Electric Scooter Rental Pioneer Bird Files for Bankruptcy

Bird Global, the company that pioneered on-street electric scooter rentals, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection [Editor's note: the link is paywalled; alternative source] in Florida, five years after becoming the fastest start-up ever to reach a so-called "unicorn" valuation above $1bn. From a report: In September, the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading in Bird, which went public via a blank-cheque company in 2021, after its market capitalisation fell below a $15mn threshold. "We are making progress towards profitability and aim to accelerate that progress by right-sizing our capital structure through this restructuring," Bird interim chief executive Michael Washinushi said on Wednesday.

Bird said it would operate as normal during the restructuring process and that its lenders had entered into a "stalking horse" sale agreement. The company aims to complete a sale process within 120 days. Its European and Canadian businesses are not part of the bankruptcy filing. Founded by former Uber and Lyft executive Travis VanderZanden in Los Angeles in 2017, Bird spawned dozens of copycat companies around the world. But e-scooter rentals have struggled to reach consistent profitability, amid regulatory strictures, safety concerns, and high capital and operating costs.

No loss

[argStyopa]

I'm growing ever more tired of euphemisms.
I can't weep for the closure of a business run by anyone who non-ironically uses the term "right-sizing".

As far as the business, I think it was one of those ridiculously optimistic ventures that had no practical likelihood of being financially successful anyway.

Re: No loss

[Baloo Uriza]

Even worse, their whole business model was literally and figuratively dumping. Renting single use scooters by dumping them illegally in places where it's illegal and often unsafe to park or ride them, at prices too low to sustain the business. Bird dumped thousands of tons of e-waste on Tulsa and it's going to be years before we stop finding their trash in bushes and the river.

Re:

[dbialac]

Never mind that collecting the scooter leaves the scooter user without a scooter the next day. I wonder if that's why people in a lot of places have their own vehicles.

Re: No loss

[Baloo Uriza]

The sharing part isn't the problem, Tulsa has a successful bike share. The attractive nuisance and uselessness are the problems. The companies behind them give zero shits about pedestrians or pedestrian spaces and provide vehicles that are too slow to keep up with motor vehicle traffic (or move uphill at all) but are also illegal to operate in a bicycle lane or sidealk. They're fundamentally garbage worth more as scrap than as a vehicle.

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[dbialac]

There's a lot of issues with them and you bring up issues regarding speed differentials. What I'm talking about, though, is not about sharing. Ride one of these home to your house in the suburbs. The company collects the scooter to recharge it. They're not likely to return it. How do you get back downtown?

Re:

[Night Goat]

I don't think the scooters are designed to be used how you're describing. I live nine miles from my office. I once looked into how much it would cost me to use a scooter to commute to the office and it was like $15 a trip. The bus costs $4. These scooters are for getting across town, not traveling to the suburbs.

That said, I totally agree with you that a two-way trip is risky. However, if you limit things to just "downtown" then you can usually find another scooter for the return trip since there are more s

Re: No loss

[Baloo Uriza]

They were sold to cities as a way for people to get to their suburban bus stops faster and easier, not to be an attractive nuisance to downtown alcoholics.

Re: No loss

[Baloo Uriza]

Public transportation, like a normal person.

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[dbialac]

Do you understand the kind of walking distances involved between a bus stop and many areas in suburbia? That distance is the reason some people are on those scooters in the first place.

Re: No loss

[Baloo Uriza]

Problem is they aren't putting the scooters in suburbia, they're putting them in already walkable areas where the only users are drunk townies that shouldn't (both legally and physiologically) shouldn't be driving them at all.

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[quenda]

Commuting and shared scooters have little to no overlap.
If you want to commute on a scooter, you buy one - or more sensibly rent by the month to try it out.
If you want to get a mile to the bus stop without walking, just get a kick-scooter that folds and fits under the bus seat and your desk.

