Will EBikeshare Replace EBike Ownership For Most People in Cities?

[harryS]

I used to ride my 30 pound hybrid with hydraulic disk on the Lakefront bike paths and I couldn't keep up with those young folks on Divvy bikes.

An ebike for this kind of rental is going to be 15 mph max. We got the Lakeshore, the bike lanes downtown and in a lot of the neighborhoods. Folks that rent these bikes ought to be happy to ride them at bike speeds. Otherwise, the batteries will be flat with two rides. Don't put speedometers on them and most users will be in awe. The tourists are busy gawking at the scenery, buildings and people anyway.

 

[mako]

The epidemic of tort law application in the US along with the evolving social narrative concerning "equality of outcome for all" will never allow a successful long term outcome with e-bike-share. Throw in government agencies (local, state, federal) and the plethora of taxes, legislation, regulation yet to come. Oh yeah...the horror!

Short term you can make a lot of money with a lot of backing with almost any idea.

 

[Deleted member 4210]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news...vy-lyft-deal-city-council-20190408-story.html

So less than a week after Lyft (who owns Divvy) announces its getting closer to a massive deal with the City of Chicago (adding among other things 10,000 new ELECTRIC Divvy bikes), Lyft gets hit with having to pull 3000 of their electric bikes off the streets in 3 other cities. (due to people getting thrown over handlebars by supposedly something to do with the front brakes). (Lyft hired outside engineering firm to examine it).

Uber obviously wasn't too happy they (lost?) the deal with Chicago, where they wanted to place 20,000 electric bikes on the streets, in addition to what Lyft/Divvy already had for regular bikes. Uber recently bought Jump to get into the ebike sharing 'fray.'

Lyft's stock is way down below its IPO of $72.

Of course the City of Chicago, loves all the 'private money' being thrown their way.

Well this sort of publicity should get people's attention about ebikes here in Chicago. It's gotten rather 'political' though which is typical of most things "Chicago."

 

[Dewey]

Following their IPO Uber announce 67% price increase for users of JUMP ebikeshare in attempt to increase profits https://denver.streetsblog.org/2019...g-jump-in-prices-at-ubers-bike-share-service/

 

[Ken M]

I think eventually we'll see the ownership / share percentages come close to the data on cars where most people find that they simply need to have the car always available and obviously lower cost if you use it regularly.

If people just consider an ebike as a car supplement and ride commute on it say at least 2000 miles a year the bike will pay for itself via savings in 3-4 years vs driving the call all those miles. Very few things can you buy can that be said with total confidence.

Then add in the health benefits that would be realized by our obese society and eventually people will catch on and buy ebikes for transportation (sadly most of the ebikes are designed for leisure and recreation and are not optimized to be commuting ebikes - there some but if they are not at least Class 3 28mph assist ebikes they really are not effective for commutes longer than say 5 miles.

 

[christob]

I’ve accumulated 26,000 minutes in the saddle of my ebike in 15 months. At JUMP’s new 25-cents/minute rate, that would cost me twice as much as what I paid to purchase my ebike!

 

[harryS]

That's a lot of seat time, christob! Around an hour of riding every day. Maybe 6000-7000 miles?

$15/hour might work if I was a tourist in a far away city. At home. even if they put them out here in my suburb, it's cheaper to own an ebike than rent. I'd probably have to go to the village center to find a bike and then ride it to where I want to ride. Naaah. Makes no sense. That probably applies to the locals in a big city, All the bikes will be concentrated somewhere where you don't live and don't care to go..

And if we were tourists, I think we would go for the $15 all day pass on a regular bike. That's what it costs for a Divvy rental in Chicago. The limitation is that I believe I have to dock the bike every 2 or 3 hours, and then I start another window.

 

[christob]

Yeah, it is when I look at it that way, @harryS! 18 days, 3 hours & 54 minutes cumulative!

But I have a little slower average speed than you think, and the 26,154 minutes (as of tonight) covers 5,898 total miles.

Of course I wouldn't likely be the ideal ebike rental customer in that model - I suspect most users of ebike-share will use them for final mile-or-few, to complete a trip, or run a quick errand, etc. But less likely (though quite possible) to just take one out for a day of joy riding with no objective but moving around... That's where a lot of my miles / minutes came from - weekend 30-milers spread out over 4-7 hours, stopping for coffee, park breaks, etc.

 

[tomjasz]

Never will a replacement for committed riders, but will be my best option when traveling. I hope it succeeds. Regardless of my negative view of Uber.

 

[Dewey]

BRAIN reporting on a new liability/personal injury insurance option for ebikeshare and escooter riders Voom. No details yet on pricing, but the technology section mentions using an app for phone or smart watch to share telemetry data with the insurer for the duration of your ride.

