It's a “comeback”.
The American Bird, one of the world pioneers of "free floating", returns to Paris from this Thursday with a fleet of self-service electric bicycles.
About 600 blue Bird bikes will be deployed mainly in the outlying districts of Paris, with a very attractive launch price of 1 euro for a 30-minute ride.
Bird will evolve with a relatively modest fleet compared to its competitors Lime (5,000 bikes) and Dott (3,000).
Note that the Bird bike is the same model as the one used by Dott.
Built by the Chinese Okaï, it weighs 35 kg and is fitted with solid tyres, which prevents punctures.
"Ultimately we want to develop our own bike, but it's very complicated, especially at the moment," says Mickaël Mamou, Managing Director of Bird in France.
Our ambition in Paris is to offer a service on the particular segment of journeys to the center of Paris.
And in the long term, we are not going to deny it, our ambition is clearly to return to Paris with our scooters”.
The scooter market brought back into play in 2023
Since October 2020, only Lime, TIER and Dott are entitled to operate 5,000 scooters each in the streets of the capital.
Bird, however massively established in Paris, had been eliminated during the City's call for candidates aimed at regulating the "free floating" market.
“Having to leave Paris was a hard blow.
This led us to question ourselves and establish ourselves in other territories,” recalls Mickaël Mamou.
Bird is now present in 20 cities in France, including Bordeaux and Marseille.
But his experiences in Île-de-France were not sustained.
In question: a high level of vandalism and communities still reluctant to welcome self-service scooters.
The Parisian contract, scheduled for two years, will be put into play in February 2023. Bird hopes to win future contracts, highlighting its advantage: it is alone in building its scooter models, entirely designed for self-service.
The Bird 3 - or even the future 4 - could thus find the road in Île-de-France in a year.
