Bird announces its third-generation electric scooter with automatic emergency braking

Bird is out with a new electric scooter that’s designed to be the Santa Monica, California-based company’s most durable and sustainable vehicle yet. The Bird Three scooter has a longer wheelbase, a dual-sensor throttle, and a “triple braking system” with dual independent handbrakes and an “autonomous emergency braking” system that the company claims is an industry-first.

One of the most important numbers to consider is the lifespan of each scooter. The more trips and miles a single scooter can cover, the better it is for scooter companies that have to recoup the cost of each vehicle before they can start making money. That is partly why the company is staking a position against the use of swappable batteries. Other countries, like China, are embracing battery-swapping technology as a way to expand access to their electric vehicles. But Bird claims that “smaller and swappable batteries lead to higher overall manufacturing emissions and require more vehicle miles traveled to retrieve, replace, and recharge scooters.”

Instead, the Bird Three’s battery has a capacity of “up to 1 kWh,” which the company says means less frequent charging and more miles traveled on a fully charged battery “than any other shared scooter available today.” The Bird Three battery is built to outlast the scooter to which it’s attached, with a minimum of 14,000 miles and up to a 20,000-mile lifespan. That’s probably longer than the 24- to 36-month lifespan of the entire vehicle. And it’s IP68 rated, meaning it’s sealed from any water and dust that may get into the scooter.

Read more at The Verge

Image Credit: Bird

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