Originally Posted by
jon c.
No, I don't think that's true.
First of all, there's no reason to think they care or would be concerned about this. We've had a couple of years to observe these short tern rental 'businesses' and the few that are even moderately successful still require some form of subsidization. Nothing on the horizon indicates that this may change. The whole concept of the "last mile" solution may be a solution in search of a problem. Unless such rentals significantly increased the number of people taking alternative transportation to reach that last mile, bike and scooter rentals are not going to have any appreciable impact on auto traffic.
The scooter companies are using investor capital money to operate and like Uber, most are losing money. However, the challenge today is developing an electric scooter built heavy duty for commercial purposes with long battery life. The current ones in use are prone to breakage which is why the business model does not work.
The last mile is a real issue in cities where you'll ONLY find electric scooters. Those living the burbs will simply have to watch because the electric scooter will never reach them.
On a different subject, I was thinking how the success of electric scooters opened the eyes of thousands (of adults) on how useful they can be. I've know for YEARS the benefit of regular kick scooters regarding last mile transport. We can only hope the electric kick scooter will increase the number of adults using non-electric kick scooters.