Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:38 on 2020-05-29 Permalink Reply  

• mare 11:26 on 2020-05-29 Permalink

  Outrage generates clicks, but a few possible reasons:

  1) AFAIK Montreal’s scrap yards were closed until Monday, that might be the reason they are so far away. The next day they were probably shredded because of optics and contracts.
  2) Jump is sold to another company and its exact status is unclear.
  3) The Jump bikes can’t be used without the app to unlock them. They’re especially made that way to prevent theft. Standard, without power and unlocking permissions through the app, they are locked with a thick, very hard to access bolt.
  4) The bikes use many non-standard parts, so even if you manage t unlock them, you can only ride them until they need repair.
  5) These particular bikes might actually *need* repair, and the repair might be more costly than the scrap value. Or, because of the company ownership change, the repair shop might have run out of parts as well, and taken apart some bikes for spare parts.

• Chris 14:46 on 2020-05-29 Permalink

  This is Uber once again being a horrible actor:
  https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52832791

  mare, all fine points, but it’s still a perfect example of how our current system of capitalism is bad for the environment. Scarce materials and energy are used to create these things, and then they are just wastefully destroyed. All just hand waved away because of ‘liability’ and other BS.

• Kate 15:58 on 2020-05-29 Permalink

  mare, I was merely surprised to see that a technology that was so recently hailed as groundbreaking was literally in the dumpster.

• mare 19:01 on 2020-05-29 Permalink

  @Kate @Chris. I saw an article about this happening in other cities too.

  Jumps are really well-made bikes, but they get quite a beating. And being also protected against theft some repairs are impossible, so they get recycled. Happens to cars too, sometimes they get crushed after what looks like minor accidents.

  At least the metal of frames is easily recyclable, unlike the metal in millions of car tyres that get discarded every year.

• Dhomas 08:58 on 2020-05-30 Permalink

  I doubt that if Communauto went bust tomorrow, all their cars would be sent to the scrap heap…

• CE 10:14 on 2020-05-30 Permalink

  I wonder what happened to all those Car2Go smart cars.

• Dhomas 13:07 on 2020-05-30 Permalink

  They were sold to unspecified buyers, but not to the general public: “Vehicles will not be made available for sale to the general public,” Young explained. “What I can tell you is that vehicles in impacted cities will be sold.”
  Source : https://www.vancourier.com/news/car2go-will-have-fewer-vehicles-on-the-road-in-vancouver-before-exit-date-1.24039447

  Also, when Teo sorta kinda went away, all their electric vehicles were sold in Ontario. This is because the resale value of electric vehicles is higher in Ontario on account of their not having subsidies on EVs as we do in Quebec.
  Source:
  https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2019/02/12/les-vehicules-de-teo-taxi-envoyes-en-ontario-1

• GC 19:53 on 2020-05-30 Permalink

  I have seen Car2Go cars–or maybe just the same one?–in town and wondered who owned them now.

  Very interesting about Teo. I idly wondered what was done with all those vehicles.