Segway-Ninebot Group’s latest creation is a scooter that can return itself to charging stations without a driver. The scooter connects to the internet and locates the nearest station. Its ability to autonomously drive itself to charge points is a potential benefit for the growing scooter-sharing industry.
Venture-capital investors across the U.S. and Europe have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the scooter-sharing sector, resulting in fleets of electric-powered scooters now operating throughout their cities. The scooter-sharing fad began two years ago through the launch of the electric Bird scooter in California. Since then, Ninebot has been supplying Bird and others, becoming their largest supplier of scooter. The company sold 1.6 million scooters in 2018, according to Reuters.
Gao Lufeng, Ninebot chairman and chief executive said:
I believe scooters will replace bicycles as the prime solution for micro-mobility. It’s human nature to save energy when commuting.
But why make a scooter that can park itself? At the moment, operators of scooter sharing fleets have to collect the machines manually for recharging and maintenance. AI-driven scooters, controlled remotely from the cloud could radically improve the economics of scooter-sharing, Lufeng told Reuters in an interview. “The pain point for scooter operators is to better maintain the scooters at a lower cost,” he said. In other words, fleets of autonomous scooters could remove the cost of collecting, making it more profitable to operate scooters in cities around the world.
Road testing on the new machines will start this year. They will be largely commercialized in the first quarter of 2020. The price for a new KickScooter T60 (as it is called) will be close to 10,000 yuan ($1,420), more than the company’s traditional scooters being sold to scooter companies for $100-$300. Ninebot plans to release its new scooter next year to rental firms, allowing customers to rent the vehicles by the minute through an app.
