Can you give us a little more detail? Like examples of streets that it managed to get up, and those that were too much? And when you say it wasn't any good up hill, do you mean it went too slow, or couldn't make it at all?

[incredibly sinister billionaire voice] And I thought to myself, Americans are lazy, how do I capitalize on that?

It was worth it for the video.

If you are already a wimp who hates to walk and cannot pedal a bike over a bump, what chance is there that you will NOT harm yourself on one of these? That's why I recommend them.

SF issues a cease-and-desist because black teenagers like the scooters, not because they caused mass chaos. They got trolled by a few uppity bike advocates.

@5 Not really. They were concentrated in the FiDi, and old moneyed business people and speeding dorks on the sidewalk didn't mix well. There are currently two scooter-share (that hurt to type) companies working their way through the permitting process. Soon our sidewalks, trash cans, and Bay floor will once again be replete with scooters.

No idea how these companies expect to turn a profit, and we probably wouldn't want to picture a city where they finally achieved the economy of scale it will take to do so. Perhaps customer data sharing will make up the difference?

@2, right? Why are people in Silicon Valley under the impression that walking is a problem that needs solving?

boring story apropos of nothing-
Back in the early '60's my granny lived in an apartment on Beacon Hill. She had lost an eye in a car accident years earlier and was dependent on public transportation.
She was too old & infirm to drive, I was too young. She schooled me into mastering the bus system at a very young age, her gift to me- my freedom.
Anyway she used this expression all the time when talking about how to make connections- "shank's mare". I grew up thinking that was a legit thing, a common idiom that everyone knew.
No one I've met has ever understood it, but I cling to it stubbornly. And when I read articles like this silliness about non-alternatives to bipedal ambulation I think "shank's mare, kids".

4000 steps?!? OMG! The inhumanity! Quick, someone get Katie a quaalude or xanax or whatever it is that the kids are taking these days. God forbid she, you know, build any muscle strength or stamina or anything like that.
~~~
"...eels or battery-powered skateboards moving smoothly uphill while the rider expends about as much energy as you do taking a nap. "

I'm no particular fan of 'soloeels' or electric skateboards (or "hoverboards"[dumbname], or any of their ilk), but in the name of journalistic rigor I take issue with the assertion that "the rider expends about as much energy as you do taking a nap". This is patently false, and perhaps the journalist may wish to talk with someone who rides these --or ride one themself-- before making wild, unsubstantiated assertions denigrating the owners.
~~~
Widespread E-Scooters? Ye gods.
Bike share bikes are working pretty well.
But E-scooters?
I foresee a serious uptick in broken arm and head trauma injuries.

@9 Thank you for that, I'd never heard it before. Was Granny British?

@10: she was joking about being lazy.

As far as I know Trump hasn't overturned the laws of physics yet.

A low end e-bike with a 250W motor can barely make it a decent size hill without gears and pedal assist.

Scooter has tiny electric motor, no gears, no pedals and a small battery.

Even though the scooter probably weighs quite a bit less than a e-bike, no way that will expeditiously propel a normal sized 100-150 lb human unassisted up a decent grade.

11- Montana. Old school Yankee.

“eels on battery-powered skateboards” --@10

That’s brilliant. Electric eels, to supercharge the scooters… Get ‘em fresh (n’ ‘hot’!) outta the Elliot Bay/Puget Sound, plug ‘em into patented special Eelport and zoom/FLY up to The Hospital or Volunteer Park or whatever is on top of the Capital Hill and laugh your ass off at Seattle’s ‘hills.’

I wonder if the scooters shouldn’t have regenerative braking….

Good to hear that Lime's scooters may be more rugged than their bikes. Out of the four dockless bikeshare firms that set up shop in DC, LimeBike's equipment was by far the flimsiest. Also they had the shortest seatposts, making them unsuitable for anyone over, say, 5'7".

@12 - And I was joking about quaaludes (I mean, seriously...) and being all faux-outraged at her jokey laziness. ;>) Sorry, was it all too dry? I'll try to be more obviously funny next time.

@15 - :D

@12 - I wasn't kidding about TBI's and broken arms though. So, ymmv.