Meet a student who earns $100 per day by charging Lime e-scooters

Friday, 2 November 2018

Lime e-scooter juicer Tom Morton earns extra cash from collecting and charging e-scooters in Auckland.

By day 'juicers' are just like the rest of us, but by night they are scouting dark streets and beaches for Lime e-scooters.

'Lime' and 'juicer' have taken on new meanings since e-scooter share schemes launched in Auckland and Christchurch on October 15.

The scooters have sparked controversy around safety concerns, but the company also created a new job proving lucrative for some.

University student Tom Morton, 19, said he earned about $112 per day by collecting and charging Lime scooters around Auckland.

**READ MORE:

* The low down on under-aged 'Liming'

* Explainer: Where can you ride e-scooters and what are the rules?

Juicers have a special mode in the Lime app which allows them to find e-scooters with low battery life.

* Auckland Mayor orders urgent scooter safety probe after councillor almost hit

* ACC receives 38 electric scooter-related injuries two weeks after share scheme launch**

University student Tom Morton earns about $112 per day as a 'juicer' for Lime's e-scooters.

The 'juicer' travelled with a boat trailer attached to his car, popping the scooters in the back and taking them home to charge.

'I've picked up some from shallow water around Mission Bay and Kohimarama, some worked fine afterwards, others are completely dead.'

Juicers were only allowed to collect scooters that had less than 20 per cent of battery life before 9pm. All scooters could be collected after 9pm.

'Sometimes I'm out at midday but some nights I'm out there until 2am to 3am,' Morton said.

Juicers used the Lime app to harvest the scooters, with rates varying from $7 to $15 depending on location and battery life.

Morton said he aimed to collect a group of scooters rather than lone e-scooters in hard to reach places.

'Looking for them is a bit like hide and seek,' he said.

Juicers could collect a maximum of 12 e-scooters to charge in one go. Once fully charged, you have to have them at hubs by 7am.

Tom Morton says he often collects e-scooters in Auckland's east and bays area.

'The hubs are often near bus stops and each hub can have four e-scooters max.'

Morton tried to drop them off in the early morning, sometimes around 1am, he said.

This part was what Lime called 'to serve'.

Morton made about $112 per day on average from charging about 16 e-scooters, which involved two trips, he said.

'I'd aim for 24 scooters when I'm really going for it.

'But on other nights, I'd be happy with 10. I'd say 16 is a pretty normal ground.'

The St Heliers resident said he became a juicer after seeing an ad on Facebook and he jumped at the opportunity as it worked with his university schedule.

The earnings covered petrol costs and electricity costs, while also making a profit, he said.

According to Lime, charging an e-scooter with low battery life would cost about 60c in electricity.

Although he ran into other juicers all the time, Morton said it was not very competitive.

'You would be disappointed at missing out on some scooters, but there's so many available around Auckland, especially during the night, that you know you've just got to drive and pick up some others.'

Christchurch juicer Logan McMillan said he signed up to become a juicer as soon as Lime arrived in October.

He said juicers earned a minimum of $7 for each individual lime they picked up, charged and returned, but the bounty for these could rise depending on its location and how much charge was remaining.

McMillan said even as a part-time juicer, he could make around $280 from collecting about six scooters a night.

He said his friends who were more committed to the job had weeks where they could make more than $700.

McMillan said being a juicer was not as easy as it sounded, however, with early starts, strict rules around how Limes must be placed, and the competitive nature of the role making things difficult.

'You've got to place them in a really specific way, otherwise you don't get paid. They have to be parallel to the road, the handlebars have to be turned to the left and they have to be an even distance apart from each other.

'It's quite an early start to the day having to get up and run around at 6.30 in the morning chucking these scooters out.

You'll see that scooter is on a certain street, head towards it and by the time you get there sometimes someone else has got it, so you end up chasing your tail at times'.

McMillan said juicing did not add as many costs to his bills as some might assume.

'Apparently, it only costs 12 cents per scooter to charge'.

Lime did not respond to a request for comment.