[guessmyname]

I wonder if the company is asking these teens, during the registration as contractors, if they have permission from their parents to charge all those scooters at home. I can imagine several parents getting angry for excessive increments in the electricity bills every month without having a clue about their children's "business". Of course, many of them will probably find the scooters in the garage in a regular morning walk around the house, but then…

- Do they [the parents] get a percentage of that money to pay for the bills?

- Is it even legal for these independent contractors to use home electricity to charge a 3rd-party business asset?

- Are damages to the house, in case of a fire, covered by their contracts?

- If the scooters are out of battery, how do these companies know where they are?

- Can these teenagers hold the scooters "hostage"?

- Can they charge extra money for dropping the scooters to places with some people can find it more convenient? Say, if I want to find one of them right in front of my house every morning, I would pay one of these teenagers some extra money for the arrangement.

- Are these houses in risk of over-charging their electricity net?

I have so many questions about all this, it seems so weird to me.

[ggg9990]

Each scooter has about a 300 Watt Hour battery, call it 60% charging efficiency (likely way more efficient than that) and you’re only talking about five cents of electricity per scooter.

[pbhjpbhj]

Setting homes on fire seems like the highest risk -- there's no way standard domestic insurance is paying out if they know the fire is caused by business activities.

[nkrisc]

This seems like the biggest risk to me. Charging untold amounts of batteries that have been used/abused in unknown ways in my house while my family sleeps doesn't seem like a great idea.

[floatrock]

Seems like a great idea to offload risk if you're Bird though! All those hoverboard battery explosions a year or two ago (and for example the FAA baggage bans that came as a result) really soured the image of chinese battery electronics.

Defining the heuristic now: the scooter market will truly be "mature" once Bird et al start incorporating commercial fire insurance add-ons into their charger programs, kinda like how Uber started providing commercial driver and liability insurance.

[Illniyar]

The article says that electricity cost for charging scooters is practically nothing. If we believe it or assume that electricity cost is trivial compared to the payment, then I don't see any parent that'll say no to their nearly-adult children making money on the side by such an activity.

At worst they'll ask for compensation.

[josefresco]

* The article says that electricity cost for charging scooters is practically nothing.*

The article actually qualifies that for people in large apartment buildings with a "bike room" - so essentially these people are freeloading.

Charging a Bird doesn’t require a ton of electricity, so minus the labor cost, charging a few scooters overnight is essentially free—especially if you live in a large apartment building and can do so in your bike room

[djmips]

If you think about it, the scooter must stop scootering before 100% battery depletion to allow for the location electronics adequate life.

[Bud]

Not really. Trivial to deal with this. GPS, GSM, separate small battery. Done.

[BrandonM]

Wouldn't most parents be thrilled for their kids to earn money and learn life lessons by working a job they enjoy? Even if it costs them $20 a month?

[tlrobinson]

I'm not sure if it's a requirement, but all of the individuals quoted in the article were over 18.

[birdman3131]

I don't think they were. To quote the article "“Finding the really hard ones is so awesome,” says Lucas, a young teenage Bird charger in L.A. who didn’t want his last name or his age listed since he technically hunts under his parents’ account."

[tlrobinson]

> since he technically hunts under his parents’ account.

You're right, but that suggests it is a requirement. It's not Bird's fault the kid and his parents are lying about it.

[nicky0]

This is why you didn't found a scooter startup.