Is it time to buy an e-scooter?
Gas prices are making car-owners think twice before driving
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Gas prices are making car-owners think twice before driving, with the average cost per gallon recently hitting $4.32 in the U.S. The price surge has boosted sales and interest in electric bikes and scooters, which offer potentially cheaper modes of travel. Sales at Miami e-scooter seller Fluidfreeride more than doubled from February to March; outdoor gear startup Restrospec reported a 200% increase in e-bike sales during the same period. Soaring gas prices also bumped traffic to e-scooter firm Bird’s website by 30% and direct-to-consumer sales by 60%. Bird has seized the gas price hike as a marketing opportunity and is running a giveaway for 10 scooters and one e-bike through April 18.
It’s easy to see the appeal of a bike, e-scooter, or e-bike as an alternative to a car journey when gas tops $4 a gallon. It’s even more interesting to see those prices boosting not just use of shared fleets but private micromobility ownership. Shared scooters might be cheaper than driving a car, but they are arguably not cheap. Most companies originally charged for shared rides with a similar pricing model of $1 to ‘unlock’ the device plus 15 cents a minute to ride it. Two years ago, a lot of those prices went up, in some cases to 20- to 30-some cents per minute. That was better for scooter unit economics but less good for consumers, for whom trip prices effectively doubled.
A key selling point of shared micro-mobilities is convenience. Using a scooter or bike that’s part of a shared fleet means worrying about fewer things. It’s not your problem if the device is stolen or vandalized; the company is responsible for maintenance, so in theory you shouldn’t have to worry about flat tires or busted brakes. If a bike or scooter is only being used for one leg of your trip, for instance to get from your home to a train station, you can simply leave the device at the endpoint of that first trip segment rather than having to figure out where to store it safely to collect later, or if you can carry it on the next transport segment with you.
These are all good reasons to use shared micromobility services, but if as in the case of the gas price surge the main reason for someone switching to a bike or scooter is cost savings, ownership starts to look a lot more appealing. There are now plenty of solid consumer e-scooter options that range from about $400 to $2,700 in price. Wired’s top pick is the Segway Ninebot F30, which costs $580 on Amazon, is light enough at 33 pounds to manage on a flight of stairs, and is “dead simple” to fold up. That’s a decent investment, but for anyone switching to scooting as a new go-to mode of transport, it also wouldn’t take terribly long to recoup.
In Portland, Oregon, for example, a 2020 review of the city’s e-scooter pilot found that people tended to use e-scooters for short trips averaging 1.06 miles and 14 minutes. At a price of $1 to unlock and 29 cents per minute, one of those short trips would cost about $5: not a ton of money, but more than a single public transit fare in most cities. For an occasional user, maybe that makes sense. For a frequent user, buying the Segway Ninebot F30 scooter would become cheaper than renting in Portland (at those 2019-2020 prices) after 116 of those average journeys, or about two to four months of routine use.
Shared scooters are also reporting higher usage as gas prices rise, with companies from Lime to Superpedestrian citing an increase in ridership. But I’m interested to see whether the current trend tips the scale toward ownership and away from renting. If you’ve bought a bike, e-bike, or e-scooter lately, or have thoughts on the shared vs. owned models, leave a comment or send me a note, I’d love to hear from you.
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Here in NYC, I suspect the continued growth in personal MM ownership continues to be about convenience, reliability, and a growth in safe infrastructure than it is gas prices, given low car ownership rates (for the US, at least).
Shared (active) electric micromobility is still somewhat limited in the city, as compared to DC, SF, or LA - and certainly European metros. The current NYC e-scooter pilot is currently limited to a subsection of the Bronx, and Citibike e-bikes are still hard to come by, given their wide popularity. (We need more of them!)
So I think people are more likely to have skipped (or fast-forwarded) the step of shared and gone directly to personal ownership. NYers like e-scooters because of their small storage footprint, and lower cost. E-bikes are better for the city's rough roads, but they require a bigger apartment (and fewer stairs) to own, as theft is too high to park them outdoors.
There's also a decent ecosystem of shops to get MM vehicles maintained, although they will often only work on vehicles they sold. That imbalance makes it harder for people who bought DTC to keep vehicles in working order when something eventually fails.
great piece! (and thanks for the LINK to that Seattle story about Superpedestrian's increased ridership). Maybe just as many bike share users have their own bikes, and car owners take cabs/ridehail depending on the trip, i think we are moving to a place where same will be true for scooter riders. (there are also costs to ownership not covered here, like theft, maintenance, vandalism, depreciation.)