One of Taiich Ohno's Ten precepts to thinking and acting to win.

Do anything immediately. Starting something right now is the only way to win.

AKTIVO - World's first hubless electric scooter.

The AKTIVO Scoot has the perfect balance between elegance and performance. It is built out of a single-piece magnesium frame, and is propelled by an astonishing empty wheel electric motor. With a 1000W brushless motor, the AKTIVO Scoot is the most powerful scooter in the market. The AKTIVO Scoot has the perfect balance between elegance and performance. It is built out of a single-piece magnesium frame, and is propelled by an astonishing empty wheel electric motor. With a 1000W brushless motor, the AKTIVO Scoot is the most powerful scooter in the market. Currently seeking funding on Indiegogo

Scooter Startups Are Ditching Gig Workers for Real Employees

In Los Angeles, scooter-share company Spin will hire employees to collect, charge, fix, and redeploy its vehicles every day. Read more here: Spin is taking a different approach to scooter operations from Wired Online.

Stolen, burned, tossed in the lake: e-scooters face vandals' wrath

Are ride-share electric scooters the future of urban transport? Read more This year may go down in the history books as the year of the scooter: the year all different brands and colors began appearing along sidewalks around the world, seemingly out of nowhere. To those who hate them, they’re like an invasion from a dystopian robot future. To their fans, they’re the future of urban transport: green, high tech and fun. Read more here: The Guardian

Auckland threatens to eject Lime scooters after wheels lock at high speed

The head of transport in New Zealand’s largest city is threatening to pull every Lime scooter off the footpaths if the company does not address a technical glitch causing scooters to brake suddenly at high speed. Read more here: The Guardian More on Lime e-scooters and the temporarily suspension from two New Zealand cities after a technical glitch caused the front wheel of some scooters to lock, throwing riders onto the pavement.

Dockless Scooter Rides, No Longer Cheap and Easy, Increasingly End With Fines

After a fun, inexpensive ride on an electric bike or scooter, some consumers are getting hit with unexpected fines by startups that accuse them of hoarding equipment or parking missteps. Read more here:WSJ PRO VC Commentary

MICROMOBILITY

Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden acknowledged the unit economics for his business had not worked out as the company had expected, thanks in part to the fact that its off-the-shelf scooters couldn’t eke by outside. Read more here: Wired

Electric Scooter Injuries on the Rise as Riders Go Without Helmets

One in 3 people involved in electric scooter accidents require treatment for injuries at an emergency room, according to a new study by the University of California, Los Angeles, which also found that few riders wear a helmet. Read more here: Consumer Reports

Scooters’ Worst Enemies: Wintry Weather, Vandals

“The key question for the industry—and where we put all our focus—is, ‘How does the system work sustainably?’...It can’t work sustainably just in summer,” said Sanjay Dastoor, CEO of Skip, a Y Combinator-backed scooter rental firm operating in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Read more here: The Information.

Ready or Not, Here Comes the Micromobility Revolution

Inside a luminous former factory on the Bay Area waterfront last week, software geeks, VCs, and sundry tech evangelizers zipped around on electric bikes, scooters, and hoverboards. Industry representatives from Jump, Spin, and Lyft hawked their compact transportation widgets. This was the Micromobility Conference, billed online as “an event focused on unbundling the car with lightweight electric vehicles.”

Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality

Bird founder and chief executive officer Travis VanderZanden was on site at Upfront Summit in Malibu to mingle with attendees before closing the summit with a fireside chat with Suster himself. The pair hit on a number of topics, including the unit economics, safety and seasonality of the scooter business. Learn more at techcrunch.com

Questions from Lyft's LPO

Lyft has been offering electric scooters on demand—using vehicles manufactured by China's Segway-Ninebot—in about a dozen or so cities. Management will need to have a realistic path to improving scooter hardware if it wants vehicles to last on streets longer than a couple of months. What is Lyft’s plan to increase the useful life of each electric scooter? Lyft is likely hoping it can get exclusive or near-exclusive rights to operate scooters in some of the cities where it operates bikes. Most cities where Lyft runs bike rentals are up for grabs for scooter companies. Monopolies would help the tough economics of the scooter business. How will it play out? from The Information

The Ford Spin

Spin, the electric scooter startup that Ford bought earlier this year for around $100 million, is gearing up to launch in 100 cities by the end of the year. This is thanks to a new partnership with Zagster, a dockless mobility startup that got its start with bike-share solutions for cities. “A solid operations infrastructure is the key to making a dockless mobility program work smoothly,” Spin Chief Business Officer Ben Bear said in a statement. “As thousands of people take to the streets daily on shared two-wheeled vehicles, they need to be confident that the vehicles they hop on to have been checked and maintained.” from TechCrunch

Economics

The report’s data helps us understand Bird’s chance of long-term survival. It also helps us understand the scooter sector, as other key players have similar business models.