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SALT LAKE CITY — If you’ve walked around downtown Salt Lake recently, you’ve probably noticed electric scooters everywhere.
Bird Rides Inc., one of two companies that recently brought the electric scooters to Salt Lake City, offers access to the dockless scooters through a mobile app. Through the app, you can unlock the scooter and pay for your ride. The rate in Salt Lake City is $.15 per minute, and you ride with $1 to start, according to the Bird website. Once you’re finished riding, you park and lock the scooter through the app.
Last week, Bird announced a new version of its scooter: Bird Zero.
The new scooter is designed to “meet the demands of Rideshare 2.0 by providing riders with more battery life for longer range, better lighting for increased visibility, and enhanced durability for a longer life-span,” according to a press release from Bird.
The extended battery life lasts 60 percent longer than the original model scooters. The press release also specified the scooter will be provided with more rugged and solid tires to “provide a stable ride and greater durability across a variety of ground surfaces.”
A digital display is also being added to the new model. The display will show the speed of the scooter and the battery life, according to the company website.
Bird Zero scooters are set to be released in participating cities over the coming weeks, according to Mackenzie Long, a public relations spokeswoman for Bird.
“Bird was started as an experiment to test whether people would give up short car trips for environmentally-friendly rides on shared e-scooters,” Bird founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden said in a statement. “One year in, we have learned that we are solving a significant challenge for riders and cities who want to get cars off the road and carbon out of the air. Our new ruggedized e-scooter fleet delivers riders a more reliable and longer-lasting ride.”
Bird will also start offering scooter delivery soon, according to the Deseret News.
The scooter can be delivered to your home or business, according to a statement on Bird's website. The aim of Bird Delivery is to guarantee that people have an “easy, affordable way to move around their city without getting into a car, being stuck in traffic and adding carbon emissions to the atmosphere.”
There is no set release date for Bird Delivery, but you can get priority placement by joining the waitlist on the Bird website.
The electric scooter company is currently operating in numerous large cities across America, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Portland. Bird began offering the scooter service in Salt Lake in June, according to the Associated Press.
