Uber Is Building Its Own Scooter to Compete in Frenzy
Three excerpts:
In the past several months, Uber has announced plans to integrate bike- and scooter-sharing services on its app, an acknowledgment that cars aren’t always the best form of urban transport. Now the company has quietly begun engineering its own scooter, say people familiar with the plans, which haven’t been previously reported. Jump Bikes, which Uber acquired in April for more than $100 million, is overseeing the project.
And:
The scooter project is in early stages. Nick Foley, Jump’s head of product, declined to confirm it existed, as did an Uber spokeswoman. But Foley agreed to discuss the design challenges that scooters present. They mostly relate to people who want to do the vehicles harm. Foley talked about hiding brake cables so vandals can’t cut them and about ways to make scooters harder to snap in half, a fate some have suffered in San Francisco and elsewhere. “The way these scooters are failing is a predictable result of the design and engineering process,” Foley says.
The reason why they’re easy to damage is because they were made for the ownership market. They were never envisioned for industrial fleets. Individual owners care about their eScooters. People as masses often don’t appreciate a damn thing.
And:
Eventually, Uber and its competitors envision a business that extends beyond cars and into more novel forms of transportation. Earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported that Lime was developing a motorized rickshaw. Rzepecki says Jump wants to put similar vehicles on the road. “There’s going to be a lot of innovation in terms of what types of light electric vehicles are out there,” he says. “It’s clear that to go a couple of miles, you don’t need a 2,000-pound lump of steel.”
Boldfaced emphasis added by me.
I’m going to coin a new term: Obese traveling. There is no need for a car when an eScooter can do the trip just fine. Lose the weight!
Previously here:
Chronological List Of Electric Scooter Posts
eScooters category
Mike Cane's Atomic Supermen 