Originally Posted by
jon c.
If the service is to be viable, they have to pay whatever it costs to cover the investment, maintenance, and operational costs for the fleet. And the fleet has to include a lot of units not in use at any given time. From what I've seen, it appears to me that rate is going to have to end up being higher than the market will bear. It may work in a few markets, but I don't see it working in most cities. Of course, I could be wrong. Time will tell.
From what I've read, the cities that have allowed sharing have done so under the condition that the companies pay several hundred dollars per year to register them. That makes it a lot more expensive to have large numbers of vehicles available. If the cost is mass production of the units only, then lots of scooters can be parked around the city and it wouldn't take many users to cover the production costs. If each deployed scooter has to pay $100s in taxes/fees per year, though, that ups the ante for how many users are needed to keep the system adequately funded.