labs -- but you're seeing more interest in scooters and bikes (there was a headline about GM releasing an e-bike last week).

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 pose on flat (or downhill) terrain, but I can't imagine them really taking hold in the same way in hilly cities.

Am I the only one who wants to see more seated scooter innovation? I would much prefer riding one of these self-balancing scooters/microcycles to the standing scooters that everyone is using.

1. http://rynomotors.com (launches April 16, 2019)

2. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/newest-fat-tyre-elect...

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZk9zn82-g

I just wanted to point out that Hyundai Motor demoed a electric scooter as an accessory for the Ioniq line in Jan 2017 at CES.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/pictures/hyundais-ioniq-scoote...

And BIRD was founded in Apr 2017.

Some staff PM/engr/marketer folks at Hyundai Motor had the right idea. Too bad they were not in a position to start a startup.

edit: I'm not saying BIRD or any other copied Hyundai. Coming up with the idea and executing it is a big accomplishment. Electric motor scooters have been around a long time too.

These e-scooters could be a really great way for many cities to decrease short-haul car dependency, but they really need to be off the sidewalks.

A motor-propelled machine going 15 mph doesn't belong on the same surface as a baby stroller, a senior citizen, or a person with a disability.

They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic.

These scooters aren't suppose to replace lyft or bart or muni. They're suppose to let you get from 24th mission to 16th mission with minimum context switching & waiting. This translates less well to manhattan but would (if theft weren't a problem) to Brooklyn, most 2nd tier cities in the U.S., and college campuses. I think it's a good investment.

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 hypergrowth, they'd be less of a menace. I can see the boon for commuters on the last mile, but when I weight that against how they endanger children, encourage illegal usage of sidewalks, ruin pedestrian experiences, and don't provide helmets - I think the industry is in need of a reckoning.

They also totally wrecked the coastal street/"boardwalk" in San Diego. As a pedestrian, you're constantly looking over your shoulder for drunk idiots on scooters.

Are any of these electric scooters worthwhile for hilly commutes?

I live about a mile from the closest train stop, and currently I walk to and from because the entire way is steep coming back, at 10% grade.

My gut tells me a scooter would need to be unreasonably powerful to work in this area.

First Chariot and now Spin (also investments and partnerships with Lyft and Zoom Car in India). Seems like Ford is betting on a future where they see people rejecting the idea of owning a car and where car companies are just mobility providers.

I’ve recently visited Santa Cruz, where I rode my first jump bike. I had an absolute blast with it, raved about it to friends non-stop for weeks. More recently, I experienced my first Bird scooter (and Lime) in Indianapolis. I did many fun things there so I didn’t expect that these silly scooters to be the highlight of the trip, but they were.

Aside from being an insanely fun and effective way to get around a city, my favorite thing about them stems from my hatred of cars. I own a car. But selfishly only like cars when its _my_ car and _I_ am driving it. Other than that, I think they’re dangerous, loud, expensive, terrible for the environment, and far too plentiful in crowded city streets. They crash and congest roads shared with public transit, wreaking havoc daily commutes, oh and they frequently murder the more tender specimens on the road.

I get disappointed when I see people complaining about these scooters and bikes “cluttering up the walkways” and pedestrians having “dangerous encounters”. I will admit it I saw a fair number of scooters that had fallen over on walkways. It really didn’t faze me. Walk around it. Step over it. Pick it up if you’re in a great mood. Maybe society needs time to adjust and develop more etiquette. It could be handled better, but to call this an immediate “problem” is just wrong— And what are the stats on scooter vs. pedestrian fatalities?

This debate reminds me of the hiker vs. equestrian vs. mountain biker tension. We all want to use the same trails and it’s a bit contentious. Hikers feel threatened by the fast moving bikers. Bikers are inconvenienced by people walking slowly on the trails. The horses are just taking 6LB dumps all over the path for everyone else to step in and ride through. They all try to lobby and ban one another from using the trails. Nobody seems to care about anything they aren’t partaking in.

