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When Michael Ramsey, an analyst at Gartner, a technology research company, began developing his "Cycle hype" report for the future of transportation in February, he had many topics: electric vehicles, flying cars, 5G, blockchain, etc. . and, of course, autonomous vehicles.
But one type of transportation is clearly missing from the report's findings: electric scooters.
"At the time, outside of California, these scooters were really not that common," Ramsey said. "That's all that happened."
As for autonomous vehicles, which have had years of hype in the foreground, Ramsey called them "slipping into the hollow of disillusionment," which Ramsey described as "when expectations do not meet the truth".
In just a few months, electric scooter startups have moved from technology to the global phenomenon. In some cities, hundreds of scooters have appeared on the streets of companies such as Bird and Lime, leaving municipalities to manage the flow of two-wheeled travelers.
The concept behind the scooters is simple: a user can grab any scooter available, unlock it with an app, get to the destination and leave the scooter available to someone else.
Even judging by the hyper-growing expectations of Silicon Valley, the rise of scooter companies has been dizzying. Scooters can be found in more than 125 cities in the United States and in more than 10 cities around the world. In the year following their launch, Lime and Bird said their scooters had been used for more than 10 million trips.
"We've seen other companies grow at an incredible rate, but it's unprecedented because of how fast they have managed to reach even a million rides," said Sunil Paul, founder of one of first carpool services, Sidecar. who eventually lost out to Uber and Lyft.
The adoption by consumers has sparked a wave of investments that have made Bird and Lime one of the fastest companies to reach a valuation of one billion dollars – what Silicon Valley calls a "unicorn". The two companies have raised a total of $ 882 million since then. 2017, according to Crunchbase startup tracking platform.
This dizzying ascent has even surprised some of the defenders of the scooter industry.
"I am confident that valuations are high even with the growth we are seeing," said Toby Sun, co-founder and CEO of Lime. "But given the traction and the opportunity we have to bring our innovation to the world, it's not too high."
As companies continue to invest in the technology needed to allow cars to drive on their own, there is growing understanding that cities full of robotic cars will remain in years. Now, technorati are turning to scooters and snowmobile companies to change municipal modes of transportation and redefine cities through "micro-mobility".
The concept even predicts that the giants Uber and Lyft are rushing to catch up. Lyft tests scooters in Denver, while Uber is present on the streets of Santa Monica, California.
"A year ago, if you heard conversations and misconceptions about what was going to happen with carpooling, it was all about autonomous vehicles," said Paul. "Micro-mobility has been a sort of high-end autonomous vehicle, which is urgent and indispensable."
Scooter companies, however, are not without their challenges.
The cities, which learned growth with Uber and Lyft, which were also launched without much regard for local regulations, opposed the influx of scooters. San Francisco, the epicenter of the scooter boom, banned scooters temporarily in June. Last month, the city granted only two on-demand scooter licenses: Scoot and Skip, smaller companies in the sector. Uber, Lyft, Bird and Lime were among the main players to whom licenses were refused. Some parts of Los Angeles banned scooters and Denver seized scooters and fined them before issuing permits under the new rules.
The problems with city officials are less of a retarder than the technological challenges of autonomous vehicles, although scooters do not tend to have good results with speed bumps.
Scott Kubly, Lime's government relations program manager, formerly director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, said the scooters were an immediate need that cities can not necessarily meet.
"I think the hype is there because scooters fill a huge gap in transportation, which meets the needs of a ton of people," Kubly said. "It's hard to understand how difficult it is to implement change as a public servant."
Mr. Kubly stressed that this new disruptive mode of travel could help cities achieve their strategic goals for years.
"We do not even know for the moment how transformative it really is," Kubly said. "In 10 or 15 years, we will realize how important this moment is."
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