Uber Waste! Can you believe this!
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Yikes, this is such a waste! Even though they chose to “responsibly recycle” (their words), there’s really nothing responsible about just scrapping a ton of bikes that are otherwise in good condition or could be repurposed. Maybe it’s the easier thing to do, but ultimately leaves the worst impact on the environment.
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I agree a waste!
@danj I'm going to play devil's advocate just a little bit here, although it is a waste. Since the firmware is proprietary and unsupported, along with features they use the track them like GPS (with no information available to allow 3rd parties to work on the bikes), I can understand from that point of view.
However, it wouldn't be hard for them to open source the bike's firmware and provide charging information and the information needed to maintain them, sort of like what Tesla does with their open source patents. If they didn't want to open source the GPS tracking and blacklist the bikes from being used with them, that would be the cheap way out - they could also modify the firmware, but that doesn't make sense vs. blacklisting them. Door #2 is to blacklist them from Uber, but provide the GPS tracker for personal use as-is.
I feel like it's more to do with liability then parts availability, as it wouldn't be hard to paint the bikes and block them from the Uber network, along with providing firmware and troubleshooting information.
@nick - Here in Boston we have Blue Bikes I know they would have loved to have had the chance to buy the bikes and they would have installed their tech into them. They have been talking about offering powered bikes for the less athletic folks.
@danj That would honestly be the best solution - dump the Uber electronics and put a open market controller and BMS in for resale/your nonstandard controller for ride sharing, along with retrofitting a charge port normal people can readily access if it isn't being used as a ride share bike. Probably easier to replace things that have to be hacked then to try and hack them. The batteries are a potential issue sure, but there has to be a way to remove it without destroying the frame.
They could have stipulated the company purchasing them must destroy the proprietary parts they did not need. If they can rework the BMS to be "open" without replacing it, that should have been an option as well as replacement. They should have sold them to bike shops who can do the work to make them work with normal electronics and let hobbyists buy them too but sold to bike shops first.