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Comment by mulmen | Hacker News Reader

When I was in Taiwan we saw Gogoro scooters in the wild. The battery is swapped at a kiosk in a couple of minutes. Riders pay a subscription for the scooter and access to the battery kiosk.

Seems like a really great option. I would love to have that in my city. We have dockless bicycles and scooters but a more capable and personal option would be awesome. I'd sign up in a heartbeat.

Sadly my city planners do not seem aware of motorcycles as a transportation option. We have no laws or infrastructure to encourage them or take advantage of the benefits. At a state level we at least get to cut ferry lines, but that seems to be the only perk.

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In this 2 minute video demonstrating a Gogoro swap the rider goes from opening their seat to having a fresh battery and ready to ride in about 50 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W34k0nrrDQA

I wonder how long before someone comes up with a fake battery pack that looks identical and registers as having a higher battery power then it actually does and has fewer cells internally so they can take the real higher power more cells genuine battery and leave behind a fake on that barely works. Like fake memory cards you can get from wish.com that state they have much higher memory then what they actually have.

You're not going to get much repeat business if you hand out crappy batteries. It seems like incentives are decently well-aligned here.

I guess you might be able to scam the rechargers themselves if you want to "return" a knock off. But if I were them I would put tamper resistant asset tags on my batteries and ensure that whatever battery im taking back is the same as the one I handed out.

It’s the same as any kind of theft really. You probably get away with it to start but eventually the loss becomes great enough that the company pays attention and starts tracking it down. And if you have been doing this on a large scale you could be looking at serious criminal theft.

About as long as it would take for Gogoro to put a camera on their battery kiosks.

This is relatively straight forward to prevent with signed certificates stored on a secure coprocessor.

Each battery can have a serial number and an embedded ARM chip and the charger be connected to the internet.

So the central server will reject the battery if it can't authenticate with the proper RSA private key, or that key is already online somewhere else.

Just like creditcards with chips are validated each time.

You don't even need to go that far with the on-board hardware. Just track battery exchange history with charging pattern data, and identify offenders.

Bad actors can spoof the battery charge reader, but it's much harder to spoof the juice out of the charger.

Battery tracking leads to ads. Ads lead to the dark patterns of the force.

I uh, don't see the point?

You have the charging electronics which will tell you very quickly when a battery is dead, and you know which subscriber gave you the faulty battery. Sure faulty batteries can happen naturally (and accidentally), two faulty batteries though should be statistically enough to trigger an investigation from the company.

I think the idea is that the battery reports voltage like a mostly charged normal battery for just long enough for you to leave the scene with a good battery.

Ideally this would be coupled with lax device receipt keeping so while the company could tell that one of these thousand customers that used the kiosk that day returned the faulty battery it'd be hard to pinpoint a specific wrong doer.

That said, it feels like the margins on this would be low enough to make it not worth the effort.

You could take a legitimate battery and swap good cells for cheaper or old cells. The actual cells usually don't have any smarts to them and would still show as having a full charge but the range would be limited. It could take at least one depletion cycle for the processor inside to realize the cells are of poor health and may just look normal to untrained eyes. Proper security would include soldering batteries in, welding the plastic seams shut, or adding tamper indicators in the battery like a switch on the lid. The system could just refuse to charge any tampered batteries or the attendant could refuse to swap any batteries that have obvious damage.

A lot of battery controllers are intentionally designed to make the batteries unusable if the cells are removed for even a moment. Sometimes the controller uses a volatile ROM that wipes itself when it loses voltage, other times there's software actively looking for it and stopping the controller from working when detected. It's very consumer unfriendly in general for batteries that the consumer supposedly owns, but for batteries that are more loaned property like this it's a reasonable anti-tamper system.

Thankfully someone with such skill will be very unlikely to commit petty theft like this when there are more profitable endeavors to pursue with their skill.

No way! Just because you're skillful doesn't mean you're property utilized, or even (easily) utilizable, due to other issues. I met plenty handy unemployed without steady housing.

And get life ban for the subscription. I think these batteries are properly sealed and their ROI is pretty quick. Much more benefit is from that rapid electricity transfer/exchange.

Do you know what causes the slight wait before getting fresh batteries ? some checks ?

Probably some sort of authentication and status checks of the inserted batteries.

Waiting for the animation to finish.

From the comments it seems like there are no fully charged batteries ready to go, and you will be taking some other mostly-charged ones.

It should be able to correctly time most charges, so that you are always getting the highest battery charge state available at that stop.

Most kiosks have 30+ batteries, so each has a while to recharge before being 'summoned' again.

