You might notice a new electric, dockless scooter cruising city streets starting this week.
Santa Monica-based Bird just unveiled its latest model, Bird One, which is being marketed as a more durable scooter with a longer battery life and range than previous vehicles.
The new scooters are rolling out in the Los Angeles market first, joining the company's shared, dockless fleet beginning Wednesday, Bird announced.
They'll also be on sale for a whopping $1,299 (that's before tax and delivery fees). The company has opened pre-orders for a limited number of Bird Ones, which come in black, white and rose gold (to match your iPhone).
"We think it's by far the sexiest scooter on the market," is a real sentence Bird founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden told the L.A. Times regarding the new model.
We’ve taken millions of rides to get to One. Bird One is our most advanced vehicle yet—and it’s yours to own. https://t.co/Ajhzq6tasj pic.twitter.com/srqs7VfHPL
— Bird (@BirdRide) May 8, 2019
It's worth noting that the first-generation Bird scooter model, made by the Chinese company Xiaomi, is currently available on Amazon for $448.
The new scooters come with a one-year warranty, access to Bird service centers, GPS tracking and a "digital lock," but no physical anti-theft features. The company says Bird One owners will also have access to the Bird Hunter Network, contractors trained to locate and recover missing scooters. It's not clear from the release how Bird hunters would deal with an alleged scooter thief.
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Bird has a lot riding on its new and improved scooters, amid reporting they've struggled to make a profit on the micromobility technology. The Verge reported last month that the life spans of earlier models on the streets aren't sustainable. An L.A. Times report found that Bird scooters in L.A. County weren't lasting long enough for the company to break even on them, given the costs for maintenance, charging and fees to cities where they're operating.
In a press release announcing its new scooter, VanderZanden said that while first-generation scooters lasted about three months on average, the more recent Bird Zero model "lasts over 10 months in the sharing environment on average." The new Bird One is projected to last "well over a year," he added.
Scooter vandals might have something to say about that.
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