Electric scooter companies have come up with some simple solutions and are implementing them. The first is to reduce the amount of driving freelancers do at night to collect electric scooters to charge. Lime has attempted to do this by introducing a new feature that allows collectors to pre-book their e-scooters, thereby reducing the amount of unnecessary driving they generate while out looking for them.
Another way to reduce its environmental impact is to introduce a better quality electric scooter.
"If e-scooter companies can extend the life of their e-scooters without doubling the environmental impact of materials and manufacturing, it will reduce the burden per mile," Johnson said. If it lasts for two years, it will make a huge difference to the environment."
Scooter companies are doing the same. Bird recently unveiled its latest generation of electric scooters with longer battery life and more durable parts. Lime has also introduced updated models that it claims have improved unit economics in the e-scooter business.
Johnson added: "There are things that e-scooter sharing businesses and local governments can do to further reduce their impact. For example: Allowing (or encouraging) businesses to collect scooters only when the battery depletion threshold is reached will reduce emissions from the process of collecting e-scooters because people will not collect scooters that do not need to be recharged.
But either way, it's not true that using electric scooters is the most environmentally friendly. E-scooter companies seem to realize this, at least on the surface. Last year, Lime said that in order to make its entire fleet of e-bikes and scooters completely "carbon-free", the SAN Francisco-based company would start buying renewable energy credits on new and existing projects.
Post time: Dec-28-2021