this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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Those scooters aren't sustainable. They're generating a shit ton of litter and ewaste, in addition to needing charging constantly. And on a personal note, fuck all these idiots leaving them all over the fucking sidewalk.
The scooters are fine. It's the rental business model that's shitty.
And the idiots throwing them into the port's water.
If they help to get people out of cars (including electric cars), I see them as a win. Orders of magnitude less impactful than cars.
I think that's a big part of the problem with electrified bikes, scooters and the like. As long as they are used as an alternative to more polluting and less sustainable modes of transport, that can be a win. But if they're used as alternatives to walking or unmotorised modes of transport, they're doing more harm than good. And I'm afraid that's the case more often than not.
Disclaimer: My comment is just a superficial note on the topic and does not represent a qualified in-depth summary.
Yes, indeed. They would be most useful in rural areas, where public transport is not sufficiently present and could therefore replace cars.
But those are the areas, which are not as profitable as cities. There, decent public transport options often exist, which is why they often replace walking and thereby increase emissions.
But that also depends on particular individual factors like the electrification of those public transport modes.
There is some reaearch on this, for example:
https://www.itf-oecd.org/are-e-scooters-good-or-bad-environment
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2020.102680
There's evidence they are being used as an alternative to more polluting modes: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-280-million-electric-bikes-and-mopeds-are-cutting-demand-for-oil-far-more-than-electric-cars-213870
About the sidewalks, I guess it's an infrastructure problem. They're new so there's no intended place for parking them yet. Brussels recently began turning some car parking places into scooter parking, it's pretty nice!
It's why they're also called scatter scooters in some places
From my understanding, they only go for so long after you pay, which is a flaw in the fee-system they're based on.
I'll be honest, if I pay to ride one of those scooters, I get 75% of the way to my destination, and then it just ceases to function until I pay again, I'm just gonna leave it where it stopped. There's no way I'm dragging it along with me.
All valid points, other than needing charging. The amount of electricity they use per km is basically fuck all.
I would assume charging every day wears the batteries out, and those are awful for the environment