micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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These are just cheaper rates to rent privately owned scooters though, right? Until banks start offering the same financing rates for e-rides as they do autos (currently, if you want to finance an e-bike, you'll be paying personal loan rates), the biggest barrier to entry for most people is still the initial cost.
That's cause there's effectively no collateral. Cars retain at least some of there value after it's used and your required to get insurance on it, so if it's totalled you can get a new one for collateral. Scooters retain even less of there value when used and are way harder to sell, they also usually are uninsured so if you wreck it there's nothing left for the bank to repo.
It's be better if the government could do the financing since they are a public good and they can stand to loose a couple thousand if someone wrecks there scooter.
I don't think there ever will be a market-driven supply of micromobility loans, and it would have to be government subsidized to exist. That is to say, here in the USA, we should absolutely do that since I don't expect any private lenders to do it.
If something is economically prohibitive but has clear social benefit, that's exactly when subsidization makes the most sense. Heaven knows we already subsidize other things which have unclear benefits, but loans for micromobility would be: 1) relatively cheap, 2) easy to ascribe to individuals (eg by SSN), 3) make concrete steps toward social and climate commitments.