Author: Megan Rose Dickey

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Lyft’s dockless e-bikes have made their way to SF, but it wasn’t easy

When tech companies sue cities, it’s rare to see a resolution — albeit a temporary one — in favor of the tech company happen so quickly, if at all. Lyft sued San Francisco in early June, claiming the city was in violation of a 10-year contract that would give Lyft exclusive rights to operate bike-share programs.

Now, the city has granted Lyft an interim permit to deploy its dockless e-bikes, and is holding off on granting to permits to other operators. Lyft officially deployed its bikes on Friday.

“We’re thrilled to share our new ebikes with riders in San Francisco,” Lyft Head of Micromobility Policy Caroline Samponaro said in a statement. “We’ll be rolling out bikes starting today and appreciate our riders’ patience as we waited for the green light from SFMTA.”

In its lawsuit, Lyft sought a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order to prevent the city from issuing permits to operators for stationless bike-share rentals. While the court denied Lyft’s request for a TRO, it did approve a preliminary injunction to temporarily stop the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency from issuing dockless permits to operators other than Lyft, without at least giving Lyft the first opportunity to submit a proposal.

The whole process, called “Right of First Offer,” may take months, according to the SFMTA. That’s why it decided to offer Lyft an interim permit to operate up to 1,900 of its dockless, hybrid e-bikes in addition to its classic bikes offered through its station-based service, once known as Ford GoBike.

“These new bikes will allow Lyft to address the severe bicycle availability issues that Bay Wheels has faced since Lyft removed e-bikes from service in April,” the SFMTA wrote in a blog post. “Essentially, the interim permit allows the existing system to return to functionality even as we negotiate with Lyft for a potential future expansion.”

The lawsuit was in light of SF announcing it would take applications for operators seeking permits to deploy additional stationless bikes. San Francisco, however, said the contract does not apply to dockless bike-share, but only station-based bike-share. Well, a judge sided with Lyft, saying the agreement did “not draw a distinction between docked/stationed and stationless/dockless bikes…Plaintiff therefore is entitled to unconditional exclusivity for stationed or stationless ‘traditional’ bikes during the term of the agreement.”

While the process continues in court, the SFMTA has also extended JUMP’s permit for up to 500 stationless bikes in order to ensure more reliable services.

I’ve reached out to Uber/JUMP and will update this story if I hear back.

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Uber and Lyft drivers demand better pay, workplace protections and driver-led unions

As Assembly Bill 5 makes its way through the California state legislature, Uber and Lyft drivers are voicing their demands for better pay, basic workplace protections and the right to organize through unions. Tomorrow, Lyft and Uber drivers will convene outside Uber’s San Francisco headquarters to make their voices heard.

As established in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v Superior Court of Los Angeles, AB-5 seeks to codify the ruling. In that case, the court decided Dynamex wrongfully classified its workers as independent contractors.  AB-5, which has already passed in the California State Assembly, would ensure gig economy workers are entitled to minimum wage, workers’ compensation and other benefits.

To fuel its mission, Gig Workers Rising and Mobile Workers Alliance took out an ad in the SF Chronicle, coming out tomorrow, that features an open letter to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and Lyft co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer. In it, the groups applauded both Lyft and Uber for saying they want to do better by their drivers.

“But the most important step in accomplishing that goal has yet to be taken: drivers need a seat at the table as equal partners to chart our path forward,” Linda Valdivia of Mobile Workers Alliance and Rebecca Stack-Martinez of Gig Workers Rising wrote in the letter. “That is why we have been organizing, demonstrating, and speaking out to demand that you put your words into action.”

In short, drivers want to be part of the conversations around AB-5 and have their voices heard in the decision-making process. Additionally, drivers want California’s leaders to give them the ability to organize and bargain through a driver-led union, the letter states.

“It’s time for Uber, Lyft, and California state leaders to come together with drivers to chart the path forward,” organizers wrote. “It’s time for Uber and Lyft to do right by us. That means extending all drivers the living wages and basic workplace protections we deserve. It also means an end to putting the cost and the risk of doing your business on us.”

As noted in Uber and Lyft’s op-ed, neither company wants its drivers to be employees. It would be a very costly endeavor that would undoubtedly impact their bottom lines.

