Bird is rolling out its Bird Two scooters, which the company first unveiled back in August, via Scoot in San Francisco. The scooters were expected to deploy much sooner, with Bird’s original announcement saying it would roll out the following week, but it’s better late than never, as some say. Scoot’s plan is to deploy up to 1,000 of these Bird Two scooters.
“With each new generation of electric vehicle we bring to San Francisco, fewer San Franciscans have a need to get in a car,” Scoot founder and Bird SVP of Cities Michael Keating said in a statement. “Bird Two continues this trend with industry-leading performance, range, and safety features, allowing our riders to replace even more of their car trips with micromobility.”
What’s unique about the Bird Two is its self-reporting damage sensors that notify the company of any vehicle issues. While Bird is not the first company to come up with this idea, it’s the first one to deploy an electric scooter with this type of system. Superpedestrian, which has about $64 million in funding, has been working on self-diagnosing scooters for years, but it has yet to deploy those scooters.
To help circumvent theft and vandalism, the Bird Two also comes with puncture-resistant tires, anti-theft encryption built into the operating system and a minimum of exposed screws.
Scoot, like other operators in San Francisco, were early targets of scooter theft. During the first two weeks of Scoot’s operations of shared, electric scooters in San Francisco, more than 200 scooters were either stolen or damaged beyond repair. To combat theft, Scoot added locks to its vehicles. Now, the city has made locks a requirement, but mostly to help control sidewalk congestion. With the Bird Two scooter, Scoot will have additional theft and vandalism protections.
This deployment comes shortly after Bird acquired European rival Circ, while simultaneously announcing a $75 million extension of its Series D funding round. That total round size is now $350 million.
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