Bird scooters are now in Brussels

Jonatan de Boer, general
manager at Bird Benelux.
Bird

• US electric scooter startup Bird has just launched in
  Brussels.
• The company is quickly expanding across Europe in a bid
  to outgun well-funded rivals such as Lime, Uber, and
  Taxify.
• Passengers can hire Bird’s dockless electric scooters
  in cities by using an app, paying a small fee for hire and per
  minute of use.
• There’s a big electric scooter war in Europe happening
  right now.

Electric scooter startup Bird is rapidly expanding in Europe,
launching in Brussels on Tuesday.

Bird is one of a plethora of startups that make electric scooters
available to hire in cities for a small fee per minute.

The US company
rolled into Europe at the beginning of August, picking Paris
as its launch city. It also expanded into Tel Aviv.

Bird is only making around 100 scooters available in Brussels to
begin with, but will up the number of vehicles available to hire
if there is sufficient demand.

Anyone who wants to hire a Bird will need to download the app,
add their payment details, then use its map to find a nearby
scooter to hire. They can “unlock” the scooter by scanning it
with the app, then rent for €1 ($1.20), then pay €0.15 per minute
of use. Passengers will need to be over 18 to use the scooters,
which will only be available from approximately 7 a.m. and 9 p.m.
The scooters will be charged and maintained overnight.

Bird has raised $418 million to date and
is reportedly worth $2 billion. It’s the best-funded scooter
startup to date, competing with the likes of Lime and rival
Brussels startup, Troty.

It’s also competing with ride-hailing firms such as Uber and
Taxify, which are trying to expand simply from being cab hire
apps into being general transportation services.
Taxify launched its own scooter arm at the beginning of
September, kicking off with Paris, and Uber
has acquired bike-sharing Jump to offer rides through its own
app.

Bird is currently racing to expand across Europe but it, and
other startups, have run into difficulty in London, where
electric scooters are illegal.

That’s thanks to an 183-year-old law, which dictates that
there can’t be vehicles of any kind on British pavements.
Business Insider revealed that
both Bird and Lime are currently lobbying for a change in the
law.