In the end, people should be open to alternative forms of transportation that are effective regardless of whether they utilize it. I think these bike and scooter shares represent a massive objective improvement over cars, and even public transit. It might take some time for etiquette and city planning to catch up, but we need to check the hall monitor mentality and give it time, for the greater good.

Interesting scheme. You corner a scarce resource and then sell it. I wonder what new permit schemes we’re going to see and how we can capitalize on this.

I talked to a self-driving PM recently and he said that self-driving cars are a extremely expensive and complex way to reduce cost per mile urban transit/taxis and admitted scooters might be a much cheaper way to accomplish the same thing.

Would be really nice to see F turn around: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/f?ltr=1

Congrats to the Spin team!

Can someone explain the valuation on these scooter companies?

How does the investment in Spin compare to the one in Argo AI? Are electric scooters hotter than self-driving cars?

Perhaps we need a self-driving scooter?

I am enjoying all of the comments here. I was lucky enough to study traffic-as-density-waves in younger days, and I think the future will be very positive. For this particular argument, I think the common themes to solve are lack of infrastructure, and the resulting safety hazards from casual users:

The setbacks: The infrastructure currently does not support the reality of the populous renting scooters (and bikes and mopeds). City planning was not developed around the recent technological availability of motorized personal transportation. Humans are irresponsible, and will leave scooters in disruptive locations. Humans are reckless, and a large portion won't abide by the established traffic safety. This "last-mile" transportation movement is a result of public transportation being a poor experience: slow-moving, dirty, congested, mismanaged.

Positive thoughts: "last-mile" transportation is highly effective if it could be implemented properly. Proper implementation would require responsible user behavior and infrastructure compatibility.

An anecdote: The company Scoot, at least in SF, gave access to moped-like vehicles for casual commute. Great idea. Give people the ability to personally navigate dense populations without vehicle ownership.

The problem: driving a personal motorized vehicle in dense large-vehicle traffic is a major responsibility. For instance, riding a motorcycle is extremely dangerous, and the vast majority of motorcycle riders take their safety incredibly seriously. They vehemently abide by traffic laws because small mistakes can lead to major physical consequences.

Scoot riders have unilaterally behaved like inexperienced idiots in traffic. Running lights, making last minute decisions, and ignoring speed of traffic sensibility The casual nature of that commute style leads people to behave like they are on bicycles, when they are riding around already-frustrated car and truck drivers.

The same me-first attitude was clearly visible when scooters were widely available. Even with city permits, people are still selfish.

Solutions:

There are conscious decisions to make city-wide improvements in efficient transportation. Mass transit combined with low-impact personal vehicles would be a utopia. But no large city was designed with that reality in mind, and the "disruptive" companies that make these technologies accessible, often with the "ask-for-forgiveness" mantra, are very disruptive to both the pedestrian reality and the detriment of too many cars.

Tl:dr, people are selfish and reckless, and even smart and available technologies will be abused unless infrastructure is designed to handle human habits.

Nice one @newy, congratulations!

>They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place)

the problem is the existence of bike lanes. If public officials start saying "scooters belong in the bike lane", then they have to confront the fact that their cities have no cohesive network of bike lanes that can actually support a real journey. This has been acceptable up until now, because cyclists are weird and it's okay to tell them to just ride in amongst trucks travelling 40mph when a bike lane abruptly ends. But e-scooters are for "normal people" who aren't as content with being told to go play in traffic.

"Scoot" is where it's at anyway.

Sidewalks being too narrow is an issue of prioritization. Cities have optimized for car traffic in many locations, and everyone else has to take the sliver of concrete they were graciously given next to the cars with one or two people in them each. You may think, but we can't make it wider else the cars don't fit. Absolutely. So don't let them there at all. Flank every block with a walking/slow bicycle/scooter/board plaza. City centers are for people doing things, so we should prioritize foot traffic, because if you are in a car you are merely coming to or moving through the city. You are not the primary use case of the city center. It evolved this way over time but that doesn't mean it was the right choice to let cars flow through city centers, and we can change it back.