“Lyft is advocating for an approach in line with the interests of our driver community, by modernizing century old labor laws that make it difficult to provide both flexibility and benefits,” a Lyft spokesperson said in a statement. “That’s why we’ve been working with lawmakers and labor leaders on a different solution, so drivers can continue to control where, when, and how long they drive. It’s encouraging that more groups are joining the conversation to preserve flexibility for drivers while also providing new benefits and protections.”

Behind the scenes, Uber has reportedly paid drivers to protest the legislation that would make them employees, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“We will continue to work collaboratively with our diverse community of drivers — and the legislators who represent them — to improve the quality and security of independent work,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement.

Uber drivers protest ahead of IPO at the company’s SF HQ

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Toys ‘R’ Us taps tech startup b8ta to bring its stores into the future

b8ta, the retail as a service startup that has partnered with the likes of Google and Macy’s, is getting into the kids’ toys space. As part of a new joint venture with Tru Kids Brands, which owns Toys “R” Us, b8ta will bring its expertise in experiential retail to the iconic children’s toy store. Both entities will own 50% of the venture.

After about eight to ten months of working together, b8ta and Tru Kids Brands are pulling back the curtains on what they’ve been working on. With these new stores, parents and kids can expect theaters for movies and video games, a treehouse where kids can play, STEAM workshops and more. The first two stores, which will open in November in Houston and New Jersey, are about 6,500 square feet with future stores being closer to 10,000-square feet. For context, these are much smaller than the size of the Toys “R” Us stores people became used to, which were about 30,000-square feet.

b8ta’s solution offers brands that want a physical presence with an experiential-driven store that comes with software for checkout, inventory, point of sale, inventory management, staff scheduling services and more. That means toy brands will have the option to pay to showcase their products in an interactive way Toys “R” Us. Those brands can then manage their in-store experiences and give customers the options to buy things in the store, or direct them to buy online.

“I think there is an interesting mash up between experiential retail that b8ta has been perfecting in its store with those hands-on experiences,” Tru Kids Brands CEO Richard Berry told TechCrunch. “Having the ability for brands to showcase things and give them online experiences too.”

This joint venture comes after Tru Kids Brands announced the return of Toys “R” Us in February, following the toy store shuttering its operations in the U.S. last year. For b8ta, it seems to have found a niche with struggling retailers. Last June, Macy’s acquired a minority stake in b8ta and used it to enhance some of its spaces. That came during a time when Macy’s was closing a bunch of its stores.

With Toys “R” Us, b8ta saw this as an opportunity to expand into the kids category.

“As you may recall, we had mentioned we were interested in taking our business model and our approach to designing stores in other categories,” b8ta CEO Vibhu Norby told TechCrunch. “Last year, we took a serious interest in the kids space. Around the same time, we heard the news aout what happened at Toys ‘R’ Us and thought it was interesting.”

Fast forward a bit to when Norby was introduced to Berry, and that’s when they landed on the idea for a joint-venture to operate Toys “R” Us in the U.S. Next year, the companies will open additional locations in high-traffic areas throughout the U.S. To date, b8ta has raised $39 million in funding from Macy’s, Sound Ventures, Khosla Ventures and others.

 

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CES will allow sex tech on a one-year trial bias, and finally bans booth babes

The Consumer Technology Association, the organization behind the annual Consumer Electronics Show, is slowly getting up to speed with the modern-day. Today, CTA announced it will allow sex tech startups to participate and compete for awards as part of the health and wellness category on a one-year trial basis.

This comes after the CTA royally messed up with sex tech company Lora DiCarlo last year. The CTA revoked an innovation award from the company, which is developing a hands-free device that uses biomimicry and robotics to help women achieve a blended orgasm by simultaneously stimulating the G-spot and the clitoris. In May, CTA re-awarded the company and apologized.

“CTA is committed to evolving and continuing to create an experience at CES that is inclusive and welcoming for everyone,” CES EVP Karen Chupka said in a statement. “We worked with a number of external advisors and partners to update and improve our existing CES policies.”

Additionally, CTA has banned booth babes, or, booth people, as it’s applicable to everyone, regardless of gender.

“Booth personnel may not wear clothing that is sexually revealing or that could be interpreted as undergarments,” the new policy states. “Clothing that reveals an excess of bare skin, or body-conforming clothing that hugs genitalia must not be worn.”

