Re:Uber is destroying thousands of electric bikes and scoote...
by dundarious on Thursday May 28, 2020 @04:01PM
(#23341890)
My naive thought is that these could easily be auctioned off with no claim they are fit for purpose. Recycling should be a last resort.
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Re:Uber is destroying thousands of electric bikes and scoote...
by viscanti on Thursday May 28, 2020 @07:11PM
(#23344163)
It appears these bikes were designed to not be user serviceable. Bespoke tools are needed to do any maintenance and there aren't off the shelf parts for anyone who would need anything replaced. This seems very different than selling a used car where the new owner would still have some expectation of being able to service and repair it. Presumably they also have bespoke chargers and not enough to sell with every bike so some people would be buying e-bikes that can't ever be charged.
That's not an argument for not making them available. But it does substantially decrease the value. It's possible it pushes the value below what they'd get from recycling. If that's the case, it's easy to see why they'd recycle them instead of spending more time/money to try to sell a non-servicable and non-chargeable used bike.
Re:Uber is destroying thousands of electric bikes and scoote...
by linuxftw on Thursday May 28, 2020 @07:13PM
(#23344195)
They could sell the bikes dirt cheap, and make up the losses selling the proprietary tools.
Re:Uber is destroying thousands of electric bikes and scoote...
by viscanti on Thursday May 28, 2020 @11:25PM
(#23345988)
If the dirt cheap cost is substantially lower than the recycle price, why would they do that?
Re:Uber is destroying thousands of electric bikes and scoote...
by adrianN on Friday May 29, 2020 @12:46AM
(#23346345)
To save some tons of CO2.
Re:Uber is destroying thousands of electric bikes and scoote...
by Freak_NL on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:14AM
(#23347107)
Not part of the current economic model (it doesn't make or save them any money). Certainly not that of the kind of company behind this.
Re:Uber is destroying thousands of electric bikes and scoote...
by lienrag63 on Friday May 29, 2020 @05:27AM
(#23347983)
That's the thing: it should matter, by law.
The big problem with the actual model, is that it doesn't take into account externalities (pollution, rarefaction of ressources, ...).
Re:Uber is destroying thousands of electric bikes and scoote...
by TrinaryWorksToo on Thursday May 28, 2020 @04:34PM
(#23342202)
That's literally why we have as-is warranties.