The e-scooter global market size is projected
to hit over $30 billion by 2028.
While e-scooters, as we know them, seemingly
started to pop up very recently, the first
device resembling a motorized scooter was
invented in 1915 by a company called Auto PED
in Long Island City, New York.
Now they're electrified and lining the streets of
major metropolitan areas, some using them as
a convenient and quick last mile mode of
transportation and others complaining about
how they clutter sidewalks. E-scooter
rideshare systems are already in 158 US cities,
including Washington, D.C., which will have
over 20,000 rentable e-scooters by the end of
the year. That's about four times the amount of
bikes available in their city bikeshare program.
It's a program that has offered a lot of
different variety and additional mobility
options throughout the district.
It was designed with a commitment to provide
equity, sustainability and also definitely make
sure we have safety in mind.
Despite e-scooters essentially becoming a
part of the culture and a regular mode of
transportation in cities like D.C.
and Austin, which has over 10,000 e-scooters.
Rideshare e-scooter businesses are struggling
and other cities like New York and Paris have
partial or full bans in place for rideshare
e-scooter companies.
Companies like Bird, Lime and Spin have all
faced issues working with cities, backlash
after fatal accidents and are simply struggling
with profitability.
When Bird Global, one of the largest e-scooter
rideshare companies in the industry, went public
via SPAC in November 2021, it had an implied
$2.3 billion valuation.
Now its stock has tumbled about 98% from
its peak.
The primary reason is that focus in not
on top line growth, which is maybe where the
markets were a couple of years ago, and a focus in
on total co profitability, where we
just recently are starting to make the turn
on that.
I chalk it up to more of a symptom of just a young
company, high growth kind of going public
maybe a year or two before it probably
otherwise would have or should have.
Some cities like D.C.
view rideshare e-scooters as a
beneficial additional transportation option
because they're quiet, environmentally friendly
and relatively cheap.
I've seen the growth, I've seen the interest,
I've seen the request that we've received here
in Washington, D.C. alone for different
vendors that want to come and do business here
in Washington, D.C.
And so I do believe it's here to stay.
As opposed to a gimmicky joyride for tourists.
People in D.C. do use them regularly as a mode
of transportation.
In 2022, there were five shared fleet electric
scooter permitted companies that were
operating here in D.C.
and together they had over 5 million rides.
Other cities have more strict rules with riding
e-scooters and the rideshare companies in
operation. San Francisco recently saw the exit of
Bird as the company decided the city has
become too difficult to work with as it makes
strides towards profitability.
We operate in around 400 cities and
they had the highest fine rate of any city in
the world that we operate in.
And they were in the top 1% of cities for vehicle
theft.
Some cities like San Francisco have strict
parking laws, as residents often complain
about scooters on the sidewalk and view them as
clutter. In a two month span last summer in San
Francisco, there were over 12,000 citations for
improperly parked e-scooters, resulting in
Bird paying $385,000 Lime $577,000 and Spin
$390,000 in fines.
And early in that same summer, San Diego
required e-scooter companies to install
geo-fencing that deactivates e-scooters
riding on sidewalks.
This is the newest form of transportation.
We haven't historically thought of it in our
planning and our infrastructure, and so we
are playing catch up and doing it as quickly as we
can. I know some other cities have landed in
different areas, kind of on the value proposition
that these vehicles bring.
Many cities have strict laws against the use of
e-scooters on sidewalks that can include hefty
fines. In Paris, 89% of voters voted to ban
rentable e-scooters from the nation's capital,
citing safety as the main concern, with
e-scooter usage both for riders and pedestrians.
This vote comes as Paris plans to ban cars from
the city center in early 2024, in what some are
seeing as a counterproductive measure
for its car-less ideal.
We have an imperative as a society to get cars off
the road, and that's true whether you consider
congestion, emissions and air quality or
housing affordability.
Transportation is the largest contributor to
greenhouse gas emissions in the US at 27%.
An e-scooter halves the amount of CO2 produced by
a car with about 200g per mile traveled so long
as they're being used to replace short car trips
instead of a walkable trip. They're a clear
environmental improvement over cars.
Cities understand this, and that's why they're
publishing goals to reduce emissions and get
cars off the road. That includes New York City
saying they're going to reduce emissions by 50%,
San Diego by 60%.
San Francisco said they want 80% of trips taken
to be out of single occupancy vehicles by
2030. Micromobility is an excellent way for
cities to achieve that goal.
E-scooters are far more efficient per mile than a
combustion engine car.
Between 30 and 40% of trips replace a driving
trip. We see a lot of those replacing the TNCs,
the Uber and Lyft's.
However, some studies have suggested that
e-scooters are more frequently replacing
walkable trips than short drives or Ubers.
And while some complain about e-scooters taking
space on the sidewalk, they use a lot less space
overall than cars and don't require any new
parking infrastructure.
