INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
most-groomed PR shots, the dockless carelessness of these slimline electrified scooters hums with an air of insouciance and privilege
And there have been a plethora of scooter dismemberment/kidnap horror stories coming out of California, judging by reports from the scooter
Hanging scooters in trees is presumably a protest thing.Scooter brand Lime struck an especially tone-deaf tech note trying to fix this
as intended, scooter rides can ooze a kind of brash entitlement
The sweatless convenience looks like it might be mostly enabling another advance in tech-fueled douche behavior as a t-shirt wearing alpha
nerd zips past barking into AirPods and inhaling a takeaway latte while cutting up the patience of pedestrians.None of this fast-seeded
of e-scooters and leaving them at the mercy of human whim is an expensive business to try scaling
(And it goes without saying that a scooter sticky with fecal-matter is absolutely not that.)The still fledgling startups are certainly
scrambling to scale, with some also already pushing into international markets
Lime just scattered ~200 e-scooters in Paris, for example
While Bird has its beady eye on European territory too.The idea underpinning some very obese valuations for these fledgling startups is that
greener transport options with emissions-free benefits
peddling.)And while investors are buying in to the vision that lots of city dwellers are going to be scooting the last mile in future, and
conference in Berlin earlier this month
convenience and comfort thresholds, thanks to a publicly funded luxury of choice
on a Lime scooter this week
BUT the worst part is that it feels waaaaaay more dangerous than a bike
positively spun, vested view on scooter sharing
The braking is a little bit too soft
jockeying for prime position in the urban mobility race.Lime, for example, started out with bike rentals before jumping into scooters and
And scooters play really well in that field
frequent than the scooter users
tend to be on the homescreen
And kind of on top of the foodchain, so to speak
way of riding vs other available urban options such as bikes (or, well, non-electric scooters, skateboards, roller blades, public transport,
I think there are cases where obviously bikes are better
Which goes a little bit faster
Without going all the way to the moped experience where you need to put the helmet, which is a bit more dangerous, which a lot of people,
especially women, are not super familiar with
People in cities are clearly going to be riding something
And backing a mix is a smart way to hedge the risk of any one option ending up more passing fad than staple urban steed.Mostly Index is
betting that people will keep on riding robotic horses for urban courses
But again it takes a little bit longer, because you have to adjust the saddle, you need to start peddling
enough to be picked up and moved around fairly easily
sharing so attractive: It erases theft worry.Add to that, you can find e-scooters on sale in European electronics shops for as little
zipping around on e-scooters is a pretty common sight in another dense European city, Barcelona, which has very scooter-friendly weather but
no scooter startups (yet)
Mignot and Index, Tom Bradley, of UK focused VC firm Oxford Capital, is not so convinced by the on-demand scooter craze.The firm has not
(Sn-ap), and technology plays such as Morpheus Labs (machine learning for driverless cars) and UltraSoc (complex circuits for automotive
In a way that these electric scooters are not
But obviously it was much more expensive
And it made people feel a bit weird
what someone is prepared to pay
scooter sharing is also bounded by the fund only investing in UK-based startups
A lot of these are walkable or cycle journeys in a lot of cities
There were no parking spaces at the time and there were no rules on the road
If you compare the space of the tech and if you look at the efficiency of moving people around vs the space, the scooters are simply the
the sprawl of the city amps up the utility because there are so many tedious last mile trips that people have to make.Even more so than in
and all the other available options
So, really, where urban mobility is concerned, it can actually be courses for horses.Yet, the reality is London is off-limits to the likes
buy e-scooters for use on private land in the UK but any scooter startups that tried their usual playbook in London would be scooting
Some cities are, by the way
And I think over time once they see the success stories in other parts of the world I think they all will
But I wish London was one of those cutting edge cities that would welcome new innovation with open arms