I can imagine it takes a few hours to fully charge these batteries (and to keep them cool), so if it's frequently used there wouldn't be any full batteries and swapping them would be a waste.

I mean it can be scaled up so that one of these stations has hundreds of batteries, an active cooling system etc etc, so it's a fixable problem.

If swapping the battery takes about as long as sitting at a red light, that doesn't seem like a major problem.

Sure, but making you wait 20 seconds isn't going to make a noticeable difference there.

My guess would be getting the phone out and logging in to some app to order the next two batteries. With a bunch of animations and key presses. And ofcourse some "I agree" buttons.

sleep(randint(30, 100))

The batteries don't look all that big. Do you know what the range is on a fresh pair?

I would typically plan for 60 km between swaps, which includes a healthy error margin (I owned a Gogoro 2+ when I lived in Taiwan a year ago). Gogoro advertises 110 km but that is at 25 kph which is unrealistically slow.

60 km actually goes quite far in Taiwan, which isn’t a very big place compared to eg the United States. Gogoro has an extensive network and you only range limited in rural areas like the east coast or the central mountains.

Can you plug in a gogoro to a regular wall socket? Better a slow charge than to be stuck.

You can always just push it down the road, load the whole thing on a truck, or carry new batteries to where it's parked if it comes to that.

Battery change is great, but wow the ride sounds noisy! I was under the impression that we could expect electric vehicles to be fairly quiet.

Electric motorcycles have this problem, too. Last year a popular German motorcycle magazine ("Motorrad") tested electric motorcycles in their big mountain test where they bring almost all available motorcycle models from that year to the alps.

The loudest motorcycle driven at normal speeds was an electric one.

I really hope they can bring that noise down further.

Was it loud because of EV drive or just the lack of ICE attenuated chain and sprocket noise further?

Looking at the powertrain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD4s92gwlMY

It has to be either the planetary gear set or the chain - none of the gears are helical, so they're bound to be noisy. According to the specs the motor is a permanent magnet synchronous motor, which is normally mostly silent.

The good news is this is India so you won't hear it over the constant honking

Electric cars are whisper quiet at low speeds; at higher speeds tire noise becomes prominent. I wouldn't be surprised if they intentionally add noise for safety reasons.

That looks like such a finished user experience.

Just noticed the Gogoro swap logo in the video. Looks very similar to the Arduino logo. Only difference being the +/- positions are swapped.

Exactly. I expected people fumbling around with smartphone apps, instead the process is extraordinarily easy and simple with no extraneous steps.

I mean it's exactly what I would expect from something with minimal friction. The only improvements I can think of is to make the wait time slower; plugging one battery in should immediately unlock another.

The other improvement depends on battery technology though.

i bet it needs to do some checks to verify someone didn’t plug in a fake battery, the user has a valid subscription etc

The biggest point of friction is finding the swap station. Some swap stations are at ground level and easily visible from the street (e.g. at gas stations or convenience stores). But many are in parking garages and it's never clear what level the swap station is on or where in the facility it's located.

I think the parking garage management gets to choose where to locate these stations, and typically they make it maximally convenient for people who are parking their scooters in the garage, without any consideration for people who are just stopping by.

The app does give you a marker on a map and a photo of the the station, but it's often not enough.

I love the fact there's 2 smaller batteries instead of 1 big one. There's a lot of people with back problems (for example my wife) and this kind of design helps them a lot. Can't wait for this to come to Poland.

Poland has a number of e-scooter companies where you can rent them. They are littered all over Tricity, baby blue ones, but they don't seem to be that popular, especially during the winter months.

Yes I know, we have them in Lublin, but they are priced for occasional short trips not for using them every day. I'd prefer to own the scooter and pay for battery swaps.

Interesting. What about during the winter months?

Have a look at the Silence S01 too, they have a quite different and interesting system that solves for more energy: The battery converts itself into a heavy trolley that you can just pull out, roll to any plug, charge it and put back again.

I seriously ponder getting one as it‘s a nice match for a city apartment with no charging ports.

Motorcycles have about 29 times the deaths per mile compared to cars. If all you're worried about is saving space and gas they're a great option - my Honda cruiser gets about 80mpg. But it's incredibly dangerous. I think it's plausible that safety could improve with infrastructure changes and driver education, but I don't think it could ever compare to being strapped into a metal cage with airbags and crumple zones

Not to mention that in a substantial portion of the world, motorcycles aren't practical for most of the year. Snow, ice and cold aren't great for two-wheeled vehicles.

You should check out the Not Just Bikes Youtube channel.

The channel is mostly on city planning that supports walking and biking (rather than motorcycles) but the Dutch bicycle in the snow because they have an infrastructure that supports it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU&list=RDCMUC0intL...