Re:

[laxguy]

my stupid city recently (read a few months ago) partnered with Bird to be the exclusive e-bike share company despite a previous attempt to get Bird scooters which flopped.

we previously had a working bike share program, even have a car share program that works great. the key is that these bikes and cars have places to go where you find them to rent them. Birds, on the other hand, get dumped every-fucking-where. wherever the fuck the last user decided they were done with it and left it in a pile on the street

Re: No loss

[Baloo Uriza]

EXACTLY this. And they're never at a bus stop or a suburban location where they're needed, they're sprayed out over places designed without cars in mind to start with. So a pretend motorcycle isn't doing anyone favors in that environment.

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[CWCheese]

keep finding these pointless things dumped on the lawns of an apartment building I superintend in Los Angeles, and our building is several city blocks from any business or retail location. I'm tired of trying to move them into a place where someone might use it, but I can't throw them into the rubbish bin either

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[laxguy]

sure you can, just wear dark clothing and do it at night.

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[Hoi Polloi]

The epitome of "private profit, public burden". They make the money but dump the burden of picking their scooters up, remove them from waterways, having them block sidewalks, etc on the public.

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[smooth wombat]

They make the money but dump the burden of picking their scooters up, remove them from waterways, having them block sidewalks, etc on the public.

Sounds like the criminals, hooligans, and mischief makers in the Netherlands who throw bikes into the canals and it's the public which has to pay for their removal [dutchamsterdam.nl].

Re: No loss

[Baloo Uriza]

No, not the same thing. Amsterdam has a problem with parking everyone's bicycles in the same way American cities are struggling to find enough space to put more cars. Bicycles (including the OVFiets) are a normal and routinely used part of the landscape widely appreciated by the public and generally accepted as a godsend compared to the car-first development fad they had in the 1940s through 1980s. Meanwhile the US is still stuck on the car-first fad for now.

Re:No loss

[TWX]

The thing about their business that bothered me was how they were trying to just be an equipment provider and an app. They were using an app for both rentals and for gig-economy maintenance of their scooters.

Gig economy is for suckers. You make almost nothing. You're earning the kind of money that you earned as a kid mowing lawns in the neighborhood. If the business is dependent on this BS non-category category of employment then it's no surprise that it fails.

Re:No loss

[wyHunter]

You probably earned more mowing lawns. I'm thinking that as you got customers they appreciated your work, too.

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You made more mowing lawns as there was probably no tax taken out. :)

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[thegarbz]

I can't weep for the closure of a business run by anyone who non-ironically uses the term "right-sizing".

While I agree for general companies, I don't agree for these so call unicorns. They have all had evaluations and spending waaaay beyond their means. "Right-sizing" is an appropriate term, only because what the CEO was actually saying is "I was spending like an incompetent moron until now."

Re: No loss

[anonymouscoward52236]

When asked what the C-level executives have been doing with all the money at Bird, the executives took a moment to stop doing hookers and blow and made a statement: "I guess we didn't charge enough?"

Weren't they the word?

[Qbertino]

...
Cue crazy family guy episode. :-)

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

NO BRIAN NO!

Free Scooters

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Free scooters for anyone who can pick one up and take it home.

A little cut and paste in the wiring, cut out the GPS, and you have a free rechargeable scooter.

I mean, they going bankrupt; who's left that's going to come to ask for it back? (Assuming they can even find it....)

Re: Free Scooters

[kenh]

Great! Now tell me how I can get a "free" Kia or Hyundai car - it's not illegal, is it? Of course not - besides, they can't arrest all of us? Amiright?

Re:

[thegarbz]

I mean, they going bankrupt; who's left that's going to come to ask for it back?

Errr creditors. Bankrupt doesn't mean a company stops existing, it means people are trying to claw their assets back. The answer to your question is *multiple* people each who believe they have a stake in it are going to come and ask for it back, and since these things cost more than $1000 the answer is the police are going to come asking and you're facing a felony crime.

But sure let us know how your dreams of committing grand larceny works out for you.

Re:

[_merlin]

Besides which, this is Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which is what's called "voluntary administration" in some countries. The company still exists, and they appoint an external administrator to attempt to restructure and regain viability. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is the one where they dissolve the company and sell off the assets.

