Bird, the
electric scooter-sharing startup worth $2 billion, is further differentiating
itself from the rest of the pack with the launch of custom, rugged electric
scooters. These will roll out in the “coming weeks,” post-beta testing in Los
Angeles, Nashville, Atlanta, Baltimore, Austin and Salt Lake City.
Dubbed Bird
Zero, the scooters have 60 percent more battery life, and better ride stability
and durability than the original model. There’s also an integrated digital
screen to display your speed.
“We call it
Bird Zero because it’s the first vehicle we’ve designed and engineered
ourselves specifically for the shared electric scooter space,” Bird CEO Travis
VanderZanden told TechCrunch this morning.
Bird, in
partnership with Okai, designed and manufactured the scooter from the ground
up. Bird handled the design and Okai handled the manufacturing. But for now,
the plan is to continue working with multiple vehicle manufacturers,
VanderZanden said.
“What I will
say is the Bird Zero is designed specifically for this use case so we’re going
to keep watching and getting feedback from our rider and charger community,” he
said.
Many
electric scooter companies don’t actually build their own scooters. Instead,
they’re slapping stickers and logos on scooters that have been around for
years. Lime, Bird and Spin launched using scooters from Ninebot, a Chinese
scooter company that has merged with Segway. Ninebot is backed by investors,
including Sequoia Capital, Xiaomi and ShunWei. Lime, however, has since
partnered with Segway to build scooters and Skip has said from day one that it
plans to make its own.
The name of
the game, VanderZanden said, is to be as customer-obsessed as possible. That’s
where Bird Delivery, launching soon, comes in. With Bird Delivery, riders can
request a Bird be delivered to their home or office by 8 a.m. From there, the
rider can use it throughout the day.
“The city is
a top customer but we’ve also been listening to the riders and figuring out
what riders really want,” he said. “Riders really want a Bird delivered to them
in the morning at their house. We think that’s a super magical experience.
We’ll be rolling that out very soon. Not a lot of our riders live close to
downtown areas, so there’s an equity component there that we think is very
exciting.”
Bird has yet
to determine the pricing but will announce it soon. What VanderZanden would
share is that it will make “financial sense for you.” He hypothesizes that,
while people could theoretically purchase their own scooters, they won’t
because then they’d have to deal with charging, maintenance and storage.
Last month,
Bird announced 10 million scooter rides since launching about one year ago. To
date, Bird has raised $415 million in funding for shared electric scooters and
operates in more than 100 cities.
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