Bird Is Scrapping Thousands of Electric Scooters In the Middle East (cnbc.com) 55
Hot on the heels of Uber scrapping thousands of e-bikes and e-scooters, Bird is taking similar action. The micromobility company is reportedly disposing of thousands of e-scooters in the Middle East and shutting down its operations in the majority of the region as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. CNBC reports: The e-scooters being scrapped belong to Circ, which was acquired by Bird for an undisclosed sum in January. There are between 8,000 and 10,000 Circ scooters across cities in Qatar, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates, according to one former employee and one company source who asked to be kept anonymous as they've signed a confidentiality agreement. Bird is paying around $300,000 to have all of Circ's scooters in the Middle East scrapped, the former employee told CNBC.
Bird said it has "temporarily paused operations" in the Middle East because of the hot weather, adding that it is using the break to "recycle" some vehicles. Bird will continue to operate its own scooters in Tel Aviv. "During this pause, we are taking the opportunity to responsibly recycle parts of the old Circ fleet that were previously used in the region," a Bird spokesperson said. "Following extreme wear and tear, the Circ vehicles no longer met our rigorous quality standards. Selling or re-use of these vehicles would potentially result in safety and reliability issues, which would not have been fair or ethical to the purchasers or potential riders. We look forward to resuming our service throughout more parts of the region later this year."
Bird said it has "temporarily paused operations" in the Middle East because of the hot weather, adding that it is using the break to "recycle" some vehicles. Bird will continue to operate its own scooters in Tel Aviv. "During this pause, we are taking the opportunity to responsibly recycle parts of the old Circ fleet that were previously used in the region," a Bird spokesperson said. "Following extreme wear and tear, the Circ vehicles no longer met our rigorous quality standards. Selling or re-use of these vehicles would potentially result in safety and reliability issues, which would not have been fair or ethical to the purchasers or potential riders. We look forward to resuming our service throughout more parts of the region later this year."
Fuck Bird (Score:5, Interesting)
Everybody’s talking about the bird (Score:3, Informative)
A-well-a bird bird bird, bird is the word
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It's not a question of where it grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five-ounce bird could not carry a 28 pounds electric scooter!
Re: Everybody’s talking about the bird (Score:1)
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A five-ounce bird could not carry a 28 pounds electric scooter!
An African or European bird?
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Very few sloshdatters will ever have heard it.
Really? I was under the impression that everybody's heard that the bird is the word [youtube.com].
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Me: "sloshdatters"
Nelson: Haw-haw!
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Seems like deja vu - I vaguely recall a Slashdot thread along these lines from years ago.
Anyway, here's what comes to mind when I think of that song [youtube.com].
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Greenwashing (Score:5, Insightful)
All these companies put forward their product as some sort of environmental wonder-weapon, but they don't like to talk about what happens at the end of life. They sure don't want to sell off their old or unneeded bikes and scooters - that would shrink their own market.
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Except they would get sued if one breaks.
Hell, you'd probably see a lawsuit preparatory article here about it. That's where an article tries to generate outrage without mentioning suing, and the more outrage, the more confident the lawyers behind it are of their planned lawsuit.
Re:Greenwashing (Score:4, Interesting)
Then sell them to a refurbisher who will take the time to make sure they are safe. Also, companies sell things all the time in a used, as-is condition. Sell them officially as broken, for parts, and with a signed agreement that they are not fit for use without repair by a qualified technician.
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Same goes for every consumer product manufacturer. If they were safe enough to use for rental they should be safe enough to sell to consumers too.
Nah, they just want to avoid creating competition for themselves with cheap used scooters. The new ones aren't that expensive now so they won't go for much used.
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Except they would get sued if one breaks.
See them to an intermediary who have them certified or scrapped if they fail testing. If that doesn't work, get yourself a new country because yours is fucked.
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That's the excuse anyway, but not really factual. You can sell them as parts and then it's on the buyer if they ride it.
Before the froot loop became universal, many tire places sold off the tires they replaced as spares. Shoddy used car dealers would buy them and put them on used cars anyway. The tire places didn't get sued.