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

*multiple* people each who believe they have a stake in it are going to come and ask for it back, and since these things cost more than $1000 the answer is the police are going to come asking

Yes, they'll be looking for it, but where? How will they find it?

I'm sure that eventually they'll find the GPS tracker doohickey in sitting a dumpster somewhere or taped to a city bus, but the scooter won't be attached to it. Then what?

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[zdzichu]

Police have many years of locating thieves and stolen goods, even before GPS tracker existed.

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

If they try to catch me I'll just zoom away on my free scooter. (I've put some thought into this.)

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[Firethorn]

Uh... Have you ever heard the saying [youtube.com] "If the police have to come get you, they're bringing an ass kicking with them"

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You missed the part where I zoom away from them so fast they can never catch me.

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[Firethorn]

To quote an old line: "You can't outrun the radio". Also, aren't the scooters generally limited to jogging speed? What happens when they release the k-9 on you?

Or, given that these are American cops: The firearms they carry. They've been known to shoot fleeing suspects in the back. Or non-fleeing suspects.

You're just ensuring that they bring a BIG ass kicking with them.

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Again, you must have missed the part where I zoom away from them so fast that they can never catch me. It's a foolproof plan that can't possibly fail.

I think everyone is just jealous of my brilliant plan AND mad that they didn't think of it first.

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[Pascoea]

Only when they stumble across it. Unless it was their stuff, or it belonged to someone actually important, the police aren't going to find it on purpose.

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[thegarbz]

Yes, they'll be looking for it, but where? How will they find it?

Oh I understand now. Committing theft is okay for you when you believe you don't get caught. You don't actually have any morals at all and the only thing keeping you in check is fear of being caught.

If you ever stop posting we'll all just assume you're in prison.

Re:

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Oh I understand now. Committing theft is okay for you when you believe you don't get caught.

To be clear: Committing theft is perfectly okay but only when I do it. Why is this so difficult for you to grasp? I get to steal anything I want; you don't.

--

You don't actually have any morals at all and the only thing keeping you in check is fear of being caught.

So, exactly the same as every religion in the history of the world? lol
Not to worry, lil' buddy, I know in my heart that the benevolent Spaghetti Monster will forgive me, for I have been touched by His Noodly Appendage.

--

If you ever stop posting we'll all just assume you're in prison.

Or you could assume that I'm zooming around on my new free scooter and that it's so much fun that I no longer have time to post on m

Customers gave them

[Tablizer]

...the bird.

Just Buy a Scooter!

[BrendaEM]

Here in Silicon Valley, there are quite a few people who ride scooters and ebikes. I think that the novelty aspect has worn off, and people realize that they just as well just buy a scooter rather than renting one.

Re:

[mjwx]

Here in Silicon Valley, there are quite a few people who ride scooters and ebikes. I think that the novelty aspect has worn off, and people realize that they just as well just buy a scooter rather than renting one.

I'm thinking this kind of thing would work well in tourist areas.

I went to Berlin last year and there were e-scooters everywhere (Lime branded), often just dumped near a tree or on the foot path. It was a little bit annoying however if Berlin's public transit system wasn't so insanely well connected and easy to use, I might have considered one (and have bought a skid lid (bicycle helmet) as I'm not stupid). As it was just as easy to get a 3 day ticket on Public Transit I never even looked into it, but ma

Years ago I charged their scooters

[Smonster]

Once upon a time I was a charger for them. I gather some from around the neighborhood and then set them up almost across the street from my house. At $15-$25 a scooter it was decent pocket change for about 20-30 minutes in the evening and then before a went out to my real job in the morning whenever I doing nothing else. The electricity I used was negligible on my power bill. I did it off an on for about a year and for unrelated reasons sold my house and moved across the country to a location which wasn't nearly as convenient for me to do so same thing. Bird had sent me four chargers.They were substantial devices in physical stature as far as chargers go. I sent them a message asking if they wanted them back, never got a response. This company was all about innovation and expansion using venture capital. Between that an how many scooter that "got lost" or damaged. you could tell they didn't not care about all the little expense which compounded on their whole company likely ended up in the many millions. They just wanted more users. I am surprised they lasted this long before filing for bankruptcy.