I think electric unicycles are superior to electric scooters in most of the ways. If you're thinking about buying an electric scooter I'd recommend you to consider a one-wheeler instead. Once you learn how to ride, which takes about a week, it's much more comfortable and mobile than a scooter. You can take your wheel with you to a mall or a cinema and be on the go whenever.
I agree but the issue with EUCs is the learning curve and the risk of injury during learning. I beat myself up a bit learning to ride mine, but it was worth it -- way better than a scooter.
If you're learning with no guidance or your wheel is buggy you may fall down a couple of times but it's mostly very mild since you just jump off. Some injuries can happen if you get cocky and not careful but I've fallen down 3 times already (1.5 years experience) and the worst I got was slightly damaged skin on my hands.
> or your wheel is buggy you may fall down a couple of times but it's mostly very mild since you just jump off.
I've been cycling in London and I have to do unexpected hard breaks daily; pedestrians walk of the pavement without looking around, fellow cyclist makes unexpected move, etc. If the vehicle can't hard break and you just jump off, how can you avoid to hurt others?
I'm more worried about in the event of a vehicle collision. I had an EcoReco scooter for a time. A vehicle turned in front of me, I ran into it. It would have been much worse for me if the handlebar had not collided with the car first.
Successful pivoting from service to products isn't common. I'm guessing their financials on the rental model aren't panning out.
This is an attempt to Tesla/iPhone the scooter market. Let's see what the consumer appetite is. I'm guessing the Bird brand is already tarnished with adjectives like "cheap" and "broken" so this may be an uphill battle.
If they stocked n-thousand of these scooters, why not see how many people are willing to buy them (at 600% markup)? They already have whatever economies of scale for stocking the scooters for their rental business.
I bought a Xiaomi Mi scooter on Amazon last year for $499. This is the same scooter Bird started with.
So far it’s been great. There’s a “Mi Home” app that shows you remaining charge and an estimate of miles left, plus total miles driven. It’s also got a charge indicator on the scooter itself.
The owned scooters go a bit faster than the rental ones, and the battery lasts about 15 miles total.
So far it’s been useful to eliminate short drives or Lyfts (coming back from dropping off the car to get new tires is one example; going to local restaurants is another.) It folds up easily and can lock to a bike rack or stow under a table at a restaurant.
We’ve put 110 miles on it so far, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but considering most of our trips on it are far less than a mile, it’s been worth the money.
At $1299, though, I can’t see why this Bird scooter would be worth so much more than the Xiaomi. This landing page doesn’t help; it seems to assume the people reading don’t know about $500 scooters. Perhaps that is their target market, but in that case, I don’t think this will sell that well.
It's a practical joke and the punchline hits when you find yourself $1299 and tax lighter struggling to maintain 10mph with buses and rideshare cars whizzing past you and the curb.