Not to mention that an instant before they decided to scrap them, they were apparently perfectly safe for people to rent and ride. Just how much did they age in that instant?
The real rea
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Youâ(TM)ve hit the nail on the head. This is a greenwashing company using the flimsiest of excuses to avoid flooding the market with their own used equipment which could compete against their own company. The environmental cost of what their doing is huge. Itâ(TM)s an environmental travesty.
Re:Greenwashing (Score:5, Interesting)
They kinda screwed themselves by mass producing electric scooters, driving the cost down. Then people just bought their own electric scooters. After all it's much better to have one at home or the office so you can do the whole journey on it, right?
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Re: Greenwashing (Score:1)
And yet people have owned bikes for centuries, which need to be oiled, maintained, and carried up and down stairs.
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but they don't like to talk about what happens at the end of life.
As long as they didn't replace bulk transportation then the EoL equation remains unchanged. Eventually something will end up in the bin whether it's my scooter or Bird's
That's what got Thomas J. Watson a criminal record (Score:5, Informative)
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Coronavirus, sure (Score:5, Insightful)
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Uber has a great product. They just need to make it work.
Pushing a button and having a ride there quickly is way better than waiting for a centralized taxi service.
And I mean way better.
Re: Coronavirus, sure (Score:2)
They are still losing billions of dollars after years of operations with no end in sight. They have terrible business models.
The Uber model seems to be:
1) put all the taxi companies out of business with VC subsidized rides
2) cut operations costs "some day" with robotic driverless cars
3) profit!
Yes, they have a step 2 which a vast improvement over most startups but good luck with that.
Re: Coronavirus, sure (Score:4, Interesting)
My problem with this theory is that I have taken more Uber rides in the last year than I have taxi rides in my entire life. It's not that I suddenly fell in love with riding in the back of a late-model Korean-branded SUV, it's that taxis in my city were nearly unavailable unless you were at the airport or in a downtown hotel. It was a non-option option to take a taxi.
If you called a cab, you waited a long time for it to show up. That's maybe OK if you're going to dinner at a set time, but going home? Who wants to wait for 30 minutes at the restaurant to go home?
The thing I'd be curious about is what the subsidy is as a percentage of an Uber fare. I ask almost all my Uber drivers what they think about driving for Uber, and seldom do I get anything negative out of them, so it doesn't feel like Uber drivers are getting such a bad deal.
I almost feel like Uber could somehow partner with the restaurant/bar industry to use Uber discounts to shift whatever the ride subsidy is to them. In urban areas, providing parking costs money and without it, restaurants lose customer reach if they're dependent on nearby foot traffic and have limited self-park options nearby. I know I avoid some restaurants completely if the parking sucks, but will definitely go if I don't have to deal with it. Offering Uber ride discounts would give the subsidy that makes the Uber ride more compelling and probably is cheaper than the costs of providing parking, as well as tying it to a real market activity versus just burning VC cash.
Re: Coronavirus, sure (Score:5, Insightful)
In civilized parts of the world they have ride-hailing apps that get you a normal taxi.
Ride-hailing is the feature most people want, and there's no reason regular taxis couldn't do it. Ride-sharing is a bullshit feature that Uber/Lyft don't actually provide, since they don't tell the driver the destination before you get in.
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I'd like a better analysis of why taxis in so many places became nearly obsolete.
Party it's the automobile itself, and the culture's adaption to it and the general expectation that businesses needed to cater to people who expected to drive themselves.
But part of it seemed to definitely be the taxi industry's willingness to accept a shrunken, minimalist business sector so long as it was held in an iron grip monopoly. The taxi industry itself would have never innovated on its own so long as what was left of
Re: Coronavirus, sure (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] I have taken more Uber rides in the last year than I have taxi rides in my entire life. It's not that I suddenly fell in love with riding in the back of a late-model
Taxis sucked for several reasons, and only got away with it because of their monopoly position:
* cars that arrived at some random point in time between when you called and the heat death of the sun
* shitty ancient cars that were falling apart
* dirty smelly cars that were rarely cleaned
* dirty smelly chain-smoking drivers
* employing the trick of driving you out of the way to increase the fare
Re:Coronavirus, sure (Score:5, Insightful)
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My experience seems to have shone me that the Plan or Ideology isn't the primary factor, but the implementation.
