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It was a crazy race, but the electric scooters are officially back in San Francisco.
It only took an official ban, an endless license application process, a surprising selection announcement, three appeals (from Lime, Uber's Jump and Spin) and a prescription. temporary prohibition to deny access.
But eventually, the scooters are back in San Francisco. Well, the scooters of two companies: Scoot and Skip.
Bird, Lime and Spin may have started the scooter craze earlier this year, but they are no longer allowed to operate on SF.
You may recognize Scoot in his previous electric vehicle, a red moped, installed in San Francisco since 2012. Mopeds are also in Barcelona.
On Monday, 625 of his newly designed electric scooters "kick" were released in the streets of San Francisco. New cyclists could get a free red helmet if they took out the scooters the first day. The same electric scooters also arrive in Santiago de Chile.
Scooter Telepod modified with lots of red paint, scooters will have replaceable batteries that employees of the company can trade, just like with Scoot mopeds.
Electronic scooters will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, a boon for commuters with non-traditional work schedules. They are available through the same application that used to rent motorcycles.
Scoot CEO Michael Keating said the next version of the scooters will be locked, which will allow them to lock up road signs and bike racks, instead of being thrown on city sidewalks. Scoot could also add a box for the helmets – again, just like its mopeds. "We will learn a lot" during the one – year pilot program in San Francisco, he said.
The selection process was widely criticized by the nearly 2-year-old Lime scooter company based in San Francisco, which was not happy that it was not selected for the program. pilot of the city.
Skip, previously launched in Washington, DC and Portland, Oregon, while Bird and Lime – both rejected – are already present in a hundred cities each.
On the morning of his first day in San Francisco, Skip's CEO and co-founder, Sanjay Dastoor, was at the company's headquarters in San Francisco to ensure that everything went well, with the application, with Skip Scouts ( company ambassadors distributing free helmets and launching tips), and Rangers (the company's network of independent contractors who load scooters).
Features such as the scooter reversal detection system have made the startup attractive to city officials. A flexible lock arrives on the next version of the battery powered scooters.
Dastoor has some experience in automotive engineering as a co-founder of the Boosted Electric Longboard Company.
The scooters themselves are a bit different from what the San Francisco drivers experienced earlier this year. Scooters have a wider floor and a suspension system robust enough for a stable ride.
"We wanted to build something for the bike path," Dastoor said, recognizing that non-motorcyclists generally complained that electronic scooters often take control of sidewalks.
"If we do not serve the whole city, we are not doing our job," he said.
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