Of course they don't have mountains which is the issue where I live.

But we ARE talking about motorcycles here. And sliding out on ice on a bicycle is wayyyy different than a motorcycle. Most people can muscle a bicycle into submission but a light motorcycle starts at 300lbs/130kg. Good luck holding that upright if you and the bike disagree on where the tires should be going.

Australia here. When we're not on fire or under water (which is also where scooters perform rather badly), it often seems to be too hot to wear safety gear.

Add the sense of entitlement of large 4WDs to complete non-enforcement of road rules protecting riders of both motor- and acoustic bikes by the Police, and you've got a deadly mix going.

Yeah, I think the Giant Car problem is what will doom this system in the US. True scooters like these can use the bike lanes in most cities (ymmv) so they might have a chance but they'll be stuck behind regular bikes and e-bikes and so limited to those speeds.

> too hot to wear safety gear

There is mesh synthetic safety gear that's quite good these days (I'd imagine it'll eventually disintegrate on a long slide, but will at least help with impact. Also road rash typically isn't what will actually kill you). It also comes in colors that will reflect the sun a little more than black, which is still the most popular motorcycle clothing color by sales.

I used to ride a lot in Ocotillo Wells where it would hit 110F in full safety gear, so it is possible. Helps when you're going fast enough to get wind chill.

I saw many comments above included stories from Taiwan. If you are not aware, Taiwan has an incredible amount of rain, yet there are scooters everywhere. I never understand how scooters remain so popular!

People wear rain clothes on scooters. This is very dangerous. Your vision is very bad in the rain and your control of the scooter is also bad. I did this when I got no other choices.

Yeah and if you need to tow a trailer they don't work either, but those are not very good arguments why we don't try to accommodate them in the situations where they do work very well, i.e. city driving in regions where it doesn't snow very much. The same applies to bicycles and ebikes.

Bikes tow trailers all the time. Just not as big as the ones trucks tow.

Motorcycles can tow trailers. Sidecars are also a thing. In the 1950s there was a motorcycle dealership in Portland that had a motorcycle carrier sidecar. If your bike broke down they would ride out on their bike, roll yours onto the side car and give you both a lift back to the shop. No trucks needed.

There's even 3rd wheel trailers (I personally only discovered this very recently)

https://thirdwheeltrailers.com/

Yes, motocycle is evidently more dangerous than car. But, some people don't have a choice. In some country, car is still a luxury. For example, in my country, a used car can cost at least 3 times a brand new motocycle.

Import duty + Excise + VAT with some ridiculous calculation, 3,000 cc import to Thailand is about 328% (data from 2019, i think the formula is still the same today). It really feels stupid (despite of no choices) to buy 300% price of original price.

they sound like a great option for major cities where there are already tons of speed limiting because of the population density.

I think it's safe to use insurance rates as a proxy for the likelihood you'll get into a crash. Rates are almost invariably higher for every type of coverage if you live in a more densely populated area.

Is that for third party only though? Perhaps also confounded by higher-prices of cars in cities vs rural areas when you do crash into something = higher costs.

From what I've seen, collision coverage tends to be used for cases where you made a mistake and need to get your own vehicle fixed. Generally all the coverage sections will get more expensive when you move to a more densely-populated area but the from the cases I've seen, collision coverage will tend to be significantly more expensive in Chicago than southern Illinois.

You're talking about fatalities though. There are 1000x more rear ends in the city but I have yet to see a car flipped over in the city like on the highway

Motorcycles and bicycles are indeed more dangerous, but exactly because of cars.

If more car owners would at least sometimes switch to the smaller option, it would make life easier and safer for 2 wheel drivers.

This is not likely though, so I hope for ebikes and more cycle lanes and car free zones in cities, to make it more attractive.

I drove for 6 years with 3 different bikes (125cc scooter + 125cc small bike + 600cc bike)... and as much as I love it, I gave it up. I have to fight the urge to buy a new one every few months. I've fallen & had accidents 4 times and I'm lucky to be alive to be honest. It helps to know the stats around the death rates and to watch a few accident aftermath scenes to cure yourself.

I truly do want everyone to drive them for all the benefits they bring but I also truly don't want a single person to die like that, so I no longer recommend that other people buy them (not even a scooter for short distances).

[citation needed]. Not because I doubt the number (it seems plausible), but because I'd like to see the data.

IMO once You factor for speed and environment (how much time will any of those electric city scooters ever ride on highway and/or above maybe 50-60kph?), You'll be left with two causes of accidents - rider who loses control (exponentially less deadly with reduced speed) and scooter vs car crash on intersections / in lanes. In this case, much as those crumple zones work well for whoever is inside the metal box, they also add extra mass / energy to the body that's being deformed on the outside...