Since we permitted e-scooter operations in
Denver back in 2018, riders have traveled more
than 15 million miles, 12.9 million trips folks
have taken on shared bikes and scooters.
I should highlight that includes bikes as well.
And with that, we've reduced nearly 5 million
driving trips from Denver's roadways.
Because they take up so little space.
E-scooters also contribute to reduced
traffic congestion.
One study showed that after Atlanta banned
e-scooters and e-bikes for a period in 2019,
commute times increased by 10%.
And it's estimated that micromobility could
reduce national travel times for drivers by over
17%. And rideshare programs are relatively
affordable. An average ten minute trip, which
can get you a little over two miles, costs
under $5.
One of the main concerns city residents have with
e-scooters revolves around safety, and the
Consumer and Product Safety Commission found
that there are nearly 120,000 emergency room
visits, with 68 riders killed between 2017 and
2021 using e-scooters, while 53 died from riding
e-bikes.
In San Francisco there was an increase in
e-scooter injuries from 2020 to 2021 by about
58%, up to 153 injuries.
Certain laws and limitations have proven
successful in the decrease of injuries.
In Finland, we saw that when we limited the
availability of the e-scooters at night, we
saw a decrease in the incidents of the
injuries. In the study period.
Most of the accidents happened from 9 p.m.
to 4 a.m.
From those patients, two thirds were intoxicated.
So so that was a big problem.
And in 2022, we saw that there were 60%
less of these injuries in the following summers
when these restrictions were in place.
One study found that there was one e-scooter
injury for every 5555 miles traveled and a lack
of protected lanes for micromobility could be at
fault for some of the e-scooter fatalities, 72%
of which involved motor vehicles and 74% of all
injuries happen on paved roads.
In addition to rider safety, concerns over
pedestrian safety is also a factor.
But a recent study at a major metropolitan
hospital found that only about 5% of
e-scooter-related emergency room visits
were pedestrians.
The patients that were treated in the hospitals
that we looked at, only 3% of those were
pedestrians or bicyclists or someone who
didn't ride the e-scooter.
So that tells us that most of the accidents
happened to the rider itself.
While the number of accidents is fairly
comparable to other modes of micromobility,
many cities like DC are still enforcing laws like
the prohibition of sidewalk riding in busy
pedestrian areas to ensure safety.
We're committed to safety first and foremost, and
that is why we enforce a ten mile per hour speed
limit on our shared fleet of electric
scooters.
While shared micromobility use has
become increasingly popular, e-scooter
companies like Bird and Lime have struggled with
profitability. In 2022, Bird had a net loss of
over $350 million compared to a $215
million loss the year prior.
It's probably too crowded, too fragmented a
landscape in terms of companies out there.
Now a plethora of companies have sprouted
after bird in Lime's initial launch, and some
companies like Uber have tried its hand in the
e-scooter rid-share business in DC and
Austin, there are five and four different
companies competing with each other for ridership
respectively. While these companies competing
with each other have had profitability issues,
Bird says it's getting closer to being
profitable.
So for 2022, Bird's revenue is $245
Million. That was about a 30% growth from the
prior year. We are guiding to an adjusted
EBITDA of positive $15 to $20 million for 2023
and positive free cash flow of $5 to $10 million
in 2019.
Ford acquired Spin scooters for an estimated
$80 to $90 million, only to get out of the
e-scooter business just a few years later,
selling the company to Berlin-based Tier
Mobility. Apart from having to compete with
other scooter share companies within cities,
they also have to work with the cities to expand
services which are sometimes limited.
For instance, in New York, e-scooter rideshare
companies are currently only allowed in the Bronx
as part of a pilot program. While the NYC
DoT considered the pilot a success, it still
hasn't expanded to any other boroughs, and other
cities haven't allowed any rideshare
micromobility companies yet.
There are still major markets like Houston and
New Orleans and Las Vegas that haven't yet
stood this up. So we have a lot of potential
as an industry to continue growing.
And then even in cities where we're in today,
those programs aren't necessarily all at scale.
So as cities like New York pilot, smaller
programs see that they're successful, we'll
see them expanding the programs and operators
will expand their footprints even within
cities that we operate in today.
You know, you've also seen some cities that are
leaning into the opportunity, but they're
doing it in sort of a more measured way.
I think over time, those things need to change a
little bit in order for these companies to
actually kind of become sustainably, consistently
profitable and still grow.
But again, I think that that's just a reflection
of this kind of like test and learn period
we're in right now.
Lime, which also has rentable bikes and is
considering an IPO, said that it was profitable
throughout 2022 on an adjusted EBITDA basis,
which no other Micromobility company has
achieved yet.
We just guided to be free cash flow positive
for the year in 2023 is all about how do you
build not just sustainable unit
economics so you see a decent payback on the
vehicles, but how do you do that at a scale with a
controlled central cost base where you're
covering your your central costs and are
actually generating true free cash flow
profitability as a company? And that's where
I think we are right now.