[HN Gopher] Joco almost died at launch. Now, it's a lifeline for...
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Joco almost died at launch. Now, it's a lifeline for e-bike
delivery riders
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 110 points
Date : 2024-12-26 16:59 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| paulgb wrote:
| I find it really frustrating that the NYC DOT fought their
| original business model in order to protect Lyft's monopoly. I
| had assumed that Lyft's monopoly was on the right to use DOT's
| street space for their program (which at least makes sense), but
| it feels like a bike rental service operating on private property
| should not be the DOT's jurisdiction.
|
| The argument was essentially "we need to give Lyft a monopoly
| because that's the only way they would invest in the system", but
| the fact that Joco had a structural disadvantage (no public
| space) and was still willing to enter the market is a sign that
| we could have a competitive market without giving it all away to
| Lyft.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| I bet it's some bullshit like, "bikeshare businesses" have to
| display advisories on the app to tell people not to ride on the
| sidewalk and to use helmets.
| vinay427 wrote:
| > it feels like a bike rental service operating on private
| property should not be the DOT's jurisdiction.
|
| I'm not sure I see how the private ownership of docking spaces
| should be relevant to DOT jurisdiction specifically. Rental car
| services are regulated, and owning the land housing the pickup
| location doesn't avoid that probably because the vehicles are
| obviously used on public roadways.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| are bike rental services regulated as rideshare?
|
| either way, it's sorta symptomatic of the kneejerk
| overregulation that is plaguing a lot of blue states. i can
| understand the impulse to want to regulate dockless bikes
| that can cause problems... but just any bike rental?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> life cycle of the new Segway bikes is three to five years.
|
| ...then I guess it's promptly thrown off a bridge into the river.
| The idea that a bicycle lasts 3 years, even with hard, year-round
| riding, is from the disposable tech consumer mindset. A well
| maintained commuter bike - not an expensive one - lasts 10+
| years. These aren't really bicycles, but computerized, electric
| mopeds.
| infecto wrote:
| I am not really convinced that 3-5 years is not a reasonable
| useful life. You are comparing one person owner bike to an
| electric bike ridden throughout the day but all sorts of
| people. Maybe it gets trashed and maybe it gets broken down and
| recycled parts where possible.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| A well maintained commuter bike is ridden twice a day during
| those 10+ years.
| nicbou wrote:
| I see a few comments hung up on the 10 years number. Bikes
| last decades.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Maybe the frame does, but aside from that I expect it to be
| a bike of Theseus after a decade.
|
| And the original commenter is of course right about the
| "computerized, electric mopeds" part. That's what makes
| those bikes useful. The drive unit is likely the expensive
| part. It also means many parts get a lot more wear because
| the bikes accelerate faster (= much bigger forces involved)
| and drive faster on average (= heavier vibrations/bumps).
|
| Combine this with accidents (from the bike falling over
| while stationary, to the rider wiping out, to car crashes)
| and the useful life of the vehicle is limited.
| wiether wrote:
| > Combine this with accidents (from the bike falling over
| while stationary, to the rider wiping out, to car
| crashes) and the useful life of the vehicle is limited.
|
| This.
|
| I don't see how a bike can be used daily, year-round, for
| ten years, without falling or being hit by a car driver.
|
| And I would never ride again an alloy or carbon bike that
| has been involved in a crash with a car.
| rectang wrote:
| It seems likely that the miles put on a "commuter bike" used
| for commuting twice a day for 10 years are within shouting
| distance of the miles put on a bike used for several hours of
| deliveries every day for 3 years.
|
| The company is incentivized to get the most out of their
| investment. If the bikes can be maintained economically by
| staff mechanics, they will be -- and these vehicles ought to be
| simple enough devices for mechanics to squeeze a long life out
| of them.
|
| If there's a difference, it would be in the lack of an
| ownership mindset by the riders: they might abuse them akin to
| how drivers abuse rental cars.
| jdietrich wrote:
| It's about mileage, not age. A chain is good for maybe 2000
| miles - a commuter might get a year or two out of it, but a
| courier or serious roadie could wear it out in a matter of
| weeks. The same basic equation applies to wheel rims, bearings,
| cassettes, chainrings and (in the case of e-bikes) batteries
| and motor-gearbox units. If you're changing those parts often
| enough, eventually something will strip or seize badly enough
| to write off the frame. Most casual cyclists will never
| experience it, but an aluminium frame will inevitably succumb
| to fatigue cracking around the bottom bracket after a few tens
| of thousands of miles, no matter how well it's cared for.