There have been auto makers saying we want to make electric cars.
They either just retrofitted their existing cars (which had sucky range, and were extremely expensive)
Or they made tiny cars (where you could get a much nicer ICE Car at the same price)
So it seemed like the idea of Electric Cars is a bad idea.
Now we have Tesla.
Who decided to make a line of luxury like car. Where they can design it a
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My experience seems to have shone me that the Plan or Ideology isn't the primary factor, but the implementation.
There have been auto makers saying we want to make electric cars.
They either just retrofitted their existing cars (which had sucky range, and were extremely expensive)
Or they made tiny cars (where you could get a much nicer ICE Car at the same price)
So it seemed like the idea of Electric Cars is a bad idea.
Now we have Tesla.
Who decided to make a line of luxury like car. Where they can design it around the trade offs of electric motors, and add what was considered high margin features in luxury cars, to help make the prices competitive, with other luxury cars (at the expense of their own margins for the features)
It wasn't that Electric Car was a bad business plan, but it needed to be implemented differently.
This can be said, about what ever stupid political Ideals you hold too. You can screw it up by poor implementation or you can make it a clean experience with a proper implementation.
I don't think it's that shocking. Existing automakers were (and still are) producing massive numbers of cars. To them the electric car market was just too tiny to contribute much to the bottom line, a common situation described well in "The Innovators Dilemma". To the extent they might offer such a product they would base it on an existing platform and manufacturing line to keep the costs down. Now that the technology and demand have improved they are changing strategies.
Here's a nice chart of 2019 aut
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They are only changing Strategies because Tesla's market share is bigger than most of the Automakers. And the Model 3 is the most sold car in California.
As well most people who tried a Tesla and Other EV really do like it, and don't want to go back to an ICE car.
It reminds me back in Elementary School.
There was a kid who was really good at Baseball. During Recess he will play baseball with the others, and always won (Being a kid, often a really bad sport about it too). Over time the kids tired to loosing
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They are only changing Strategies because Tesla's market share is bigger than most of the Automakers. And the Model 3 is the most sold car in California.
Tesla's market share is a fraction of most automakers. How could it not be? They manufacturer 90% fewer vehicles than GM alone
https://www.globenewswire.com/... [globenewswire.com]
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They are only changing Strategies because Tesla's market share is bigger than most of the Automakers. And the Model 3 is the most sold car in California.
Tesla's market share is a fraction of most automakers. How could it not be? They manufacturer 90% fewer vehicles than GM alone
https://www.globenewswire.com/... [globenewswire.com]
As for Q1 2020 sales in California, Tesla sales are primarily online. The other carmakers primarily sell through their dealer networks, which were heavily impacted by Covid.
Green economy? (Score:2)
This shows how polluting e-stuff can be!
Scooters?? Anyone use them? (Score:1)
Is there really high demand for on the spot scooter rental?
Have any of you ever rented a scooter?
I understand Uber. This, not so much.
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Have any of you ever rented a scooter?
Yes.
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UBER (Score:1)
..they are doing that to eliminate the scooters eating into their taxi service.
Bird, my guess is that they are tired of people throwing the scooters into lakes and streams.
I don't know if this is a big problem in the MI, but it really eats into their profits.
scrapping is criminal (Score:1)
especially in india.
you can spin this any way you want, but the fact remains that it is destruction, and a waste of resources, in the name of profit, the most false of all prophets, and for this the lords of karma, i pray, will extract a price.
An environment-friendly electric scooter? (Score:2)
What I have in mind is a scooter that would dissolve underwater.
Seriously? (Score:2)
I am honestly laughing myself fucking stupid at this one. eScooters in the Gulf States? Seriously?
A few pointers:
1) It's hot there for a lot of the year - seriously oh-by-Allah it's hot. Along with heat comes intense sunshine : it's not tropical heat.
2) They are car-dependent cultures, Only the poor [i.e. guest workers] don't drive.
3) Driving there can be interesting....I sure as hell wouldn't want to share the roads.
4) See 1) again. In summer you really only want to move between air-conditioned houses, car