Lyft is ceasing scooter operations in six cities and laying off 20 employees | Hacker News Reader

Lyft is ceasing scooter operations in six cities and laying off 20 employees

techcrunch.com

83 pointslxm30 comments

It makes sense and I'm actually surprised more micromobility providers haven't pulled out of less-profitable markets already. There's so much competition in the space because the barrier to entry is quite low, leading to unit economics only making sense if a city is both 1) friendly to scooters in terms of regulations, and 2) an ideal use case for scooters in terms of density, weather, and demographics.

It will also get worse if gig economy workers get classified as employees in more markets since chargers might fall under that category, bumping up the operating costs quite a bit.

Lyft and Uber bought the scooters and bikes to kill them.

They’re almost as good as driverless taxis. The only occupant of a bike or scooter is the passenger. Obviously they’re not the same thing technologically but when a passenger chooses a scooter or bike there is no driver to pay, so it’s economically very similar.

Jump could get you anywhere in the city, it outcompeted rideshare. Uber literally doubled the price and stopped maintaining the fleet, it is in their interest to kill it. Lyft scooters like all scooters have an intense enemy action (vandalism) problem so I’m less confident it’s an embrace-extend-extinguish play. But how else could you rationalize wrecking a platform cheaper, more efficient and more convenient than cars that eliminates the driver?

Drivers are not at all competitive with micro mobility.

Strongly agree... I see they are pulling out of PHX.

With Lyft scooters everywhere in Scottsdale Old Town where’d the’ day launched this past spring, I was consistently able to get door to door from hotel to stores within ~2-3 miles in half the time on scooters vs. the latency of waiting for a car to show up.

Since the area is one giant strip mall, most trips I had finished my errand and come back on scooter before an Uber or Lyft would have ‘completed prior ride’ and eventually found its badly navigated Waze to me.

Local press reports how visitors love the scooters, locals (with cars) hated seeing them everywhere:

”Electric scooters aim to solve the last-mile problem—those gaps between public-transit stops and a person’s final destination. Some locals consider them a nuisance, but for travelers, they offer a new sense of possibility.”

https://apple.news/Arr73LXB6RK-ECfAnzZixSw

>Jump could get you anywhere in the city, it outcompeted rideshare.

Assuming you're talking about San Francisco, the city limited the number of Jump bikes available: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/01/ubers-jump-bike-fleet-may-...

This may have affected Uber's strategy here.

I rode all sorts of scooters in San Diego (That city is just filled to the brim with scooters). Lyft’s were the best by far. Easy to use app (already use it for car rides everywhere else) and the best hardware, those scooters are by far the fastest and smoothest compared to lime and bird.

I'm a big fan of micromobility but I see scooters and the eletrics being better to own than to rent. They're much smaller than a bike, and can be carried on a bus to handle the last 1-5 miles between a bus stop and the destination in urban areas.

There are definitely advantages to both. Sometimes I don't want to lock up a scooter outside where I'm going or have to bring it in. Maybe you're trying to get home from somewhere you didn't scoot to (or go somewhere you aren't coming directly back from).

I wonder if anyone sells the decals so you could hide it in plain site

That's all well and good until one of the chargers grabs you scooter to take it and charge it. Now your scooter has been recharged and placed on a random street corner.

So you're saying we need decals for a scooter rental company that could plausibly exist but doesn't.

Counterpoint, I'd much rather rent than own. I don't have to worry about charging it, dragging it inside (and associated street scum), maintenance, battery lifetimes.

To paraphrase Eazy-E, "throw it in the gutter and go buy another" is the best route. Walk down the street and pick one of the dozens of scooters on the sidewalk.

The problem is that at current costs, you would have to pay close to $8 per ride for renting to break even for firms. And at that point you might as well get a lyft/uber.

And it's pretty worry free, just plug it in when you're not using it and stick it next to your desk or front door or something. They're not very big, and only the small wheels really get dirty, so it's really quite reasonable to own. If something breaks, you could throw it out and buy a new one for less than renting, and you don't need to worry about paying per use or finding a scooter if you're in an odd part of town. And if it gets stolen, go back to renting until a new one is delivered. Or keep two so you can ride with a friend occasionally and never worry about being out of a scooter for a couple days if one breaks or gets stolen.

These are all things that take more effort than just renting. Not everything in life is an economics decision.

I pay less than $3/ride, and I ride maybe 3-4 times a week, not everyday.

Perhaps a deterrent to ownership is a fear that thieves like electric scooters even more than bikes? I suspect only fleet scooters can be located via cellular.

If they could be built compact enough they might be able to be strapped to your backpack so you never have to leave it behind. At least for the common case where you are taking the scooter to the bus stop and then from the bus at work you are able to store the scooter next to you at all times.

Pretty much all the consumer ones fold down in half like the razer kids scooters. It ends up being about the size of a yoga mat and you can stick it between/against your legs on public transport.

they are pretty heavy tho... even with the folding it find them pretty awkward to take on transit

Bought a scooter for $400 on Amazon, and it paid off in less than 2 months.

Anyone who loves the scooters enough will buy one on Amazon for $350 because it pays for itself quickly. I did. Great for getting around a 1-5 mile radius.

At best the rental micromobility economy is transient until all the people who find electric scooters genuinely useful buy their own. It often ends up costing as much as an Uber to get anywhere anyway

People may enjoy this piece on micromobility from Monday Note: https://mondaynote.com/the-micromobility-mirage-a814e6e126be

Bikes in the bay are next.

I'm curious to see the path to profitability for Uber and Lyft's multi-modal strategies (scooters, biking). Right now it's a land grab, but I'm unconvinced the land is worth more than the purchase price. Perhaps it's valuable as part of a larger strategy but I have my doubts those bike trips are profitable on their own.

They don’t need to make the scooters profitable — they just need to make sure that the scooters don’t displace Uber and Lyft rides. They just need to make sure the scooters are crappy, broken, and annoying to get the world to turn against scooters and stick with Uber and Lyft rides.

Given how non-motor vehicle unfriendly most roads are in the U.S., I don’t see scooters take off in most places any time soon, even if managed as well as humanly possible.

The bike stuff was basically breaking even when it was Motivate. The real tragedy here will be if Lyft bought Motivate just so they could mismanage it into non-existence.

Wtf is "micromobility"? That is some gross jargon. This stuff needs to stop.

Anything too far for walking and too close/annoying for car/public transports. What people used to own bikes for, but now, thanks to capitalism, you can endlessly spend money on inferior options and never own one, yay! Double yay! if you live in Europe and all that money is going to foreign companies which don't pay local taxes.

Judging by my experience with lyft - mobility for people that are too lazy to go walking distance ... all the times I used the app it was more expensive than a cab or slower than walking.

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