Highways are actually some of the safest roadways for motorcycle riders, with the vast majority of motorcycle accidents happening at intersections. Scooters are not immune to this, and would in fact spend more time in these danger zones than motorcycles. I do believe that area also plays a large role in fatality rate as well as culture. Eliminating any alcohol consumption goes a long way in avoiding motorcycle accidents, but there's a huge cruiser culture that involves going to the bar as a ride destination. And localized driving culture also plays a big role. In many developing countries where more people are on bikes, speed limits tend to be lower to match road quality. As such, most motorcycles and scooters will be functionally equivalent, with most bikes being sold being less than 250cc. But also, all the traffic, including car traffic might be slower. Additionally, the increased prevalence of stick shift means less texting and driving. Whereas in the US, especially in big driving cities, you may have very aggressive driving culture. Like Chicago, where I actually felt safer on a full motorcycle than a bicycle and most definitely safer than on a scooter. In those places, being slow puts you at the mercy of the aggressive drivers coming from behind you. Classes I took there actually encouraged you to be a more aggressive rider, to ride slightly faster than traffic to find bubbles in the traffic and be certain that you weren't going to be rear ended by someone doing something stupid. Sorry I don't have any data, just around 100k miles of seat time over the course of about 5 or 6 years, most of it urban riding. Motorcycle's are very dangerous, and there are steps you can take to mitigate the danger, like choosing when and where to ride, but at the end of the day, you are always at the mercy of cars on the road, and drivers seem to be getting progressively worse as more people are on their phones.

A major factor that I see surprisingly few people advocate for even in an educational setting is helmet color and high-visibility clothing. If I remember correctly just wearing a white helmet alone is associated with a 25% lower risk of being in a fatal accident. A white helmet + high vis gets you closer to 40% or 50% reduction.

There were rumblings in Australia about making high-viz clothing a requirement but I'm not sure if that actually got passed or not. From the data I've seen it makes nearly as much of a difference as wearing a helmet vs not.

It's surprising how much motorcycle armor is out there touting their super-advanced kevlar buffer pad race construction yet are colored darker than night.

> super-advanced kevlar buffer pad race construction

Why do you need that on your 25cc scooter? Caus it looks cool. What colour would you like that in? Light absorbing Batsuit black please.

I ride motorcycles. I am never more scared than when I am stopped at a traffic light, especially if there is a car in front of me. I have seen (and in my car been) rear ended. It's not fun. On a bike that is almost certain death. Even at 25-30mph. With the number of drivers on cell phones this is a real risk.

Personally I mitigate this by stopping at the edge of the lane and keeping an eye on my mirrors. If I am going to get hit I can at least escape between the lanes.

In civilized countries filtering between lanes of stopped cars is the norm. This gets the vulnerable two-wheeled vehicles out of the danger zone. In the US that is illegal almost everywhere. Even if it was legal drivers would have to be educated to not use their vehicles as weapons, something that is surprisingly common.

> In the US that is illegal almost everywhere

But, for anyone else reading, one of the few places filtering and lane splitting in general is legal (up to ~10mph speed difference) is in California.

There was extensive discussion on a recent episode of "Highside Lowside" (Revzilla's Podcast) about whether lane splitting at speed increases or decreases safety, complete with stats and personal experiences. (In their opinion it comes down to the skill of the rider.) Filtering when cars are fully stopped is likely safe and less contentious.

I'm mostly basing my comments off of info pulled from this site https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-motorcyc...

You are talking about the stats from an American perspective. Such a car-centric view. Not everyone lives in America.

Hundreds of cities and countries have infrastructure suitable for two wheelers. Especially when you are within the city limits. Cities in India it is extremely common to ride two-wheelers and it is generally safer to ride scooters. Most delivery drivers use motorcycles - millions of them in fact.

I hear a lot of how motorcycles are dangerous and they absolutely are. But 1/2 of wrecks are single vehicle wrecks and most of the other wrecks are cars turning in front of motorcycles or motorcycles getting rear-ended at lights.

American streets are designed poorly, see stroads and all that. If we want motorcycle fatalities to go down, we need to strive for all fatalities to go down.

Yes 5.5k riders died last year, but 42K car drivers died. Yet we're fine with that because "well per mile that isn't that bad" 42K isn't a good number and there needs to be greater discussion surrounding the poor driving conditions created by poor planning.

In that case, it would be awesome to have some sort of standard battery for e-bikes, scooters, etc. Then you can just stop by some battery switching place swap one out on demand.