|
| Three to five years is incredibly good for a bike that's
| potentially being ridden all day, every day under very harsh
| conditions.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > , but an aluminium frame will inevitably succumb to fatigue
| cracking around the bottom bracket after a few tens of
| thousands of miles, no matter how well it's cared for.
|
| That is a urban myth.
|
| I know several bikes with alu forks and bottom brackets who
| have been in use for more than 30 years and +50000 kms and
| they are all good. In fact the glue bond between the tubes is
| what fails and they have been reglued several times.
|
| Stuff don't strip or seize if torqued correctly, the right
| kind of greases/compound are used and the bike is
| disassembled/reassembled once a year.
|
| Having said that, I wouldn't expect a courrier to do it
| himself nor to have an LBS do this for him.
| noja wrote:
| Glue?!
| prmoustache wrote:
| Yes the popular vitus and alan aluminium frames of the
| late 80's to mid 90's had aluminium tubes glued to
| aluminium lugs. Also many early carbon frames of that era
| from TVT, Alan, Vitus, Trek, Giant or Specialized) were
| built the same way with carbon tubes and aluminium lugs.
| In the early 2000's there were also some frames with an
| alu front triangle and a carbon rear triangle bonded
| together. Usually they were mid tier bikes below full
| carbon ones.
|
| This is still a popular method for frames built with
| mixed materials.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Tubes in the rear triangle are more susceptible to breaking
| as they twist ever so slightly during use. Steel will
| gladly take up this sort of springy torsion, aluminium not
| so much.
| jdietrich wrote:
| I've seen it first-hand. The old lugged and bonded Trek
| frames are much more resistant to this than welded frames,
| because that construction method minimises the stress
| concentrations that initiate macro cracks. E-bikes are
| probably more vulnerable, partly because the structure is
| compromised to allow for battery installation and wiring,
| but mainly because there's a bunch of extra torque going
| through the chainstays.
|
| https://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/frame_fatigue_test.htm
|
| An aluminium frame used in all weathers is vulnerable to
| galvanic corrosion. Aluminium is less noble than steel, so
| steel fasteners will rot out aluminium threads. In a
| perfect world this would be prevented by a suitable
| assembly grease, but a delivery bike being used through
| winter in London or New York is about as far from a perfect
| world as you could imagine. There's salt on the roads, the
| bike never gets a chance to fully dry out, so any amount of
| aluminium-to-steel contact is going to lead to very rapid
| corrosion.
| delusional wrote:
| > but an aluminium frame will inevitably succumb to fatigue
| cracking
|
| I'm no expert, but couldn't you just weld it up then? That's
| a fairly simple operation that shouldn't take more than 5
| minutes and cost maybe $30.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| It's possible to weld an aluminum frame but you'll have to
| heat treat it, at which point it's no longer a simple and
| cheap operation.
|
| https://www.pinkbike.com/news/To-the-Point-Heat-Treating-
| Alu...
| luqtas wrote:
| > but a courier or serious roadie could wear it out in a
| matter of weeks
|
| worked as a cycle courier for almost 3 years here, full-time
| (6 days a week) + a commute of 20 Km (back and forth) as my
| parents lived in the suburb, wasn't rare to work in the rain
| (113 days of sun in a year)... NO FUCKING WAY you can destroy
| a bicycle chain in a matter of weeks! unless you don't know
| how gears work, which i doubt couriers don't know (and most
| of them use single/fixed gears, which the chain is waaay
| sturdier than 8,9,10 speed ones)
|
| still have my +20,000 Km without previous experience 'hand'
| centered/aligned aluminum entry category wheels on my 1996
| road frame
| ericyd wrote:
| I didn't know fixed speed bikes were popular among
| couriers. Do you know if this is regional? I've always
| thought fixed speed would be a nightmare in somewhere with
| any elevation gain like the hills of San Fransisco. Or, is
| fixed speed with electric assist the combination that makes
| this tolerable?
| luqtas wrote:
| Brazil here... city had lots of hills tho i always said
| it was a 'mild hilly city', my cycles when i measured
| were around 700-2000 meters of altimeter, between 35-60
| kilometers; sometimes we had bad days of few workers
| (motor and bicycle), so they had to send bicycles far
| away from the center (which was flat). i remember 3 or 4
| people having fixed gears, some single (i had one for a
| short time, with a ratio of 1.6 or 1.8:1 i think) speed
| but the vast majority used gears
|
| didn't read much on the internet but fixed gears is quite
| popular among couriers in flat cities (London, NY).