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One of Uber’s flying taxi partners just raised a $25 million Series A round

Uber Air, the transportation company’s upcoming flying taxi service, needs vehicle partners in order to make it a reality. Karem Aircraft, which Uber partnered with last year, has just raised a $25 million Series A round for its new air taxi spinoff. The round was led by Korean industrial conglomerate Hanwha Systems.

“Karem’s technology for making safe, quiet, and efficient air taxi vehicles excites all of us,” Uber Elevate Head Eric Allison said in a statement. “Hanwha’s Series A investment in Karem’s new air taxi entity accelerates efforts to bring the Butterfly to market, and we look forward to flying riders in places like Dallas, Los Angeles, and Melbourne in the near future.”

Uber is aiming to start testing these aircrafts next year, and wants to commercially deploy Uber Air in Los Angeles, Calif., Dallas-Fort Worth/Frisco, Texas and Melbourne, Australia in 2023.

Karem’s new venture is designed to focus solely on electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, specifically its Butterfly air taxi vehicle.

The Butterfly (rendered above) is a quad tiltrotor with four large rotors mounted on the wings and tail. The idea is to combine the vertical lift capability of a helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing aircraft. The Butterfly is also designed to be more efficient as a result of its rotors with variable RPM.

“The new company will be able to focus exclusively on bringing Butterfly to market, leveraging Karem’s optimum speed rotor technology, Hanwha’s industrial scale, and Uber’s ridesharing network,” Ben Tigner, CEO of the new venture, said in a statement. “We look forward to the day when riders will be able to commute to work by flying above the traffic in one of our vehicles. Karem Aircraft will continue to serve the needs of its military customers; we are confident that each company is on a path for long-term success so that our technology can be applied in two distinct but important use cases.”

Uber’s annual flying taxi summit reveals Uber Air has a ways to go

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On Prime Day, Amazon workers and immigrants rights organizations are protesting

On the start of Amazon’s biggest sales event of the year, Amazon workers and activists are taking to the streets today in protest of the retail giant. Protests are planned for San Francisco, Minnesota, New York, Seattle and other locations across Europe.

The biggest employee-led one is happening in Shakopee, Minn., where Amazon warehouse workers protesting the working conditions, pay, benefits and general culture.

“These workers, primarily Muslim, East African immigrants, want humane working targets to reduce injuries, full-time instead of temporary working status, and fair opportunities for promotions,” a group of Amazon employees advocating for climate justice wrote on Medium a couple of days ago. “These FC workers reached out to us, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), asking for support.”

This is not the first time warehouse workers in Minnesota have organized. In March, workers went on strike for three hours to call for better working conditions. Last year, those same workers demanded more time for prayer and smaller workloads while fasting during Ramadan.

“Amazon workers are sending a powerful message to Jeff Bezos this Prime Day: It’s time to stop putting profits ahead of people,” United Food and Commercial Workers International Union President Marc Perrone said in a statement today. “With the recent move to one-day Prime shipping, Amazon workers are being forced to meet impossible demands at increasingly unsafe speeds.”

Amazon, however, says its critics are “conjuring misinformation to work in their favor,” an Amazon spokesperson said. Amazon says it already offers the things unions are asking for. Last October, Amazon raised the minimum wage for all warehouse workers to $15 an hour for its U.S.-based workers, but many said that was not enough.

“We can only conclude that the people who plan to attend events today are simply not informed,” the spokesperson said. “As a company, we work hard to provide a safe, quality working environment for the 250,000 hourly employees across Amazon’s U.S. facilities.”

The spokesperson went on to describe how its associates are core to its operators and how they regularly encourage friends and family to apply for roles.

“We encourage anyone to compare our pay, benefits, and workplace to other major employers across the country,” the spokesperson said.

In San Francisco, organizers at Bay Resistance are protesting outside one of Amazon’s offices in the city to demand Amazon end its relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The group is also urging Amazon to stop promoting its facial recognition technology, Rekognition, to law enforcement agencies and ICE.

“As we’ve said many times and continue to believe strongly, companies and government organizations need to use existing and new technology responsibly and lawfully,” the Amazon spokesperson said. “There is clearly a need for more clarity from governments on what is acceptable use of AI and ramifications for its misuse, and we’ve provided a proposed legislative framework for this. We remain eager for the government to provide this additional clarity and legislation, and will continue to offer our ideas and specific suggestions.”