The other amazing benefit for this plan is that batteries are expected to fail and loose capacity after a few years. So being able to easily swap the most vulnerable component is awesome for long-term repairability!

Gogoro has become the standard. Yamaha, Aeon, PGO, and likely others are already using their swap stations.

Kymco has their own design and partnerships, but are way behind now on reach and marketshare.

We have subscription escooters which seem tempting to me, but the costs never pencil out. They end up being as much as the scooter within a years time or so, plus you are on the hook if some major damage or theft happens. Whats the point of that then? Might as well look for someone who will let you finance an ebike and put it on your renters or homeowners insurance for protection at that rate.

Access to credit is not as easy in India. This is just a straightforward capex to opex transformation that people can intuitively grasp. Combine that with no minimum commitment and it's transparent to them what expenses are, what income is, and what net income is.

Indian users are very price-sensitive and there are extensive discussion networks running the numbers on these. They won't use these services unless it makes financial sense.

- Quick battery swapping

- No maintenance or upgrade cost

- Low upfront cost

- Low commitment

Still cheaper to own. Maintenance with ebikes is not going to be very much. Throw lube on the chain every once in a while and have the bike shop do tires and brakes once every two years. Honestly you could buy a brand new $1200 ebike a year for the prices the services around me ask for their most basic plans which have mileage limits, and require a deposit anyhow. You can also turn around and sell your new ebike anytime, not much lock in or commitment there whereas I'm putting my blind faith in the fact that this particular subscription service will be easy to cancel (history says otherwise).

Where is "around you"? The economics in India might be a lot different (ie relatively more expensive scooters, cheaper labor)

You can buy an ebike for 1,000 or less. You can pay 99/month for typical ebike monthly rental.

Socal, we have zoomo which is $20/wk.

You're not getting a high quality ebike for $1200. I had a $600 e-scooter (Segway ES4) and by the time I hit 500+ miles on it the screws were falling off, the external battery connection was corroding, and the bottom floorboard light connection had broken.

I just checked and the Ninebot Max is $949 on Segway's website and that's got a smaller battery than most ebikes. And I'd be willing to be that that scooter would also break down just like mine.

>Still cheaper to own.

Bay Wheels is $159/year and about $2.00 a ride, meaning you would need to ride 520 times that year before it became cheaper to own. Also for regular bikes it's free each ride.

That's ignoring that decent e-bikes are more expensive than $1200, the stress of having to lug around and securely park your property, the depreciation of the batteries, as well as any insurance & deductible costs you'll encounter for when (not if) it gets stolen.

It's hands down better to be able to hop-on and -off wherever you want with an ebike than to deal with owning one in SF.

That sounds like a better model than zoomo around me honestly.

I think Bay Wheels is quite a bit more than that if you want e-bikes. [1]

Looks like its $159 per year, so $13.25 per month. Then, your rides are $0.20 per minute for the first 45 minutes, $0.40 per minute thereafter, and an additional $2.00 fee for not parking at a station - stations which aren't always conveniently located.

I own an e-bike now that I ride longer distances - that a Bay Wheels bike won't make anyways but I don't consider that a fair comparison. Based on my old commute from the Mission to downtown 5x weekly:

- 1.5mi/12 minutes each way. $0 base + $2.40 assuming optimality.

- Hub on one side, no hub on the other, average $2.00 extra there, $0 extra back.

- Monthly fee assuming 40 rides per month is $0.33.

So for this commute alone we're talking $7.46 per day, $149 per month or $1788 per year. Add on a few grocery runs, grabbing drinks with friends, lunch runs, not wanting to park at a hub when you're in a rush, and we're probably in the low-to-mid $2000 per year price range if you really buy into it.

A VanMoof X3 is $2448 (or $88 per month) [2] It would pay itself off in like 14 months, or you can save 37% on the monthly payment vs Bay Wheels. Now you have something with almost a 100 mile range, a much better ride, that you can park anywhere. If it gets stolen, they'll also send out a team to pick it up via its onboard GPS, and fix it up for you.

My point isn't that you should or shouldn't get a VanMoof X3, it's just that the pricing isn't exactly a slam dunk in favor of Bay Wheels.

[1] https://www.lyft.com/bikes/bay-wheels/pricing

[2] https://www.vanmoof.com/en-US/x3?color=dark

You're just redoing the same math I did.

>Hub on one side, no hub on the other, average $2.00 extra there, $0 extra back.

This is difficult to believe that it isn't a bad faith argument to pad a comparison, because hubs are littered across downtown and the mission. [1] It's highly improbable that there aren't any hubs near either.

