Too many e-scooters? Blame competition

In 2018, something strange happened on sidewalks across America. In 65 cities, thousands of electric scooters appeared seemingly overnight, often with little or no advance notice to local governments. Cease-and-desist orders flew. Scooters were impounded. Even after cities imposed regulations, there seemed to be far more scooters than anyone could ever use. New research from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin finds that the excess was no accident. Scooter companies had deliberately baked it into their business models.