To stand in solidarity with Amazon workers, some activists are asking the masses to boycott Amazon, which means no Amazon.com, Amazon Prime Video, Whole Foods, Kindle, Audible, Book Depository, Twitch, IMDb, AWS, Goodreads and Comixology.

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Uber finally sets diversity, inclusion and equity goals

Within the sphere of diversity, inclusion and equity, it’s common knowledge that companies are unlikely to achieve meaningful progress unless they put goals in place. Uber has finally gotten the memo. Today, as part of its third diversity report, Uber committed to two three-year goals, as well as broke out the stats around intersectionality.

Today, Uber is still predominantly white and Asian, the company has made notable headway in the representation of black and Latinx people among its employees. Uber is now 9.3% black and 8.3% Latinx compared to just 8.1% black and 6.1% Latinx last year.

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While these numbers are an improvement, they are not where they need to be. Project Include’s Ellen Pao has previously said the numbers need to be at 13% black and 17% Latinx in order to reflect the demographics of the U.S. population.

“I think one area where we are improving but continue to need to improve is to increase the percentage of people of color at Uber,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told TechCrunch. “In general, both black and Latinx employees. But not only increasing representation but also really understanding the experience of a POC at Uber — their engagement and their satisfaction.”

Another caveat is that when it comes to the representation of black and brown people in tech roles, also known as the higher-paying roles, the percentages decrease. Uber’s tech team is just 3.6% black, 4.4% Latinx and 2.7% multi-racial.

Even more alarming is the fact that black people make up 32.4% of Uber’s support staff. Latinx folks make up 22.8% of support staff, which includes community support representatives, people at Uber’s driver support Greenlight hubs, leasing specialists and self-driving operators.

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These roles are generally lower-paying ones, but Lee stressed that there has been positive growth across all the levels. Also, in order to further facilitate the growth of underrepresented people in the higher levels, Uber needs to make investments in the levels below.

“In order to make that change happen, we have to get people through the pipeline at levels below,” Uber Chief Diversity Officer Bo Young Lee told TechCrunch.

But it’s not easy, nor should it be, to advance in the ranks at Uber, Khosrowshahi said.

“I never want it to be easy because I want movement at Uber to be challenging and rewarding, but that challenge and reward should be available for everyone regardless of gender, color or beliefs,” he said. “We still have work to do as a company to make sure that challenge and reward is equally available to everyone.”

Unsurprisingly, there’s also little representation of black and brown people in leadership roles. While Khosrowshahi said he’s proud the promotion rates for women have improved over the last couple of years, he said, “I can’t yet say the same for promotions for people of color.”

Screen Shot 2019 07 12 at 3.19.14 PM

He added, representation of black and brown people at Uber in both tech and leadership positions “has to get better and it is getting better but we are early in this process.”

Uber is also in the early days of looking at intersectionality, having just started looking at the data in the last six months or so.

“I’m a strong believer that in order for true inclusion to be created, you have to look at how people in the organization who have the most intersectional identities are thriving,” Lee said. “Most of the gains, historically, when women have thrived are gained by white women. Black and brown women often gain the least.”

Here are some things I found notable:

  • There are more white men (30.1%) than there are black and Latinx people (17.6%) at Uber
  • Uber employs more black women (5.3%) than black men (4%)
  • White men make up 42.8% of the leadership team

It’s problematic that there are more white men than there are black and Latinx people at Uber. However, given what we all know about the tech industry, it’s not necessarily surprising.

“I certainly wasn’t pleased by it,” Lee said about the statistics. “But I wouldn’t say I was disappointed because I wasn’t surprised. It just gave me a really good starting place around what we were actually facing.”

Within the next three years, Uber aims to:

  1. Increase the percentage of women at levels L5 and higher (manager and above) to 35%
  2. Increase percentage of underrepresented employees at levels L4 and higher to 14%

Last week, Facebook laid out some new goals. The most notable one is to double the number of female and POC employees within the next five years. While Uber does not have that same goal in place, Uber expects to see the representation of women and POC double within the next few years on a year-over-year growth basis, Lee said. It’s important, however, to note that is different than on basis percentage point improvements.

While Uber has put some goals in place, Lee said it’s too early for the company to set goals around intersectionality. The first step seems to be to help people within Uber understand what intersectionality means and see how it shows up, or doesn’t show up, within its workforce.

“It doesn’t help us to hide this data,” Lee said of the company’s intersectional data. “If you don’t face the reality, you can’t make progress…While I’m not necessarily happy about the results or data as it stands, it is progress as long as we face it without excusing it.”

