Bird Rides flocks to Luxembourg
Startup’s overnight rollout criticized as ‘cloak-and-dagger’
Ride-hailing companies, including Uber Technologies Inc. and Bolt Technology OU, learned the hard way that turning up unannounced doesn’t work in Europe.
Now one e-scooter startup seems keen to make the same mistake.
Late on Oct. 7, the mayor of Luxembourg City received an email from U.S. startup Bird Rides Inc. saying it would roll out its service overnight. The next morning, dozens of electric scooters lined the pavements.
“It was a cloak-and-dagger operation Monday night, without anyone having really been informed,” said Dany Frank, spokesperson of the Luxembourg Transport Ministry. “The way in which it was done wasn’t great.”
One of the EU’s smallest countries, Luxembourg has been promising to make public transport free of charge. City bikes, called Vel’OH!, and carsharing services have existed for years, but adding electric scooters wasn’t planned.
The mayor, Lydie Polfer, has rejected requests by seven scooter firms over the past two years, her office said in an email. This included San Diego, Calif.based Bird, which was told in early June there was no interest in its services. The two sides were scheduled to meet this week.
Bird says more than 2,000 people already downloaded the app and have taken a ride in the city.
“Looking at the number of people who have already tried our service in Luxembourg there is clearly a big demand here,” Bird said in a statement. “We’re very much looking forward to meeting with the mayor and addressing any of her concerns.”
The smash-and-grab attempt by Bird mirrors early attempts by Uber to expand across Europe, only to be banned by cities, including Barcelona and Dusseldorf. Bolt was also turfed out of London for failing to have the correct licence. Scooter companies have spread across Europe, targeting tourist spots, such as Paris and Lisbon, raising hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital funding in the process. Bird is one of the world’s largest and said earlier this month it had bagged another $275 million of financing to continue growing. Lime is another billion-dollar scooter behemoth whose bright green two-wheelers are a familiar site in many capital cities.
Judith Pretty, a British-Luxembourg national who’s lived in the country for 25 years, has mixed feelings about the scooters that are scattered across pavements just a few blocks from where she lives. She’s worried it will cause “a massive increase in accidents.”
Luxembourg’s population has grown rapidly in recent years to just over 600,000. Added to that, 200,000 commuters from neighbouring France, Belgium and Germany travel in and out of Luxembourg every day, meaning the few roads that lead to the centre are choked with traffic mornings and evenings.
For now, Luxembourg City refuses to say whether it will try to send Bird packing. While the commune said it welcomes initiatives that boost mobility, it “doesn’t appreciate the lack of information,” which raises “important questions of management and security.”