Of course, the inability to fold down might instantly make some people stop reading. We usually review electric scooters by using them as a 'last mile' solution between a car park and our office, but as this doesn't fold, it wouldn't fit inside our car. If you live in a city and plan on using the Bird One as your sole mode of transportation, then this is less of an issue.

Central between the handlebars, at the top of the scooter’s stem, is a large plastic box - on most scooters, this would house a display to tell you your speed, remaining battery, and which riding mode you were in - the Bird One just has two LEDs that tell you if the scooter is charging or not. That means when you’re riding it’s impossible to know how fast you’re going, or how much charge you have left.The Bird app encourages responsible riding and can even incentivize good behavior. For example, it can give out rewards to riders who park in designated areas.

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, volunteer authors worked to edit and improve it over time. Bird and Kent County Council’s close and healthy working relationship delivered e-scooters in the City of Canterbury with the shared vision of reducing car dependency to help improve air quality. Bird works hard to build on their years of experience in the industry to come up with solutions to delivery a successful e-scooter rental model with the environment and the customer at the heart of their delivery.” People are looking to micro-electric vehicles to replace their gas-powered car trips and move efficiently around their cities,” said Brian Buccella, Senior Vice President of Consumer Products and Government Partnerships at Bird. “By offering a new product line of personal micromobility devices, we can help significantly expand access to eco-friendly transportation across the United States.” We got past this issue by gripping the handlebars tight and pushing them forward or pulling them towards us, to use our strength to stop the shaking, but this is a tiring and stressful way of riding. It’s better than the constant fear of falling off into traffic, though. Bird, Lime, Spin and Superpedestrian partner to share best practices for regulating e-scooters and e-bikes in North American cities

The app was originallydeveloped to help rentalriderslocate Bird One e-scooters in their local area,but Bird’s companion app now alsooffers you complete controlover your e-scooter. The Bird One certainly feels stable going at speed, with its 9-inch solid semi-pneumatic tyres large enough to go over kerbs and other small obstacles without any major clunks. Handling also feels pretty stable. The overall 17.5kg weight gives the Bird One stability but also makes it a little hefty to push along if the battery has died. Bird One electric scooter review: Battery life

The Bird One electric scooter is the same model you’ll find if you use Bird’s scooter rental app available in many cities - this is just a retail version of that same vehicle. Like most electric scooters, when you first buy the Bird One you have to attach the handlebar stem to the board yourself with an allen key provided. Despite this process usually being easy, we found it incredibly difficult with the Bird One, as no matter how much we tightened the bolts, the handlebars still rattled worryingly in use. Out of the box, not much needs doing to the Bird One; there are just four simple bolts which need securing with an Allen key. Flip the Birdie over so the bottom of the footboard is visible. Depress the latch near the footboard hole, then pull the T-bar to remove.The absence of riding modes, as most scooters have, and the fact you can’t see your speed, gives you much less control over your riding habits than you should have. While on other scooters you can drop into a lower speed mode to cruise through residential areas, or ride in an ‘eco’ mode to preserve battery, the Bird One doesn’t present those important options. It can be harder to guesstimate your speed than you may think. The Bird app has connectivity issues, and given you use the app to turn on the scooter, deactivate the tamper alarm, see your scooter’s battery and toggle the lights, that’s a huge problem. We frequently found the app seemed convinced it was connected to the scooter when it wasn’t. You have to set up the Bird One yourself, as with most electric scooters, but we found it much harder than with any other vehicles we tested. As a result, we ended up with a wobbly handlebar - and given that our most seasoned scooter-testers couldn’t set it up properly, we imagine that’ll reflect the experience of most other people too. The rubber handlebars are slightly tapered to make them easier to hold, and while they aren’t the comfiest in the world, we’ve used worse too. Plus, they seem more durable than most. Avoid roads, paths, or places with motor vehicle traffic. Follow local traffic rules and regulations. Watch out for pedestrians.