[mschuster91]

> The biggest theft use I see locally these days of the modern Limes and Birds is using the batteries for charging shit at homeless encampments.

Okay, I'm German, so no idea about homeless encampments because we simply don't have these in large scale, but how does that even work? Like okay, you rip out the batteries, but then what? You'd still need some sort of voltage regulator just to power a device, and that hasn't even included recharging the batteries.

[majormajor]

None of that's very complicated electronics. Homeless != stupid. Wire some shit up once and then free mobile power is free power. Either jack another battery out of another scooter and reuse your wiring, or do some further wiring to charge off a streetlight or something if you're YOLO.

But it's a lower-demand type of theft than "spend 30 bucks on alibaba and have a free scooter forever thanks to the off-the-shelf-nature of the first rental scooters" that people in the US market were going nuts with in 2018/19. It's a bit more wild west than Germany. ;)