McDonald’s Adding Forward-Thinking Feature to Restaurants

McDonald’s is testing a unique new feature in a couple of restaurants: “Green Charging Bikes” in the place of some seats. The stationary bike pedals generate electricity and send it to a wireless charging station on the table, where users can charge their phones or other devices while they sit or eat. So far, the bikes are only available in two McDonald’s locations in China.

“The Green Charging Bike is an in-restaurant experience, currently being tested at two locations in China, that is designed to inspire more green behaviors as customers enjoy their McDonald’s favorites,” a McDonald’s rep explained in a report by Hype Beast. “The bike generates electricity to power everyday devices like mobile phones and is a part of McDonald’s China’s ‘Upcycle for Good’ project, an initiative focused on creating products with plastic parts from recycled materials.”

The first bikes of this kind were installed in September of 2021 at a McDonald’s restaurant in Jieyang, Guangdong Province, China. The second set was introduced to the New Hualian Restaurant location in Shanghai. McDonald’s said that it is carefully monitoring customer feedback on this feature and that further tests will likely be conducted in China before the bikes go international.

Commenters on social media had some doubts about this feature, predicting that it would never catch on in the U.S. even if it became popular overseas. One person wrote: “This never coming to America” with a crying laughing emoji, while another added: “I just know it’s gonna smell crazy in there.” A third person noted: “Back to the Future did it first.”

McDonald’s is testing another big change to its restaurants in the U.S. right now that could prove to be more significant if it catches on. Back in October, the company partnered with IBM to further develop its automated drive-thru operated by artificial intelligence. This followed a test run in Chicago which did not go over well on social media, and the expansion of the idea did not inspire much confidence either.

Critics were concerned about the workers who would be displaced by AI if this program caught on, jeering that McDonald’s would rather invest millions in this project than simply pay workers a living wage. They also wondered about how the data collected by these drive-thrus would be used and what ripple effects it might have on their digital lives. So far, there’s no word on the results of these tests.