E-scooters
Gig collecting and charging e-scooters has ‘juicers’ in mad scramble to rack up cash
It’s the hottest new job in the gig economy: becoming a “juicer” for Lime — collecting the company’s e-scooters, recharging them at your home, then returning them to the wild.
But is there any money in the scramble for scooters, and are we seeing the turf-wars and break-ins that have reportedly hit Lime contractors in the US?
The Herald spoke to two juicers. Will, a 30-something with a day job as a software developer, became a juicer after seeing a Facebook ad promising up to $20 to collect and recharge a scooter (or “harvesting”) in Lime parlance.
But he says most scooters have a $7 or $8 bounty; the most he’s ever seen is $11.
Student John Mailley says most scooters pay $7. The highest he’s ever seen is $14. Customers locate a Lime e-scooter using a smartphone app and GPS. Juicers use the app in a special “juicer” mode, which displays scooters with flat batteries on a map, each with a price on their head. The bounty depends on where a scooter was dumped by its last user, and how depleted its battery.
Once a scooter pops up on the app’s screen, juicers race to claim it.
“It’s like Pokemon [Go] but with cash,” Will says.
At one point Will was about to claim a scooter near Orakei train station when a rival sprung over the fence and seized it. Another night he raced up a final stretch of Bastion Point on foot, as scooters chirped ahead (juicers can use the Lime app to make a scooter beep, which aids location detection after GPS gives the general area).
“I could hear other juicers hoofing it up the hill behind me,” he says.
That’s when it’s all on. The app lights up like a Christmas tree. Will, a Lime ‘juicer’, on the feeding frenzy triggered by the 9pm changeover allowing partially charged scooters to be collected.
Scooters with completely flat batteries can be picked up at any time. But after 9pm, any scooter that’s only partially charged can be picked up.
“That’s when it’s all on. The app lights up like a Christmas tree,” Will says.
He says he averages six or seven scooters an evening.
A juicer has to charge a scooter at their own home. Lime tells them a charge, which takes around four hours, will add around 68c, depending on their electricity plan. Juicers bear the cost.
Charged bikes have to be dropped off at designated “serving” points, typically the footpath near a bus stop, before 7am in the morning.
Only four scooters can be left at each serving point. Scooters have to be placed a foot apart, with handlebars turned to the left. A juicer must take a smartphone pic of their handiwork before they get paid.
The Balmoral-based Mailley says the trick is to drive around in loops in a tight geographical area, and to grab as many scooters as possible in one trip in his hatchback.
Mailley has 12 Lime chargers at home (the maximum the company will allow). He says his record for one session, of around four hours, was collecting 17 scooters (equating to roughly $30 an hour). When the Herald spoke to him on Wednesday evening, he had already collected and recharged 60 scooters for the week, earning himself around $450.
Will laments that Lime’s incentive scheme in the US, which sees a US$150 ($230) bonus for signing up a friend as a juicer and collecting a set amount of scooters within a target timeframe, has not made to New Zealand.
Mailley says he signed up online, supplying his driver’s licence details.
He was then invited to a briefing at Lime’s Auckland headquarters (an unmarked warehouse in Kingsland). Container-loads of new Lime scooters were being unwrapped in the background.
The juicers at Mailley’s briefing session were told paying tax was their responsibility.
As an archetypal “gig economy” citizen — he already juggles work as a musician, wedding photographer and real estate photographer amid his studies — Mailley says he’s used to taking responsibility for organising his own tax payments as a casual contractor. But he wonders if others will be clued up.
The student has refined his technique. He now collects a batch of scooters early in the afternoon, so he can do at least one drop-off before 9pm.
Will fears the money is too good. He’s anticipating there’ll be more juicers signing up as word spreads about the money in harvesting.
Lime did not immediately respond to a query about how many juicers are currently on its books in Auckland and Christchurch.