I think a better, albeit more difficult and expensive solution, would be to implement space for scooters and things like them. In the US we only have two spaces: the sidewalk and the street. Adding a third space for bikes, scooters, and other small personal vehicles would go a long way to promote safety and efficiency.

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...

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.

Bike lanes in the US are incredibly unsafe for bikers and scooters, and accidents easily result in death of the biker/scooter.

Scooters and pedestrians sharing a sidewalk is also unsafe, but accidents are far less lethal.

The problem is that bikes/scooters are adding a third distinct speed fundamentally incompatible with the existing two, and that takes up a lot of space costs a lot of allocative inefficiencies (what if there are lots of cars and pedestrians, but no bikes/scooters at this moment?). There's no easily solution but if we're going to ask scooters to share space, at least choose the one that is less fatal, as annoying at it is for pedestrians.

The fact that infrastructure lags behind scooter reality can be solved either by (1) upgrading infrastructure or (2) banning scooters.

I hope for (1) but expect (2).

Easy, allow scotters to park on the street like cars, problem solved for everyone.

Scooters seem unnecessary in densely populated cities. Most high-density areas have good public transport within a few minutes walk of your destination, and the footpaths are too busy to ride a scooter on anyway.

They are much more useful in medium-density cities and suburbs where the roads and footpaths are less busy and public transport is not as effective.

I love using my scooter for commuting and errands in my low-density city, but I can't imagine riding it through a busy CBD - not on the road or the footpath. And yet that seems to be where most of these scooter rental companies are deploying. It seems crazy.

Agreed 100% on the sidewalk-riding. The other day I was outside a restaurant waiting for a table. I moved back one step to let some people by and felt something brush my coat. It was some idiot riding one of those powered rental scooters downhill. 15 MPH at least, and given that it was downhill, maybe more. Two steps back and I would have been in the emergency room.

No, I don't think this is a transition.

What we're likely seeing is M&A people caught up in the hype and trends.

In some ways, it's worth spending some amount as a hedge against something happening, but I don't believe these scooters will represent any meaningful change ... personally I think they are kind of a fad.

The logistics, cost, narrow use cases of all of it just don't work out well enough. Truly - what % of people could actually commute using these things? It's very small. Of those, who would actually do it? In winter? Up and down hills? Are they a little bit too old for this, or maybe not so open minded? Are there status issues, i.e. if you are a 'serious professional' in many industries it just doesn't bode well to be bouncing around on a scooter (I know this might seem foreign maybe to HN readers but this is a thing). And then of course - if it was useful for commuting, why wouldn't people just end up buying one so they always have it when needed? I think the use cases for these scooters is very narrow.

While I agree the general attitude of 'moving beyond traditional cars' is a strategic impetus, and it makes a lot of sense to 'participate' in these things early on ... I don't think this is a secular shift. Not yet anyhow.

America is a very spread out place - even LA.

And we're only just starting to see the regulatory and populist backlash.

There's no reason to think that future margins for mobility services will be any higher. With few barriers to entry, margins will be driven down close to 0%.

You probably got one with low battery. It's not possible to "overpower" them as you suggest because they have a governor that limits the top speed.

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.

excitingly, when I read the Bird terms of service (while they were still allowed in SF), they stipulated that you could not ride their scooters down hills. The scooter struggled to go up a (not particularly steep) hill, and I was breaking the rules going back down. I only rode the scooter the one time, after that, I just walked the two blocks to Judah to ride transit.

You can increase power or at least torque while limiting top speed, especially since I think it's an electric throttle. Maybe they can tune the throttle mapping

A "hill climbing governor" should be a trivial addition for any scooter manufacturer.

The Jump bikes do great on hills.

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 movement

4. Never pass closely to a person. When passing, go their walking speed + 1mph. It should be a similar speed differential to passing someone when you're walking.

5. If you have no space to pass, you need to go walking speed until space opens up.

6. if the sidewalk is too packed, just get off and walk it.