>- Monthly fee assuming 40 rides per month is $0.33.

Which is bad math. Riders use bay wheels more, because you can take a bike to a concert or restaurant or park and not worry about parking it and/or bringing it home later. See the part above about not having to worry about parking an expensive asset. You compare the variable costs of breaking even when determining which of two methods is cheaper, not try to pad it by dividing up fixed costs.

>I own an e-bike now that I ride longer distances - that a Bay Wheels bike won't make anyways but I don't consider that a fair comparison

Then you shouldn't be making declarative statements about a $1200 always being cheaper than something like Bay Wheels, because it is cheaper for the vast majority of people living downtown SF.

[1] https://account.baywheels.com/map

> This is difficult to believe that it isn't a bad faith argument to pad a comparison.

Ok but, I used my actual commute when figuring this in. It was 3 blocks away from my office and a block from my house. I wasn't really looking to walk 4 blocks each way out of a 12 block commute - at that point I could just walk, no?

There's also no hubs in Potrero, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Telegraph Hill, Chinatown, Japan Town, Polk Gulch (all places I'd call 'downtown') and none west of the mission. Coverage is good, don't get me wrong but it's not perfect for everyone.

> Which is bad math. Riders use bay wheels more, because you can take a bike to a concert or restaurant or park and not worry about parking it and/or bringing it home later.

Ok, but we're talking $0.33 down to what $0.16 per ride? Doesn't really matter because that's covered by the first minute of any additional ride. That'll increase your daily costs a lot - and make it much easier to justify owning your own.

Re: fixed costs, at $2000 per year for Bay Wheels, you can actually afford to get your $1000 e-bike stolen twice per year and still break even - and have your VanMoof with built-in theft protect, GPS and recovery team stolen every year and still break even.

> Then you shouldn't be making declarative statements about a $1200 always being cheaper than something like Bay Wheels, because it is cheaper for the vast majority of people living downtown SF.

Except I didn't say that. It's definitely not always better. I'm a big advocate of bike share services, and I've used them for years. Sometimes it is cheaper, some times it isn't. I'm not the gp.

Wait, you are on the hook for theft?? Just while you are logged in, or for what period of time?

You get billed a fee apparently:

https://old.reddit.com/r/cycling/comments/kon8hr/i_just_had_...

My wife and I just rode Lime scooters in San Francisco and I was shocked by the cost. We rode about 4 miles in 45 minutes. When we got off, we were charged $60 (about $30 each). We could have taken Uber or Lyft for less.

They have 1-hour and 1-day options, but I was told by CS (after) that the 1-hour pass only includes 30-minutes of actual riding. Uhg.

I might buy one, because they are so fun, but I probably won’t rent one again.

I’m talking stand on scooters vs the sit on motorcycle type ones.

I think the point of those things, at least for the ebikes, is to rip off the tourists to compensate for the locals who have a subscription?

Bright side for tourists: No windows to break in the rental.

I think these are intended more for transportation than riding around (unlike the BayWheels type stuff). I used to commute to work on my own scooter and it only takes 15 minutes or less to ride 4 miles on the road. My commute in the morning was just under 3 miles and downhill so I usually managed in 8 minutes.

Lime and other scooters in SF used to have much less expensive subscription options, but they've all recently dropped them for much more expensive ones.

Bay Wheels bike annual subscription is worth it but only if you use them regularly (like commuting/weekends).

Unfortunately, the SF municipal government in all its wisdom has granted monopolies to certain e-scooter companies and capped the allowed number of scooters (the scooters were traumatizing rich aging hippies with their techie-ness). Prices are way higher here than most cities.

If people would stop leaving discharged scooters in the sidewalk, I might care less. As is, they're a nuisance building a business off of overusing a communal resource (sidewalks)

Cities can solve this by enforcing geofencing to only allow locking the scooter in designated areas. Santa Monica for example paints scooter parking spots on a lot of street corners that would otherwise be pretty littered.

Southampton (UK) had a pilot scheme for Voi scooters and had geo-fencing in the app, for parking zones, speed restriction zones and no-go zones.

Theoretically a great thing, but at least one of the parking zones was slightly off, and the scooter would only lock in the middle of the road!

The worst offender for geofencing is honestly the city of beverly hills. Bird scooters don't work in their borders at all, but their borders aren't so clear when you are just riding the bird. Imagine going down a busy 6 lane road full of angry west LA drivers and your scooter just runs out of steam leaving you stranded in 50mph traffic that would rather see you laid out than make way for you. When I told the bird tech support I wanted my money back for them risking my life in this way, they informed me this was expected behavior.

