I've taken a few rides since they went live on Thursday. They are front hub setups with Bafang motors (couldn't tell which one from the label). Power is pretty decent, and not far off from my eZee 250 RPM @ 36V, 20A (basically a MAC 12T). Shifting mechanism is a Nexus 8-speed hub. There is no throttle, but they either have torque sensing or the PAS is well-tuned. It's nice to ride in the rain and over hard bumps and not have to worry about inflicting pain on my own vehicle, and even nicer to get to the destination, lock it up and just walk away without the slightest concern about it being vandalized or stolen. The rate plan is $2 for 30 minutes and then 7 cents per minute after, so there's no "gotcha" where you take an extra minute and get charged for a full half-hour or hour like with some rentals. The ride is OK, although a bit rough with no suspension, and there are integrated lights and the bright red color helps with visibility. It has a decent-sized front basket with a drink holder and enough room for a large bag of groceries or two smaller ones.
On the negative side, the locking system is pretty clunky. It needs a lot of clearance so if there's a bike locked to the other side of a rack it probably won't work. I also smashed my finger pretty good the second time I locked it. The process for starting and ending rides and putting it on hold is also not self-explanatory and takes some getting used to. Drivers seem especially aggressive compared to riding my black eZee Sprint. I think the red color brings out their aggression like with other dumb animals. Brakes are OK, but nothing like my hydraulic front brake and I don't feel confident that I can stop quickly enough if someone pulls out in front of me while I'm at 20 MPH. Gearing is very low, and I find myself in the tallest gear most of the time, although the motor kicks in to help as soon as I start pedaling so that's not much of a problem. San Francisco, despite its strong cycling community and recent (welcome) infrastructure upgrades, is not a bike-friendly city, and finding a place to lock up at the end of a ride is not always easy. If the city were as lackadaisical about parking spaces as they are about places to lock up, the citizens would riot and burn down city hall. A couple of times I ended up just locking the bike to a street sign, which I would not give a second thought to with my own bike but with a shared bike, it puts a slight worry about receiving a fine in the back of my mind. The app is decent, even if it crashes a lot on my iPhone 6S+.
From a business standpoint, most of these bike share startups are probably going to fail and leave a few that will stand the test of time. Compared to scooter rentals, E-bikes are way more convenient since you don't need to find parking (rack placement issues above notwithstanding) and more importantly can't get a parking ticket. They also feel a lot safer to me in the rain, and you have free use of the bike lanes without fear of citation. I feel that the demand will be there, and it will spur a huge amount of interest in E-bikes, since $2 to satisfy peoples' curiosity is nothing. I expect E-bike sales to increase by an order of magnitude within the next decade, due partly to shared bikes. That said, I don't know that it's possible to turn a profit at 2 bucks a pop, especially since Jump has gone with the bizarre decision not to specify a bike with a removable battery, so their employees need to transport the entire bike to a warehouse for charging! I understand they're probably worried about battery theft, but this is a logistics nightmare that could sink any company, especially a tech company that needs to keep its employee-hours to an absolute minimum! Due to that alone, I expect the company to fold as soon as there is a downturn in VC funding. For now, though, it works well and makes a great addition to my transportation arsenal.
Other concerns may mostly be just based in quantity available...?
