Bird unveils custom new e-scooter with all day rentals

Just days after Uber Technologies’ venture into the Jump electric scooter sharing program, Bird unveiled its new custom designed Bird Zero. Bird has also announced a new all-day rental package that lets riders own scooters for the whole day.

Bird Zero is designed to meet the demands of Rideshare 2.0 with 60% better battery life, better lighting, and enhanced durability. The company has also included two additional features into the Bird Zero that were missing in the previous Bird scooters – battery indicators and speedometers. These features were, however, found on scooters owned by rival Lime.

There has not been a major upgrade in top speed, which continues to be around 15 miles per hour. Bird executive chief Travis VanderZanden said, given the fact that electric scooters are more environment-friendly, people should start experimenting with it for short trips rather than using cars.

The possibility of e-scooters getting robbed when parked in front of a restaurant or shop had so far played spoilsport for dockless ones. Bird has now solved this issue by launching a new all-day scooter rental service called Bird Delivery. As per this service, Bird Zero scooters are delivered to customers by 8 am for the whole day and they remain incapable of being used by other customers.

Experts believe that the rental service could be priced over $150 with discounts during the first few days.

Bird competes with Lime and Spin in the country. Now that Uber and Lyft have also ventured into the bike-sharing industry, competition is likely to get stiffer. Even as US cities are invaded by bike-sharing players, Bird has ventured into the international markets, setting its footprint first in Paris.

But the bigger rival Lime had already expanded to Europe by 2017-end with around 500 bikes on circulation in Frankfurt and Zurich. In addition, Lime has plans to expand into 25 new markets by the end of this year.

Uber launches bike-sharing programs