The future of diversity and inclusion in tech

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Bird has ‘positive unit economics’ with its custom scooter model, CEO says

Bird has positive unit economics, CEO Travis VanderZanden said Friday in fiery response to a report from The Information that the scooter startup was seeking $300 million in new funding, had lost nearly $100 million and saw its revenue shrink to about $15 million

VanderZanden did not disclose Bird’s revenue. However, in a series of tweets the CEO argued that the company was making money on every ride.

Bird makes $1.27 on every ride on its Bird Zero scooters, which accounts for more than 75 percent of its fleet, VanderZanden said.

That figure is notable — and yet it doesn’t provide the whole picture. Based on one of the images VanderZanden tweeted, it seems that figure is based on a period of four weeks in the summer, when scooter ridership is likely higher.

He also tweeted that the company’s run rate is four times higher from this time last year. Though, the chart he tweeted was missing the Y axis.

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Bird introduced Bird Zero, its custom scooter model that is designed to be more durable and therefore last longer, first launched in October.

In May, Bird unveiled the Bird One, which features a battery designed to last twice as long, cover a longer range and last more than 4x longer in the shared space.

VanderZanden pushed back on other elements of The Information’s report, noting that the $100 million figure “was a one-time accounting write-off from old retail scooters b/c our original depreciation window was too long.”

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Wear Your Voice centers marginalized communities with a little help from Mark Cuban

It’s hard to feel seen, heard and represented as a person of color in today’s current media landscape. Ravneet Vohra (pictured above), founder and CEO of Wear Your Voice, is changing that.

Wear Your Voice is an intersectional feminist multimedia platform that aims to center marginalized communities, including those who are queer, trans, non-binary, female, black, brown, Asian, Indigenous or some combination of those identities. The site features stories race, identity, body politics, culture, health and, of course, news and politics.

“Wear Your Voice was born out of my own story growing up as a South Asian woman in a mainly white community and not feeling seen or heard,” Vohra told TechCrunch. “Not just within the community I was in, but also in multimedia. Out of my pain, I made it my power and launched Wear Your Voice.”

Vohra bootstrapped WYV for the first five years, hit a rough patch in 2018, but survived because “our audience saved us,” she said.

“That’s when you know you’re destined to stay,” Vohra said. “Because nothing speaks louder than the support of people on the Internet saying, ‘No, you are integral to our safety. You provide a safe space.’ So people started throwing money at us.”

But Vohra and WYV were still in survival mode. The company needed more than enough money to survive. It needed money to thrive.

“It’s been an interesting journey,” she said. “I’ve tried the VC route and the angel route, and I always felt like the door was getting closed in my face because we weren’t centering white people.”

Wear Your Voice didn’t receive its first bit of outside funding until investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban came along. Vohra said she later “stumbled upon Mark, and that was a really defining moment.”

To date, Cuban is the company’s sole outside investor.

“With him coming on board, I now have a clearer, more defined role,” she said. “I’m now moving away from a survival mode into being able to do my job.”

With a recent influx of capital from Cuban, Wear Your Voice is building out its team, improving on its technology and forming partnerships  — most recently a paid partnership with Planned Parenthood.

“My investment in Wear Your Voice was based on many factors, but the ultimate deciding factor was the high level of content they publish and the community it serves,” Cuban said in a statement. “Saying that, WYV doesn’t just serve underrepresented communities of color, it is also a place for the rest of us to listen and learn.”

Earlier this month, WYV partnered with Planned Parenthood for the Summer of Sex campaign. The campaign aims to center the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and other sexualities, sexes and genders (LGBTQIA+) and black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).

Sex is something that cannot be singularly defined, and yet so many continually attempt to define it through rigid hetero and cisnormative understandings. With this campaign, we are igniting and continuing important conversations about sex — from sex positivity, sexual health, and sexual liberation to purity culture’s effects on people of color, especially queer and trans folks. From desirability politics — how racism, misogyny, fatphobia, ableism, and more impact how we think about sex, attraction, humanity, and certain people’s prescribed roles — to masturbation and sex toys. From STI stigma and sex education to debunking myths about the clitoris and de-centering the penis and penetration in our understandings of sex and pleasure. We want to explore the myriad of ways QTBIPOC experience sex and the things surrounding it.