7. If you have far visibility (no blind corners, doorways, storefronts, etc) and there is no one in sight, let'er rip.

It all depends on the conditions. You should never blow by people at 15 mph. I commuted partly on 5th street in downtown Los Angeles and never had an issue, a close call, or had someone bat an eye. The goal is to blend in with other people walking.

> They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic

These are great ideas. Write them into your representatives. Designated street-side scooter parking would also be a plus. Not only does it signal to drivers "consider another option," it also deals with the scooter litter problem.

(To form, San Francisco chose the worst of all options and coronated two companies chosen by bureaucrats to run amok in the city.)

I disagree. Bike lanes are extremely dangerous for cyclists and the current implementation of bike lanes in this country are really just big automobile lanes.

It puts all the risk on the cyclist. I have had numerous friends get hit and run while riding bikes on bike lanes, most recently a friend died from it.

I'll happily receive any citations for riding my bike or e-scooter on the sidewalk, and take full responsibility for any accidents I get into. It's not even up for discussion in my mind.

In the UK: > In 2015, two pedestrians were killed and 96 seriously injured after being hit by a bicycle. But every year more than 100 cyclists are killed and more than 3,000 seriously injured on British roads

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cycle-safety...

> They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place)

A bike lane really isn't safe enough to get people on bikes and scooters into it. It needs to be a separated cycle track like what is common in Copenhagen. This takes more space, but increases capacity of the whole road (the cycle track has more capacity than the driving lane it takes away).

There are a zillion other benefits too - more active/healthier population, higher retail spending along the cycle track (https://its.ucdavis.edu/inthenews/the-complete-business-case...), higher property values, only taking 30lbs of metal with you on every trip instead of 2000lbs, potentially local fuel source (food from nearby rather than oil or electricity from afar), etc etc etc.

In my city, we have a small conundrum. The scooters move more like bikes than walkers, but the language on our bike trail system explicitly forbids any "motorized vehicles". Of course, reasonable people could argue that such a law can be ignored, but I know I'm risking a ticket if an officer so chooses.

Also, bicyclists seem to seriously hate the scooters. I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems to be that they're just not used to having much traffic on "their" paths.

i'll reiterate my favored solution (for urban areas): turn parking lanes into protected bike/scooter lanes. that solves the safety problem both ways (cars on one side and pedestrians on the other).

until then i'm fine with scooters being encouraged (but not forced) to use less busy roads, and tolerating them on sidewalks for major roads without bike lanes.

Another perspective, from a skateboarder: In New York skateboarders are banned from sidewalks and have to skate in traffic. I've got a solid push and hold my own among bikes and cars but, regardless, get all kinds of flack from drivers. When I take the to sidewalk due to dangerous road conditions pedestrians are simply far too unpredictable, scared, and oblivious to permit me on board so I reluctantly walk. You know who I never see walking when they're on the sidewalk? Scooter riders, electronic and otherwise.

> They belong in the bike lane (which should exist in the first place), and their speed should be capped in areas of dense foot traffic.

I live downtown Minneapolis and have been almost hit by scooters multiple times. They are everywhere. I have no problem with them, but please follow the rules. I've had people on the scooters yell at me to get out of the way both oncoming and from behind.

In Dallas (and elsewhere I imagine) we're supposed to use them on the street, and most people have been learning this. First time I rode one on the sidewalk I barely got down one block before people in cars were telling me to get off the sidewalk. Once on the street I had no trouble sharing the road with other cars, though this was downtown where the speed limit is lower. The scooters seem to have been a little more warmly accepted than the bikes, where parked bikes which take up more space were clogging up sidewalks.

This summer when I was in San Diego for a half marathon I was standing on the sidewalk waiting when out of nowhere a scooter rider was crossing the street, hit the sidewalk curb, which was higher than they expected, and endo'ed right next to me. It was almost like the latest South Park episode. The scooters can be tricky to ride for new people, are fast, and really should only be used while wearing a helmet.

I agree it's an issue but I propose the opposite solution, meaning side-walk devices should go at max 10 mph.