| maintenance is simple and cheap. salaries are quite low
| too :)
|
| i never saw an electric fixed gear bicycle, nor much
| electric bicycles down here (i can remember only 1 guy
| with an electric bicycle back in 2017 and never saw him
| working much... maybe it was a occasional teen worker
| that was there to get some dime for parties (we had a
| bunch of them)). lately people here ride four-stroke
| engine adapted bicycles... it's quite rare to find a
| human-powered bicycle courier nowadays. basically
| Ycombinator liberated a grand for a super anti-
| competitive and non-ethical company (Rappi) and they
| destroyed the local courier scene here, later Uber also
| entered the scene. now you either work on a motorcycle
| (which also got effected) or you probably be working as
| most people back in my days; if you don't love cycling in
| 3 or 4 months MAX. you will give up from the job and you
| are doing strictly as an extra income or till you find
| something better (basically any legal job as far as i
| know)
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I can certainly wear out a bicycle chain in a matter of
| weeks.
|
| If you use a fixed gear bike, your tolerances for chain
| wear are far looser and you can always adjust the spacing
| to compensate. But for anyone using a modern drivetrain,
| you will rapidly wear the chain to the point where it will
| damage the cassette fast enough for it to be economical to
| replace the chain in order to avoid replacing the expensive
| cassette (and having poor shifting/skipping cogs).
|
| On an e-bike you can wear your chain even faster,
| especially if you stay on the small gear too much.
|
| At the end of the day it's not really an issue though, a
| chain is 10-15$.
|
| That said you're right about the frame lasting far beyond,
| a good aluminum frame could certainly last over 100'000km
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Agreed except for the aluminum frame wears is out after
| 10 years, and fails spectacularly
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Wrong you should change your chain every couple weeks if
| you ride eight hours a day otherwise you're going to wear
| your cassette and then you are going to be skipping, and
| need to change the whole drive chain. Which is why fixed
| gear is popular among couriers the chain is thicker and the
| whole drive chain can wear together
| luqtas wrote:
| chain rotation is nice, makes them even last longer..!
| you can also don't do it and fit a new chain when the
| 1deg is over in an 'old' cassette and after some gentle
| rides it'll settle there and stop skipping (at least 2-3
| times till the cassette comes to an end). you can even
| rotate the crank cog when you change your chain, so you
| have less tear as the crank arm tends to make pressure in
| only some parts of the cog (aka. concentric movements)...
| but i can't see a case where you destroy a chain in
| _weeks_ , with our without rotation, doesn't matter if
| you are a 100 kilos or a 55. maybe without doing any
| cleaning and no oil, still i have my doubts as i rode for
| some months as a test, with my chain without oil just to
| check how much it would last! in my defense i cleaned it
| every other day or on a daily basis if there was rain
| (also i had mudguards)
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| The issue is that you can't repair these bikes because they all
| have proprietary parts that only licensed mechanics are allowed
| to touch. And the ebike companies are dropping like flies at
| the moment.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Rented equipment is treated like trash by an unfortunate number
| of renters. This is true even for things like apartments and
| homes. For short term rentals of cheaper goods like bikes and
| scooters it is far, far worse.
|
| Once you factor in that the bikes are fully utilized, rather
| than ridden a few times a week, and 3-5 years actually sounds
| pretty good.
| RobinL wrote:
| Stepping back a bit, having these on the road rather than cars
| or petrol scooters must be a big win even if they don't last as
| long as we'd like
| infecto wrote:
| I don't fully understand these kind of businesses especially in
| the "tech" space. I wonder if they paid for this article but I
| honestly don't see the growth in these companies. They can be
| great businesses but not ones that would be posting in
| TechCrunch.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| Not all tech businesses have to be hyperscalers slave to
| investor profit seeking
| infecto wrote:
| Right but TechCrunch is fairly well known to be pay to
| publish and this felt like a puff piece for the company. Just
| surprising because I don't think the economics would work out
| in a business like this. Like I already said, it's a fine
| business but fairly local and not too much if any of a most.
| mst wrote:
| I was reading it thinking "their PR firm is earning its
| fees."
|
| I enjoyed the article anyway, but still.
|
| (every time there's a freakout on rightard twitter about
| "you will eat the bugs" the article about insect protein
| that triggered it pretty much always includes a reference
| to a company that closed a funding round not long ago - I
| am honestly impressed that their respective PR companies
| managed to get basically the same story published so many
| times)
| bobxmax wrote:
| People don't typically read tech news to hear about slow
| growing bootstrapped lifestyle businesses.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| To your credit, it wouldn't be the first time TC did a pay-for-
| play.
|
| Also, TC has been beyond irrelevant for years.
