Estimate the annual market for electric scooters in the United States.

First, what counts? I'll take electric kick scooters, the stand-up kind, and leave out mopeds and mobility scooters. I'll size it as scooters in use, divided by how long one lasts, times the price. For consumers, I'll say about 2 million people in the US own one. That comes from 130 million households, with about 30% of them in cities or dense suburbs where a scooter is practical. That's roughly 40 million, and I'm assuming 5% of those have one. A scooter lasts about four years, so that's 500,000 sold a year. They're ridden outdoors and the battery wears out, so four years feels right. At $500 each, that's $250 million. Prices run from about $300 to over $1,000, so $500 is a middle. So the consumer market is about $250 million a year. I think that's in the right range.

First, what counts? I'll take electric kick scooters, the stand-up kind, and leave out mopeds and mobility scooters. I'll count two kinds of buyer, consumers and the rental companies that put shared scooters on city streets. I'll size it as scooters in use, divided by how long one lasts, times the price. For consumers, I'll say about 2 million people in the US own one. That comes from 130 million households, with about 30% of them in cities or dense suburbs where a scooter is practical. That's roughly 40 million, and I'm assuming 5% of those have one. A scooter lasts about four years, so that's 500,000 sold a year. They're ridden outdoors and the battery wears out, so four years feels right. At $500 each, that's $250 million. Prices run from about $300 to over $1,000, so $500 is a middle. For rental fleets, I'll assume 200,000 shared scooters across US cities. They live outdoors and get heavy use, so they're replaced about every two years. That's 100,000 a year, and at the same $500 it's another $50 million. So the consumer market is about $250 million a year. Adding fleets, I get about $300 million a year and 600,000 scooters. As a check, 2 million owners is under 1% of American adults. In a big city I'd see more than that and in most suburbs almost none, so it seems about right. The assumption I trust least is the 5%. And since the market is still growing, real sales are probably above pure replacement.