To achieve this, WYV is producing a number of articles, essays and interviews around the topic of sex.

“This is huge,” Vohra told me. “It’s a big deal for me because this explores sex through the QTBIPOC lens.”

Down the road, expect to see more partnerships with brands and corporations, Vohra said.

“There are so many other campaigns in the pipeline,” Vohra said. “We are also looking for more investment so I can continue to grow and really shake up the status quo of how normal digital media companies are operated and show them how to do it better.”

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Boosted’s electric scooter is fast, durable, fun and…really heavy

Boosted, the startup that got its beginnings with electric skateboards, has officially taken its first stab at electric scooters with the launch of the Boosted Rev.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks riding the Rev around the streets of San Francisco and, as I put in the headline, it’s fast, durable, fun and really heavy — 46 pounds to be exact. If this were part of a shared scooter model, the weight wouldn’t matter, but bringing it up and down a few flights of stairs on the daily isn’t ideal.

It weighs so much, Boosted CEO Jeff Russakow told me, because of the power it’s packing.

“But you are giving up about seven or eight pounds to do it,” Russakow said. “But, I mean, you’re getting six times the power and years and years of durability in return for it does have a little more weight.”

It’s worth noting that I don’t have to bring the scooter inside. The Boosted Rev is capable of being locked to a bike rack, but, you know, bolt cutters are things that exist.

Boosted Rev, which retails for $1,599, features all-wheel drive, dual-wheel motors (1500 watts each), is able to travel up to 24 mph with a range of 22 miles, and climb and descend 25%-grade hills. Rev is also designed to handle thousands of miles per year for several years. Thanks to the dual motors, it hauls ass up hills. Seriously, I was busting up the hills of San Francisco at 19 mph.

The Rev has three ride modes that respectively max out at 12, 18 and 24 mph. Unlike many other scooters on the market, Rev features wide air-filled tires to help with shock absorption and traction. The Rev also features three different breaking mechanisms: the hand brake, electric brake and foot brake. In my experience, the electric brake worked well enough to not need any of the other brakes, but it was still nice to have the hand brake for some peace of mind.

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“If you look at standing kick scooters today, with no disrespect, they’re more of a toy, or a leisure grade product that was never really intended to be riding over real streets and potholes with a Mack truck behind you,” Russakow said. “So we started out saying if you were to make an electric scooter that was a vehicle, how would you design it. And so that was everything from the amount of power to the type of frame to the range to the type of wheels to the throttle to making it incredibly durable — mechanically, electrically, environmentally. So it’s more similar to a car or a motorcycle, in terms of its vehicle quality. And we always knew from day one, that’s the vehicle we wanted to make. Can it climb hills cannot stop on a dime, can it handle all weather, will go for tens and tens of thousands of miles a year and have very little maintenance?”

It’s true. The scooters out there from the likes of Bird, Lime, Skip, Scoot and others are not in the same arena as Boosted. This becomes clear from the moment you step on the Boosted Rev. The Rev feels sturdy, handles bumps in the road well and makes it easy to keep up with cars.

What’s unique about Boosted’s scooter is its thumb wheel for accelerating and decelerating. The idea is to be able to do everything you need to do with one hand. That way, when you need to signal, you can just use your left hand without having to worry about giving up braking for signaling.

The two main caveats for me come down to the weight of the scooter and safety. The safety bit has more to do with riding any micromobility vehicle on busy city streets and the fear of a car or truck mowing me down. Also, because this scooter goes so fast, the possibility of severely injuring myself if I fly off the scooter drastically increases.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note a technical, but inconsistent difficulty with the Rev. Sometimes I had to reboot the scooter or fold and stow it and then unfold it to get it to accelerate. Boosted said I had a pre-production unit, so perhaps that’s why.

But the Rev is not the only scooter you can buy. Bird, for example recently got in to selling scooters direct to consumers, and then there are the likes of Ninebot, Xiaomi, Unagi, Jetson and many others.

The market for ownership, Russakow said, is “a different but bigger market.”

“It’s been great to see scooter share because people get exposed to scooters as commute options,” Russakow said. “But we think we’re serving the by-far largest market.”

If I were in the market for an electric scooter (I’m not) and lived somewhere where I didn’t have to lug the scooter up and down the stairs on the daily (I don’t), I would buy the Boosted Rev for its sheer power up hills and top speed.