Talking about such, is there any data on accidents caused by e-scooters? (percentage wise e.g. vs bikes)

I think it does depend on the city though. I'm really excited to try these out next time I'm in Charlotte or Raleigh. The sidewalk network in those places tends to be pretty lacking in the first place, and as a result, there are only a few spots with anything close to dense foot traffic on sidewalks. It's also usually a pretty long walk to anywhere due to everything being built at car-scale. If anything, I'm hopeful that the adoption of these may pave the way to a better side-walked future in cities like those.

They are parked so haphazardly as well. Years long fight for the physically changed to have any mobility is being undone by these scooters blocking the sidewalks. I can walk around them but what will a person in a wheelchair do? The feature that makes them the most convenient and why people use this over bikesharing is the fact that they can be dropped of anywhere and that's exactly what the major problem with it as well.

They just appeared seemingly overnight here recently. They seem quite popular, but aren't really practical on rainy days. Will see what happens when winter really hits. I can't imagine many people preferring them to a car on a snowy, slushy day or with temps below freezing. Also wondering how they'll handle salt exposure, and how the cold will affect battery life.

I'm not sure if I agree with the bike lane point (versus street anyway), but I will say that after visiting SF for the first time a few weeks ago one of the first things I noticed about downtown was the number of scooters and scooter/motorbike parking everywhere.

You don't see much of anywhere near that much around Toronto.

I agree with your comment, but this is the law already.

I'm strongly in favour of more scooters/e-bikes in the city (and fewer cars), and I'm also strongly in favour of writing tickets for anyone who is antisocial enough to ride on the sidewalk.

If traffic cops spent a week or two rigorously enforcing the law, I bet you'd see a sharp drop-off in this behaviour.

(However given the number of cars, including cop cars, that I see blocking intersections after the lights change, I'm not sure that there's really a commitment to enforcing traffic laws in SF, even where this would be a revenue-generating activity).

For them to be off the sidewalks we need normal bike/scooter lanes. I do cycling and LA for example is pretty bad with bike lanes... sad!

I understand your frustration, but that’s a remarkably similar response that people had to automobiles first being introduced. Not to imply you’re a Luddite clinging to your horse drawn carriages or anything. Just that these concerns aren’t new.

The unfortunate reality is that nothing has solved the last mile problem for public transportation as well as these scooters have.

Say you want to go to the store two miles away and don’t have a car. What are your options? Walk for an hour round trip, take a slow bus if you’re lucky enough to have both where you are and where you’re going on a bus route, or overpay for an uber/lyft/taxi, which due to their cost structure are generally less cost effective for shorter trips.

I agree the safety issues are of concern, but there’s really no better solution currently to that problem, which has been the hardest problem to solve since the advent of public transportation.

> And I thought to myself, some kid is going to die.

Traffic fatalities from cars are already one of the top causes of death for kids and young adults, but has that made us in the states invest more in other, safer forms of transportation? Lol, no.

If you're not riding around on dangerous wheeled objects as a kid, you're doing it wrong. Worry about the adults.

Google: auto vehicle deaths per DAY

You have to be 18 years old with a driver's license to ride Bird scooters.

counterpoint: https://www.google.com/search?q=motor+vehicle+deaths

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18408037 and marked it off-topic.

Cyclists vs. drivers is one of the most repetitive flamewar topics we see.

> because cyclists are weird and it's okay to tell them to just ride in amongst trucks travelling 40mph when a bike lane abruptly ends

No, they are not weird! They do it because that's the only way to ride a bike in most of todays cities. Weird are general the car drivers who get upset every time they see a bike, and can't wait to overtake them with far less than a minimal safety distance.

> cyclists are weird ... e-scooters are for "normal people"

Could you please elaborate on this? Why do you think so (or why do you think that is a widely held belief)?

If anything I would have thought that it was the opposite.

As a cyclist this is well said. I’ve learned to accept it but try to avoid it. My wife (not a cyclist) wouldn’t dare right one in traffic.

> 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, blasting through crosswalks inbetween pedestrians.

I mean yea, don't give them bikelanes, this is what happens, they feel scorned or something and start breaking the law.