|
| Now, it's even worse. It's a negative-signal attached to all
| those desperate enough to use it.
| infecto wrote:
| That's was probably the confusion I had. I figured every
| lengthy piece like this one was paid for but then I was
| thinking I don't understand how this would benefit the
| company u less they are raising money and at that point I
| don't see the economics playing out to take funding.
| mst wrote:
| I would guess they're hoping that it'll get in front of
| some potential customers and augment their primarily word-
| of-mouth marketing strategy as a result.
|
| I did appreciate that the "hired a car" story included a
| comment of "and this is worth doing because it gets us
| customers," the lack of pretense there was nice.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| I got some "ad" vibes, but nothing specific comes to mind.
| Maybe more like "this is a fluff piece." Better worth the time
| to publish if someone is paying you.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| It's absolutely a fluff piece. Think about it. The title
| brags about how awesome the business is for the riders. Did
| they speak to a single rider? Nope.
|
| That's because every single rider would rather that instead
| of being given 25 cent foot warmers, a few-cents cup of
| coffee, a couple cents of electricity, and a place to piss:
| be paid a livable wage, be paid for their time (there are a
| number of circumstances where the app delivery companies will
| leave the delivery person with nothing, even though they did
| work), get paid time off, worker's comp if they're injured
| while working, protection from discrimination, wage law
| protections, and all the other myriad of things that these
| companies can't afford _because their business model doesn 't
| work if you pay people working for you a fair, livable wage._
|
| It seems like every other SV company works this way. Amazon
| is of course the shining example, where they've outsourced
| almost all of their warehouse labor to third party companies,
| and those companies purposefully try to burn out / annoy the
| employees so they don't stick around long enough to claim the
| benefits Amazon brags about on their hiring pages. The
| drivers? Employed by "DSPs", most of which are very short-
| lived. Again, on purpose/by design. Can't get sued for
| workers comp if you're employing people through a third party
| company that (oops!) dissolved 6 months ago.
|
| Google Books gave the Books employees very visibly different
| IDs and they were third-class citizens on campus, not even
| allowed to leave the area around the Books warehouse, if I
| remember right? Google won't even pay their shuttle drivers
| enough; there was an article a while back where the reporter
| interviewed a shuttle driver who was having to live in a
| camper van in the Google parking lot because she couldn't
| afford any housing anywhere near a reasonable drive from the
| Google office. I knew a massage therapist who worked at a
| Google office and she snorted when I asked her if she got all
| the fancy benefits management, engineering, and marketing
| get.
|
| FFS the article brags about how "prudent" they are for their
| labor cost-cutting; overseas outsourcing a lot of their
| labor, for example. I bet damn near every non-management
| position is part-time so they get out of paying any benefits.
|
| This stuff is being done to deflect criticism when labor
| rights activists go to city hall or Albany. Grubhub et al
| hire lobbyist who throws some cash at legislators to get
| meetings with them, strolls in, shows them a nice
| presentation with all these pictures of smiling riders, and
| the legislator thinks "gosh golly they're treating these
| people so nicely." Ditto for public committee hearings.
|
| The delivery riders and drivers don't have the ability to
| trek up to Albany and even if they did, there's no way in
| hell a legislator would make time to meet them.
| igor47 wrote:
| While I sympathize with your broader point about gig worker
| wages, I'm a little confused about joco's role in the
| situation. They're providing a service to the workers.
| They're not paying them -- the workers are paying joco.
| What do you suggest their role in the system should be?
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Yeah it's gig market BS 10 years after everyone has
| discovered the pitfalls. Probably the most interesting
| thing about this story is that there are two people named
| Jonathan Cohen that had a similar enough business idea to
| start together as founders. Neat
| JBlue42 wrote:
| Sponsored content. Have come across my company doing the
| same. There are no to few rules about labeling as such.
| infecto wrote:
| I thought practically every article in TechCrunch was for pay
| in some form. That's why I was wondering.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| techcrunch is a good source because they exchange writing
| fluff pieces for access, if you read them with that in mind
| you can get good info
|
| there are a few outlets like this, like theinformation
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > Those cabinets, which Joco says are FDNY-approved, are a
| growing vertical for the startup, particularly in NYC where
| battery fires have run rampant due to unsafe charging practices,
| leading many buildings to ban e-bikes and e-scooters.
|
| First off, there's no such thing as "unsafe charging practices."
| The chargers are completely automatic, and all ebike batteries,
| even the really cheap ones the couriers prefer, have battery
| management system boards that cut off the battery if it gets
| over[voltage/temperature/current].
