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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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_...

- 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).

>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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.