Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/8l12oj/electric...
The Xiaomi M365 that is used as a base for many of these e-scooters has a real-life range of around 20km and a top speed of 25km/h (a 280Wh battery and a 250W motor with 500W peak performance).
So the battery can be drained in one hour if you're moving quickly.
So best case seems like $78 revenue per charge.
Ah, someone complaining online how some random person's back of the napkin calculations are off.
Let's see if the nitpicker has a case.
> 150 min * 0.15 $/min = $22.50.
So, let's actually do the math:
* $24/0.15 = 160 minutes
Wow. Completely off.
280Wh. They have nowhere near 6h range either, the machine is advertised for a range of 18.6 miles and a top speed of 15.5, though it has regenerative braking which can improve the range a bit.
It's a pretty standard Xiaomi M365: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076KKX4BC/
It costs $1 to 'unlock' and $0.15/minute after that. So a $5 payment requires: 1 unlock $1 and $4.00@0.15/min = 26.7 minutes of "usage" (note, not ride, usage, the 0.15 is paid per minute that a user has the scooter "unlocked") before the $5 "finders fee" is repaid by one scooter and one rider.
The numbers shift of course if the same scooter is "unlocked" by plural individuals during the day, due to the $1 unlock fee. Five usages of a few minutes each for a single scooter in a single day repays the $5 "finders fee" just with the $1 unlock fees alone.
I reckon the bicycle ride rental (no it's not "sharing"!) companies would be less hated here if they had a crew of teenagers making good pocket money returning all the out-of-the-way (mostly at-the-bottom-of-hills) bikes to locations where people expected/wanted to rent them...