Same issue in some other parts of town to a lesser extent, like on some parts of hollywood blvd. Gee, why is my scooter coming to a stop in the middle of a busy intersection? Oh, some local assholes must have complained to the city councilman and had this virtual bear trap installed in the middle of a busy road, lets hope I don't die trying to wheel this thing off.

Yeah that sounds downright dangerous.

In Southampton it was more like "you can only park here" or "you can't scoot in the public parks" or "this is a hospital zone so you're limited to half speed". That said, it was only a pilot, and I can see the exact same thing happening down the line.

Reserving one parking space per block for scooters, bikes, and other small vehicles would benefit everyone and have little downside.

Other than people with cars complaining that there now isn't room for their one giant single-occupant vehicle compared to parking for 5-10 bikes and scooters.

That's just san fransisco effect. Everything is pricey there because it can be. For point of reference elsewhere in CA, I just rode a bird in LA. 5.2 miles, 23 minutes, it was $14.10 after tax. Rideshare would have been higher in my case and I would have had to wait around for who knows how long for a ride to happen, meanwhile the scooter was there already with a half dozen backups nearby.

But you had almost exactly the same cost as they did? As a quick bit of maths you'd have paid about $28 for 46 minutes (given $14 for 23 minutes) compared to their $30.

The value subscriptions (bikes/ebikes for me in SF) is in not having to worry about it. I can bike to anywhere in the city and generally leave the bike there and walk or bus. Or I can do the reverse. I'm also not on the hook for maintenance.

It's a very different thing than owning.

Edit: I want to be clear that this is about the economics and ease of owning vs renting, not the particular prices. Lyft bikes have memberships+rental fees or just rental fees, and they can be pretty expensive, but so can buying an ebike.

You can take it anywhere and just leave it? Middle of the road? Under a bridge? Random backyard? That sounds useful but how often do you not need transportation back from where you came? If you leave the bike how easy is it to run into another bike someone randonly left?

I can leave an ebike on a random sidewalk, as long as it is not blocking the way, for a $2 fee, or at a dock, of which there are many, for free.

How often do I do this? Probably once a week. Bike out to the beach, walk or bus back. Bike to the grocery store, lyft back. Go on a walk after work, not have to worry about getting home.

How easy is it too find one? Pretty easy. There are docks everywhere, and an app that shows me where bikes are left.

Wouldn't that make it super easy to steal an ebike? No your problem but I wonder if putting these in a truck would be an effective business model

They actually do this to rebalance them, so they probably pick up random bikes too.

It's not really up to discussion, that it works it's proven, it's a system in use in many cities. If you have enough bikes/cars, you will tend to have one available in an acceptable range of time and space. If you go to the outskirts of the city, you don't "release" the bike/car and pay more to have the guarantee to be able to go back.

If people see random bikes wouldn't they do fun kid stuff like throw them off of bridges or knock them over?

For a while the scooter companies removed them from South Bend, Indiana for this exact reason.

Can't find that link, but here's some similar cases: https://www.kcrg.com/2021/06/03/teen-arrested-for-throwing-e... https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/electric-scooter-bird-l...

The biggest benefit of using the Bay Wheels subscription over owning is not having to worry about your e-bike being stolen. It's definitely worth it at the price point it's currently at.

The only downside is that as people return to the bay, the e-bikes (and bikes) are going to become more and more scarce at docks.

You can also insure your ebike

You still have to worry about it, take it with you from A -> B -> A, carry your helmet, ensure it is always charged, reserve space to store it at home, and spend who knows how long dealing with insurance if it is stolen, as well as now being without your bike.

I do a lot of commuting on my ebike, but their are clear situational benefits for the alternative.

The point of that is that renting confers specific benefits that make it worthwhile despite the downsides. First off, no need to charge. Not the worst thing but there's nothing worse than running out of battery because you forgot to charge it. Additionally, no maintenance - the company employs mechanics that are better positioned to fix the scooters. Finally, no need to have the scooter with you - just use it whenever you want, in one direction, and then not have to lug a scooter with you for the rest of the day. Or, if you didn't ride it in, you can't use it for the rest of the day. If it's raining in the morning but clear in the evening, you don't have the scooter to ride home unless you rode it in for your morning commute.

Now, you may not find that list enough to offset the downsides compared to buying your own, but judging from their seeming success, I'm not the only person that's done the math and intentionally chooses renting a scooter as-needed.

Gogoro is a completely different model than Lime/Bird/Spin/etc. With Gogoro you subscribe to the battery swap service and own the scooter. Also, it's a sit-down scooter (more akin to a motorcycle) that can go 90 km/h, not a stand-up kick scooter.

