Name: Uber scraps thousands of Jump ebikes, because recycling them is ‘too complicated’
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Uber scraps thousands of Jump ebikes, because recycling them is ‘too complicated’

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This article was published on May 28, 2020In a twist of un-environmentally friendly irony, Uber has decided to send thousands of Jump hire bikes straight to the dump because it says it’s too complicated to give them away. Yes, you should be angered by this.According to , Uber confirmed in a statement that it would be recycling many of Jump’s older ebike and scooter models after transferring many of the newer models to Jump’s . Instead, that doesn’t exactly seem to be what’s happening.[Read: ]Subscribe now for a weekly recap of our favorite mobility storiesImages of Jump bikes turning up at scrappage yards in the US (Seattle and North Carolina) surfaced on Twitter earlier this week. They clearly show hundreds, if not thousands, of Jump’s trademark red bikes lined up ready for disposal.EXCLUSIVE: New, close-up pictures of the Seattle JUMP 5.5 fleet show that every single bike has *already had their 36V Li-Ion battery removed,* so the manpower existed to do that prior to sending them to scrap. The extent of the waste is unfathomable.— Bike Share Museum (@bikesharemuseum)In a statement cited by , an Uber spokesperson said that the company did explore donating the remaining bikes but said there were too many issues with “maintenance, liability, safety, and lack of consumer charging equipment.”This is a weak excuse, though. When companies go into administration (not what happened here but bear with me), assets get seized and find their way to auction. They could often be sold “sight unseen,” which means buyers are willing to accept the risk that there may be a few duds in the mix.The Bike Share Museum, a website dedicated to chronicling dead bike share schemes, with numerous Jump employees after rumors that Uber wasn’t recycling them began to surface. The former employees said that somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 bikes are destined for scrap.‼️RT to MAKE A CHANGE‼️Hey , why is this happening? TEN semi loads of good bikes🚲trashed⁉️ Let's collaborate on a non-profit to repaint &amp; repurpose these. Give kids transportation to their first jobs👧👦 want to help?🙏— Cris Moffitt (@CrisMoffitt)All this comes just weeks after Uber got rid of its bike share scheme and Lime. At the start of May, Uber led a $170 million funding round which led to Lime also inheriting the Jump bike share scheme.Uber has been on a campaign to staunch the losses coming as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and drop in users. With Uber itself and having , it’s not surprising that it also got rid of loss-making Jump.For a company that’s unable to make a profit, it’s confusing but also concerning, that it would decide to just throw so many bikes in the trash. Ebike sales are booming at the moment as individuals look for efficient self-isolated methods of transport, bikes are the perfect solution. Reports on Uber‘s bike scrapping all point to this, as to many on Twitter who are understandably enraged.I don't know what I'd pay exactly to acquire one of the wonderful JUMP e-bikes being wastefully scrapped by Uber but it's a lot more than "$0"— Michael Tae Sweeney (@mtsw)If Uber took the effort to repaint and sell these bikes for even just $100 a piece — which is an absolute bargain for a modern bike, even a well-used one — they could have generated millions of dollars in cash. Not complex equity, or VC funding rounds, cold, hard, cash. But what’s a few million to a company that’s used to ?As it happens, India-based Bounce, is doing just that. It’s (about $10 – $12) as it has decided to pivot exclusively to electric sit-on scooters.Perhaps we should have seen this coming though?In China, there are massive bike share graveyards which contain thousands on thousands of discarded bikes that should be out in cities providing last-mile transport. Instead, the bikes sit there rotting and rusting because the government found that they contravened local transport regulations.While the pressures of success might be different in the west, it’s no less depressing that thousands of such a wonderfully effective and clean form of transport are just going to waste.HT – ,Get the most important mobility news in your inbox each week.

This article was published on May 28, 2020In a twist of un-environmentally friendly irony, Uber has decided to send thousands of Jump hire bikes straight to the dump because it says it’s too complicated to give them away. Yes, you should be angered by this.According to , Uber confirmed in a statement that it would be recycling many of Jump’s older ebike and scooter models after transferring many of the newer models to Jump’s . Instead, that doesn’t exactly seem to be what’s happening.[Read: ]Subscribe now for a weekly recap of our favorite mobility storiesImages of Jump bikes turning up at...

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Matthew Beedham

The Next Web (TNW) is a website and annual series of conferences focused on new technology and start-up companies in Europe. The Next Web company was established in 2006 by co-founders Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and a technology news website of the same name was started in 2009. On 5 March 2019, the Financial Times purchased a majority stake in TNW.

Uber scraps thousands of Jump ebikes, because recycling them is ‘too complicated’

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