You’d be forgiven for not noticing, however shared micromobility firm Lime’s electric mopeds have disappeared from the streets of NYC lower than a yr after their debut.
The electric mopeds (or “seated electric scooters” as my extra pedantic commenters will quickly inform me) have been added to Lime’s micromobility suite to enhance its standing electric scooters and electric bicycles.
They have been first rolled out in Washington, DC, earlier than becoming a member of Lime’s NYC fleet, and have been used as a quicker different to the corporate’s e-scooters and e-bikes.
At 30 mph (48 km/h), the electric mopeds took commuters out of the bike lanes and onto the roads, serving to them attain locations farther away in much less time.
But they didn’t final lengthy, as not even a yr glided by earlier than they have been pulled from NYC’s streets for Lime to refocus on its smaller micromobility automobiles.
Lime’s Jacob Tugendrajch defined to amNewYork Metro that the corporate “recently made the decision to wind down our moped program in New York City and focus entirely on the city’s e-scooter pilot program.”
While Lime didn’t particularly point out Revel, the competing electric moped–sharing service might have weighed into the choice.
Revel makes use of the identical electric mopeds as Lime, that are produced by Chinese two-wheeled EV large NIU.
Revel started with a multi-year head begin on Lime in the case of bigger electric moped sharing, starting operations in NYC with a pilot program all the way in which again in 2018.
While Lime initially introduced 100 electric mopeds into NYC, Revel operates a number of thousand automobiles in town. Revel has additionally expanded considerably into different verticals together with electric bicycle subscriptions, Tesla taxis and charging stations.
Lime might be the most important electric scooter sharing firm, however its expertise lies largely in a number of hundred-dollar e-scooters and e-bikes, not a number of thousand-dollar electric mopeds.
The firm now seems to be pouring its efforts totally behind its e-scooter and e-bike packages, with Tugendrajch explaining that, “This first year of the e-scooter pilot has been fantastic and we are all-in on building on that success, focusing on safety, equity, and accessibility as ridership heats up with spring weather and we prepare to launch phase two this year.”
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