|
| Second, _not a single fire_ in NYC was due to an e-bike. Every
| single one of them was an electric scooter or "personal mobility
| device" ie onewheel, hoverboard, etc. But NYFD kept calling them
| "ebike fires" and this was not a "mistake" (see below)
| https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/04/26/app...
|
| Third, the NYC government has a long history of hateboners for
| ebikes. NYPD regularly would do "raids" and confiscate e-bikes
| from delivery workers, which they could get back for several
| hundred dollars - a fine greater than nearly any motor vehicle
| infraction there is. It amounted to a city-government-run-mafia
| shakedown of some of the city's poorest residents. This is just
| more of the same; NYFD are purposefully lumping in e-bikes with
| the devices actually causing fires, to push a narrative that
| eBikes are dangerous.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Yeah but why? Why hassle these guys so much? The delivery
| bikers take cars off the streets, they are serving people who
| are willingly paying, and an e-bike is less likely to kill a
| pedestrian. From the POV of fire and police, it's much harder
| to commit crimes on e-bikes, and in absolute numbers I'm
| confident the fire department responds more frequently to
| incidents with cars. It seems like a win win for everyone in
| the community.
|
| I understand why it's a culture war. It violates beliefs. But
| is there truly any rational basis? I understand the aesthetics
| of a delivery biker violating a traffic law for cars looks bad,
| that it pisses people off. But brother... it's an urban
| environment: it's going to be chock full of shit that pisses
| you off. Why this?
| WillAdams wrote:
| If that's the case, why was at least one such ebike battery the
| subject of a CPSC recall?
|
| https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2023/E-Bikes-Recalled-Due-to-Fi...
|
| from: https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/11/21/ebikes-fires-lithium-
| ion-...
|
| There definitely needs to be better regulation/inspection:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/20/us/nyc-ebike-store-fire-lithi...
|
| but agree that a more even-handed approach to repair is
| warranted:
|
| https://nypost.com/2024/03/03/us-news/more-nyc-fires-caused-...
|
| and I'd be glad to be pointed to articles from independent
| sources which are impartial.
|
| The Manhattan apartment building my son lives in suffered such
| a fire --- fortunately my son and his dog made it out safely,
| and his unit only had smoke damage, but he was out of his
| apartment for months of moving from one motel room to another
| every 30 days once his insurance kicked in.
|
| That said, folks need to be more respectful of and careful with
| batteries in general --- my brother-in-law's home was damaged
| by a fire caused by a digital camera battery over a decade ago.
| throwaway38211 wrote:
| Regarding your second point, your own source says that none of
| the five fires -over a two day period- were not ebike fires.
| You're making it sound like no ebike has ever caught fire at
| all. "none of the New York fires occurring April 20 and 21
| involved an e-bike"
|
| That article also says "Now, some fires certainly originate
| with e-bike batteries and some e-scooter batteries are probably
| safe."
|
| To your first point, there absolutely are unsafe charging
| practices, such as charging immediately after coming in from
| the cold without letting the battery warm up, which is one
| reason why these fires occur most often in winter.
|
| I'm very pro ebike, but can't just act like they don't have
| these issues...
| jeffbee wrote:
| > charging immediately after coming in from the cold
|
| Why should this be any concern of the end user? The BMS is
| supposed to manage that condition.
| relyks wrote:
| This is not true. The article you linked only mentioned one
| particular instance that the battery fire was not the result of
| a e-bike battery. There have been fires due to bad e-bike
| batteries (see https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/11/21/ebikes-fires-
| lithium-ion-..., and https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/01/31/ebike-
| battery-fire-hazard...).
|
| I'm a huge pedal assist e-bike fan and I use my e-bike all the
| time around NYC. Throttle based e-bikes used to be technically
| illegal in NYC until 2020 (pedal assist were not), which is
| what all the delivery workers still continue to use.
| (https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/ebikes.shtml). Do
| you have a citation that they continue to confiscate e-bikes?
| ericyd wrote:
| TIL "hateboners" is a word
| sneak wrote:
| > _The Cohens thought that placing Joco's docking stations on
| private property would allow them to avoid both Citi Bike's
| territory and the city's regulatory eye. They were wrong. The NYC
| Department of Transportation promptly sued Joco for operating a
| bikeshare without prior authorization from the agency, forcing
| the startup to pivot away from offering consumer rides toward
| last-mile delivery._
|
| Land of the free, where everything not mandatory is prohibited.
|
| It's super sad to see the US's ills pinned on "unrestrained
| capitalism" or whatever, when in reality there are more and more
| impediments to new businesses and new lines of business than ever
| before.
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