In the United States, several hundred electric bikes from the Jump rental service were sent to a recycling center when they were clearly in good condition. Why couldn’t they have a second life?
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This is a very sad example of waste. At a time when the coronavirus pandemic is reshaping modes of travel and when the bike is experiencing a welcome boom, hundreds of VAEs from the Jump bicycle rental service have been sent to the crusher. It happened in the United States and the images circulating on social networks caused a wave of indignation. Several Twitter accounts have shared photos and videos showing thousands of electric bikes Jump sent to a recycling center to be crushed. These pedelecs are described as being in “perfect condition”.
The site Vice investigated and discovered that this was part of the Jump fleet that Uber would have preferred to send to the scrap. Small summary of the story. In 2018, Uber acquired Jump to diversify. The rental of scooters and electric bikes is available in 37 cities around the world, including Paris. But, faced with the need to drastically reduce its costs by refocusing on core business, Uber announced in early May that it was selling Jump to Lime, another player in soft mobility whose electric scooters also walk the sidewalks of Paris and Lyon.
EXCLUSIVE: New, close-up pictures of the Seattle JUMP 5.5 fleet show that every single bike has * already had their 36V Li-Ion battery removed, * so the manpower existed to do that prior to sending them to scrap. The extent of the waste is unfathomable. pic.twitter.com/zT3nRhYNAs
– Bike Share Museum (@bikesharemuseum) May 26, 2020
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Uber defends its decision
Much of the Jump Park was then transferred to Lime, but not all of it. Uber said it had “ considered donating the remaining older models of bikes, but given the many significant issues, including maintenance, liability, safety concerns and lack of charging equipment for consumers, we decided that the best approach was to recycle them responsibly. “
However, the Bike Share Museum site behind these revelations ensures that latest generation Jump 5.5s models are included in the pestles, which suggests that Uber’s decision is not solely related to the supposed obsolescence of electric bikes. Difficult in any case to understand why these Jump bikes could not find a second life, by being, for example, donated to associations, resold at low cost to individuals or sold in spare parts. The deal would certainly have given Uber and Jump less bad press.
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