Is the Electric Scooter Apocalypse Finally Upon Us?

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Covid lockdowns didn't short-circuit the electric scooter boom. But the end of the free-money era is sure to winnow the field. With investors flinching from unprofitable business models, scooter-sharing firms are cutting jobs, slowing expansion and exiting underperforming markets.

With industry participants warning of a “shakeout,” Bird Global Inc. — its shares down 97% from their peak — replaced its chief executive and chief financial officer in September and on Monday warned on its ability to remain a going concern and of a need to restate its financial accounts for the past two and a half years due to improperly recognized revenue. The chances of other scooter companies going public soon, as some had planned, look slim.

But we shouldn't expect this industry to disappear, as scooter-haters might wish. Incumbents have levers to improve profitability, and some still have sizable cash reserves: San Francisco-based Lime raised more than $500 million last November. Robust equipment and more restrictive city permitting can help create a more financially sustainable and responsible industry.

US and European cities have been blanketed with scooters in the past few years, paid for via several billion dollars of venture and SPAC capital, as well as asset-backed financing from Apollo Global Management Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Millennials and Gen-Z have embraced these fun contraptions, which came in handy during public-transport strikes in Paris and London last week. Yet cluttered sidewalks and accident-prone riders have frequently upset pedestrians and there's even been talk of Paris banning them. (When I visited the French capital recently, its mandatory scooter parking bays felt like a big improvement on my hometown