E-scooters’ sweet spot for juicers
By day ‘‘juicers’’ live like the rest of us but by night they scout dark streets and beaches for Lime e-scooters. ‘‘Lime’’ and ‘‘juicer’’ have taken on new meanings since e-scooter share schemes launched in Auckland and Christchurch on October 15. The scooters have sparked some safety concerns but they have also created a new line of work proving lucrative for some. University student Tom Morton, 19, said he earned about $112 per day by collecting and charging Lime scooters in Auckland. The ‘‘juicer’’ travels with a boat trailer attached to his car, popping the scooters in the back and taking them home to charge. ‘‘I’ve picked up some from shallow water around Mission Bay and Kohimarama, some worked fine afterwards, others are completely dead.’’ Juicers are allowed to collect scooters with less than 20 per cent of battery life before 9pm. Any scooter can be collected after 9pm. ‘‘Sometimes I’m out at midday but some nights I’m out there until 2am to 3am,’’ Morton said. Juicers use the Lime app to harvest the scooters, with rates varying from $7 to $15 depending on location and battery life. Morton said he aimed to collect groups of scooters rather than lone ones in hard to reach places. ‘‘Looking for them is a bit like hide and seek,’’ he said. Juicers can collect a maximum of 12 e-scooters to charge in one go. Once fully charged, you have to have them at hubs by 7am. ‘‘The hubs are often near bus stops and each hub can have four e-scooters max.’’ Morton tries to drop them off in the early morning, sometimes about 1am. Morton said he made about $112 per day on average from charging about 16 e-scooters, which involved two trips. ‘‘I aim for 24 scooters when I’m really going for it. ‘‘But on other nights, I’d be happy with 10. I’d say 16 is a pretty normal ground.’’ The St Heliers resident became a juicer after seeing an ad on social media and said he jumped at the opportunity as it worked with his university schedule. The earnings cover petrol costs and electricity costs, while also making a profit, he said. According to Lime, charging an e-scooter with low battery life costs about 60 cents in electricity. Although he runs into other juicers all the time, Morton said it was not very competitive. ‘‘You would be disappointed at missing out on some scooters but there’s so many available around Auckland, especially during the night, that you know you’ve just got to drive and pick up some others.’’