>Why so much hype over electric scooters? Western people did no adopt gas scooters.

Who are these "Western people" you refer to? Here in my part of Western Europe (and many others) gas scooters are everywhere and have been for decades...

Not to mention there are places with much more bicycles than the US (even despite the weather, like in the Netherlands).

In Europe electric bicycles limited to 25km/h. Electric scooters going 45km/h are a good alternative with similar versatility. Both bicycles and scooters are much more space efficient than cars and great for moving quickly inside a city (European cities are much denser than America's Suburbia). So it's useful for the user of the scooter because they can move faster, and better for everyone else because you can fit more of them on a street than the same people in cars.

I'm not sure how electric scooters are inferior, the solve a lot of pain points of gas scooters. They can have much better acceleration and start much more reliably. Range isn't a big issue because you wouldn't want to take a trip longer than an hour or so with a scooter anyways.

Western people ain't Americans only. European prospects for electric scooters adoption are not that bad.

We just got a city-wide deployment of easily rentable scooters here in Vienna. They're immensely popular!

And the user experience is great .. open the app, find a scooter, walk to it (Viennese people walk.), rent it with the App, hop on and ride away .. park it where you want, finish the rental, voila .. easy, fun, smart access to an efficient transportation system.

People want these services. Its happening.

Have you ever tried one? They are amazing in so many ways. Silent, compact and environmentally friendly.

They are everywhere here in Malta and it is reducing traffic congestion very noticeably.