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Comment by extr | Hacker News Reader

I visited Paris last year and had a very cute midnight scooter ride with my girlfriend down the Seine. It was like out of a movie. But the ride costed like $17 each, it would have been cheaper to just get an Uber directly back to our hotel. And I no doubt caused some french drivers/pedestrians some grief because I had no idea where I was going most of the time. So frankly I get it.

But this makes me ask the question: who uses these? Looking at my own behavior I never touch them in the city I live in. They would be far too expensive to rely on for commuting or predictable use. And I'm not usually traveling alone in my own city, so the economics of splitting an Uber are way better. Plus I have my own bike here for shorter distances. Very limited use cases. Is the entire industry sustained on the usage of tourists riding for the sheer novelty of it in a new place? If that's the case it makes sense why they get such a bad reputation.

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> But this makes me ask the question: who uses these? Looking at my own behavior I never touch them in the city I live in. They would be far too expensive to rely on for commuting or predictable use.

Shared e-bike/e-scooter are the most convenient solution to the last mile (there's very little alternative, actually).

The last mile problem is very concrete, especially if it's a routine two-way trip; without e-transport, it's 30/40 minutes total for each trip (on foot or bus, the latter also being nondeterministic), versus 10 minutes of ebike/escooter (quite deterministic). It's a lot of time saved.

Time-wise, Uber sits midway between bus and e-transport (there's waiting time, depending on the location), but it's considerably more expensive - in my city, e-transport costs around 0.25$ per minute, which is convenient.

Having said that, I do support either very strict regulation or straigh-out ban of e-scooters. It seems to be a teenage thing (adults hardly use them), and it's typically used very recklessly. Additionally, I prefer shared e-bikes anyway, because they're faster and more comfortable on poorly paved roads.

Without any form of e-transport, the only alternative is to bring one's own bike/e-scooter on public transport, which is possible in some cities (where the metro is large and not busy), but not so practical and limited to metro and tram.

For just the last mile, and for a regular commute, the private options are a folding bicycle, or to leave a second bicycle locked at the station.

Folding bicycles are most common in London, where the high cost is still lower than adding a metro/bus supplement to a rail commuter ticket.

A second bicycle locked at the station is not unusual in Dutch cities, Copenhagen etc, where there are thousands locked around major stations.

In Berlin, it's mostly youth having fun, tourists being touristy, or people with enough money that they could either rent a bicycle or purchase one, but find it cool, don't want to sweat, or share public transport with others.

Same here in San Francisco, I took a Lime scooter to go home about 2 miles and the ride cost me $16, whereas the Lyft bike I took to go out cost me a flat $3.50. Not to mention the scooter ride was terribly bumpy and much slower than the bike.

YMMV - here in Munich I have experience with both e-scooters and the "leading" bicycle-sharing solution (MVG Rad). E-scooters are about 2x more expensive, but also considerably more reliable. With the bicycles I regularly have to call the support hotline because the bike won't unlock or the return doesn't work correctly, also on many bikes the gear-shift is partly broken, the saddle is adjusted wrong (not the height, which you can adjust yourself, but the angle, which can make longer rides very uncomfortable) etc. Some of these can be fixed with better maintenance or better design of the bikes, but others are due to scooters being technically simpler and easier to use (they already have a big battery that has to be charged anyway, so not unlocking because of low battery is less likely, plus they are regularly picked up, charged/serviced and then put back, which is much harder with a full-blown bicycle, they don't need a gear shift or a saddle etc.).

> They would be far too expensive to rely on for commuting or predictable use.

In my city they have a season pass option that makes them economically viable for commuting.

Yep. I tried them once, in a different country.

It was fun and safe.

Price is the reason I have not repeated the experience. It is as expensive as a taxi, without the convenience of it.

Stats show that escooters don't even curb emissions, as the people who use them are pedestrians who would've walked anyway.

> I visited Paris last year and had a very cute midnight scooter ride with my girlfriend down the Seine. It was like out of a movie.

I had a similar experience but on Velib bicycles around a decade ago... It seems strange to ban scooters when Velib was such a popular success AFAICT.

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