When scooter companies like Bird started illegally deploying their gadgets in city streets, there was intense interest in both the street value of the components to be found within each of these VC-backed ewaste-in-waiting devices, and tactics for hotwiring them.
Now, with hundreds of these scooters abandoned and rotting in impound lots, likely never to be recovered, maybe now is a good time to invest in a $30 scooter “conversion kit”, which ships direct from China, and plugs-and-plays to convert one of these scooters to a “personal scooter,” with all recovery and payment components permanently disabled.
E-scooters arent impenetrable, as chargers (independent contractors paid by scooter operators to collect and charge the vehicles at home) and hackers know. A few months ago, Mel Magazine went deep into the world of scooter hacking and charger fraud.
There are other ways to get a free ride. Several YouTube videos featuring “Bird scooter hacks” can be found with a quick Google search, one of which is this well-liked method that involves raising the scooter off the ground.
Since Lime creates its own customized scooter model in contrast to other companies, any parts removed from our scooter would not fit on any other model. A Lime representative stated, “All of our scooter parts have zero resale value because they are custom-sized and designed.”
Sasha is a news writer at Mashables San Francisco office. She was born and raised in San Francisco, attending UC Davis before earning her master’s degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Over the years, she has reported from her hometown for the news wire Bay City News, the San Francisco Chronicle website SFGate, and she even managed to leave California to write for the Chicago Tribune. Shes been described as a bookworm and a gym rat. Recommended For You.
In contrast to the Xiaomi scooters that Bird, Spin, Lyft, Goat, Scoot, and other companies use or have previously used, Lime said that it is not aware of any hardware takeovers and that its scooters are fairly customized.
Now, with hundreds of these scooters abandoned and rotting in impound lots, likely never to be recovered, maybe now is a good time to invest in a $30 scooter “conversion kit”, which ships direct from China, and plugs-and-plays to convert one of these scooters to a “personal scooter,” with all recovery and payment components permanently disabled.
There was a lot of interest in the street value of the parts that made up each of these VC-backed ewaste-in-waiting devices as well as methods for hotwiring them when scooter companies like Bird began deploying their devices illegally in city streets.
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