 

[indianajo]

I can't believe these rental bikes are useful. The rental human powered bikes in our town require using an ap on a smart phone. I can't imagine carrying a smart phone on a bike. The rental bikes have no bins. What do people do, hold the phone with one hand and brake with the front only? Smart phones won't fit in a pants pocket. I had to try 4 vendors to find two brands of flip phone I could ride a bike with it in my pocket. Only one of them has service out at my summer camp - Verizon. Boost deleted their flip phone last year.
Contemplated renting a bike to reach Greyhound station at 7 AM last month, but was afraid after I walked the 2 miles to the rental dock that there wouldn't be one. It's 4 more miles to the Greyhound station. Rode the 05:35 TARC bus instead.
Court cases will kill all these services. Innovation in the US grows law suits. All plaintiffs have to do is allege an accident to get a settlement; it doesn't have to be true.

 

[AlanDB]

I understand your points about the difficulty of carrying a phone on a bike, but most people I know (especially the younger crowd) are paranoid about always having their phone with them. So one way or another, they will find a way to carry their phone.

 

[Dewey]

Uber withdraws JUMP bikeshare ebikes from Atlanta and San Diego, having already withdrawn from Dallas, Providence RI, and San Antonio. Will Motorized Scooters kill off ebikeshare?

 

[Bicyclista]

I understand your points about the difficulty of carrying a phone on a bike, but most people I know (especially the younger crowd) are paranoid about always having their phone with them. So one way or another, they will find a way to carry their phone.

So that they can enjoy their feelings of paranoia? I know what you meant, but your phrasing would lead to the opposite meaning, i.e. if people feel paranoid about having their phones with them they would leave their phone behind in order to not have those unpleasant feelings.

Paranoia: "A mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution..."

Personally, I take my phone in a pocket only to use in an emergency. When I feel paranoid I look in my rear-view mirror!

 

[dblhelix]

Uber withdraws JUMP bikeshare ebikes from Atlanta and San Diego, having withdrawn earlier this summer from Dallas and San Antonio. Will Motorized Scooters kill off ebikeshare?

I’ve been all over this summer, including many cities. There’s no comparison, scooter rentals >>> ebike rentals. All ages, too.

 

[Dewey]

Uber JUMP bikeshare ebikes in Washington DC have now apparently expanded their operating area to include Arlington, VA. No announcement on social media or the Uber website, which is not updated to reflect an expanded operating area. Uber made an agreement earlier in the year with Arlington County and already operated JUMP scooters, but JUMP ebikes just started showing up yesterday around Metro-rail stations in Arlington. There are steep hills up from the Potomac river into the Arlington inner suburban neighborhoods so this should be a profitable market for them.

 

[Dewey]

The Washington, DC, Dept of Transportation have announced a shake up of the dockless scooter and ebike rental companies operating in the city. For 2020 Uber/JUMP have had their ebike permit renewed, also a new operator Helbiz. Uber currently operates 1,000 dockless shared JUMP ebikes in DC, the permit would allow both companies to expand this number to up to 5,000 ebikes. The number of scooters permitted has been doubled from 5,000 to 10,000, however Bird and Lime which have operated in DC since 2017 have not had their permits renewed for 2020. Lyft/Motivate have promised to return to service the part-publicly-funded Capital Bikeshare Plus docked ebikeshare ebikes sometime in 2020, presumably after they complete the reintroduction of their ebikes in San Francisco (Bay Wheels) & New York (CitiBike).

 

[Dewey]

Local blog report on this week's rollout in Washington, DC, of the first ebikeshare bikes from new company Helbiz, a new competitor to Uber JUMP. Riding a Helbiz bike works out to $10 per hour vs $18 per hour on an Uber JUMP, not that anyone is riding them for an hour, mostly short trips.

Edit update: I was able to look at one of the Helbiz bikes today and they look identical to the Class 1 pedelecs formerly used by the Ford GoBike ebikeshare fleet in San Francisco, subsequently rebranded as Bay Wheels when they switched to a different model bike. The 1st generation bikes were assembled in Ann Arbor, MI, by GenZe, the ebike division of Indian auto company Tata, and are a modified version of their Genze 200 with the step-through frame and some different component choices eg different front brake Helbiz get a Sturmey Archer drum brake on the front - looked like the standard 70mm version, and the throttle deleted to keep it a Class 1, otherwise pretty much the same equipment as the Genze 200 with disk brake on the back due to the rear hub motor, 8-speed derailleur with microshifters, 36v Samsung battery pack side-loaded into the down-tube, I read elsewhere on this site Genze use a basic cadence sensor. I wonder if Helbiz made a deal with Genze to buy up the SF GoBike's to bring a fleet to the DC market quickly?

Helbiz made a mistake not fitting a speedo to these ebikes, neighboring jurisdiction Arlington County just refused an application from a bikeshare company (presumably Helbiz because they recently were granted an operating license in neighboring Alexandria, VA) because their ebikes lack a speedo required under Arlington County regulation.

 

[Ken M]

I still have this gut feeling that human nature will not allow the dockless ebike share programs to work but I guess we'll see.

 

[Baco Noir]

Denver’s B Cycle ebike program just ended. The escooters are much more popular here.