Motorcycles are extremely dangerous. Research about accidents and (lack of) safety where they're popular: Índia, Brazil, etc. You don't wanna go to funerals after this comes to your city, trust me. One doctor working on organ transplant told me once that almost 90% of donors in one Brazilian big city were riders of urban motorcycles.

It also depends on what area they ride. It's pretty safe in my city, we ride under 50km/h in-city, and I never ride above 70km/h outside city. 20 years, zero crashes. However, some city is crazy, 70km/h is norm around city center. Not including driving fast sounds cool? (I think it's instead, lame, nothing else to show off)

Correlation isn't necessarily causation. The majority of organ donors in the US are probably car drivers, for example. They also breathe oxygen, which can be fatal in the long term.

You'd be surprised. Motorcyclists make up a substantial fraction of all organ donors in the USA. Fatal crashes for motorcyclists are usually the result of traumatic brain injury while leaving the rest of the body intact -- the ideal scenario for organ donation. Fatal crashes for car drivers and passengers usually invokes significant damage to the whole body.

See https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661256

Sure, but motorcyclist injuries where the rider isn't wearing a helmet are like car injuries where the passengers aren't wearing seatbelts. That being said I was astounded when I was in the Southern US the number of people I saw riding their motorbikes without helmets. Must feel amazing but I would never ever risk that in a million years. You don't even need to fall far or fast for a head blow to scramble you.

It's not just direct impact, rapid deceleration can also be traumatic to the brain and other organs.

Cars have materials designed to deform in predictable ways to absorb shock and smooth the deceleration process in case of an impact.

Motorcycles have absolutely nothing of this sort. Body airbags can help a lot, but are still far from the safety that a car offers.

Personal opinion: motorcycles, as a means of urban transportation not sports or leisure, are for people who don't have an option and don't value their lives highly enough.

Strong "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge" vibe

> "We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/

The stats can be a bit deceptive when it comes to motorbikes. Focusing on the first world (where I know the situation) the death rate for 16-24 year old males is massive relative to cars while 25+ is much closer to normal vehicle deaths.

In terms of organ donation, that is because an astonishing amount of people don't wear a helmet when on a motorcycle or wear one of those fashionable open-face helmets.

Many people are also unaware you can get airbags for motorcyclists (https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/alpinestars-tech-air-5-s...). This is obviously a thing more for first world riders and they are expensive but are very effective at preventing any injury you can't walk away from (assuming you also wear a proper helmet like I mentioned).

I rode on Gogoro scooters in Ishigaki, it was one of my most memorable trips! The island is a perfect environment for it: warm, nicely paved roads going through beautiful nature, can't get too far away from anything because it's an island, and battery swap stations placed strategically around so you don't feel uneasy about running out of charge.

Those things have some good acceleration and are a blast to drive.

You almost need a scooter in these large third world mega cities. The streets are narrow as hell, they can’t really handle cars. On the flip side. Cars are stuck in traffic all day and rarely get to cruising speeds without making a left turn into another traffic jam. Scooters let you move around in that clusterfuck and no car is moving fast enough to kill you. Good luck staying safe in scooter in America though.

> large third world mega cities.

But enough about Los Angeles

We have several escooter services in The Netherlands (GO Sharing, Check, felyx, etc.) which are operating in the larger city's. It’s all subscription based and not that expensive comparing to owning a scooter with these current gas prices.

The batteries are swapped at location and transported to and from the nearest chargestation. You have to take a photo when entering and leaving the scooter through the app. An investigation will be started by the issuer when a scooter got damaged. The last driver will not be responsible if it can’t be proved that the driver did the damage.

The engineering company I work briefly passed over few proposals from South Asian companies deploying them. We worked on electric bikes, but decided to pass on a real road going scooter as we have near no vehicle experience besides individual electronic components.

Both leading battery swap standards in India are from Taiwan. One is GoGoRo as you said, and another is Ionex.

Ionex based scooters usually have more in the roadgoing department, and GoGoRo more in internet/app features.

GoGoRo is founded by a Taiwanese guy who worked for a famous company in America, thus he is using his fame to get big money from financial funds. Manufacturing is mostly OEM.

Ionex is made by an established player — Kymco (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDNKQ18-QYY,) and has more firm standing in the industry. They have their own parts, and share service centres with their petrol scooters. The later is a very big thing in India, and South Asia in general.

The biggest impediment for both turned out to be India road. Taiwanese scooters with tiny wheels don't fare well anywhere outside of big cities.

Rural Indians really prefer classic motorcycles — cheap, repairable, no exotic parts. The "app" things doesn't sell at all either. The only useful function for many on smart scooters is a theft alarm + GPS.

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