Last revised: 3/29/2021
Latest additions marked NEW>
Developments in the Industry and Equipment
Effects of the Pandemic
- NEW>Scooter-sharing startup rides out pandemic with a successful pivot to consumer sales (2/15/2021)
- NEW>Shared scooters jump into a profitable future (1/14/2021)
- The Pandemic Has Shifted Where Scooters and Robots Fit In (11/17/2020) (increased duration and distance traveled)
- Scooter Ridership Resilient as Workers Remain Absent from Detroit (11/01/2020)
- Lime’s CEO on the future of scooters: ‘COVID has turned from a headwind into a tailwind’ (10/28/2020)
- E-scooters and bikes rebound as COVID-19 crisis keeps on rolling (9/2/2020)
- Shared scooters from Lime, Bird and Lyft are back in the Twin Cities, but old commuting patterns aren't (7/23/2020) (longer rides, higher rate of repeat rides by beginners)
- It’s Not Too Late to Turn the Electric Scooter Industry Around (6/29/2020)
- The Covid Crisis Could Finally Make the Scooter Industry Profitable (6/25/2020)
- Three Signs This Might Be Micromobility’s Big Moment (6/17/2020)
- Bike-share and e-scooter companies, hit hard by the pandemic, may come back stronger (5/18/2020)
- Uber And Bolt Are Betting On An E-Scooter Recovery After The Pandemic (5/15/2020)
- HOW THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS IS SPEEDING THE SCOOTER APOCALYPSE (5/13/2020)
- Are shared electric scooters going extinct? Lime’s valuation reportedly tanks (5/6/2020)
- Spin restarts scooter business in four markets (5/5/2020)
- As people return to a new normal, UT professor study how scooter & bike shares are affected (5/1/2020)
- Spin exec: The scooter industry will see a resurgence (4/28/2020)
- Scooter-sharing expected to bounce back from COVID-19 crisis (4/28/2020)
- How COVID-19 Will Reshape Bike And Scooter Rental Market 2020-2026 Survey Report Along with Statistics (4/24/2020)
- How electric scooters will factor into a post-lockdown world (4/22/2020)
- Anyone Feel Like Saving Electric Scooters? (4/16/2020) (Officials in Portland, Oregon, have provided financial incentives to keep e-scooter service available.)
- Unicorn Riding Scooter In Fatal Crash (4/14/2020)
- Once ubiquitous, e-scooters vanish from Atlanta amid coronavirus pandemic (4/7/2020)
- Lyft is offering free e-scooter trips to health care workers fighting COVID-19 (4/3/2020)
- No, Bird and Lime Were Not ‘Forced’ to Pull Fleets — or Fire Staff — Because of COVID-19 (3/31/2020)
- Scooter companies find dockless riding and pandemics don't mix (3/26/2020)
- E-Scooters Rely on China for Parts. Here’s How the Industry Is Weathering Coronavirus (3/23/2020)
- Scooter Giant Lime Preparing Layoffs as Rider Numbers Collapse (3/21/2020)
- Lime is yanking its electric scooters from California and Washington due to coronavirus (3/17/2020)
- Lyft flags production delays for scooter, bike parts due to coronavirus (2/28/2020)
- The Frenzied Era of E-Scooters Is Over (2/27/2020)
The Players
- Bird / Sherpa
- Blue Duck
- Boaz Bikes (seated scooter)
- Bolt
- Glide (Glide Scooters company looking to expand to other cities outside El Paso) (1/17/2020))
- Goat
- Gotcha
- NEW>Acquired by Bolt (1/19/2021)
- Grüv
- Helbiz
- HOPR
- Jump
- Lime
- Link
- Lyft
- Lynx
- Ojo
- NEW>Acquired by Bolt (1/19/2021)
- Razor
- Scoot
- Shared (seated scooter)
- Left the rental field (2/19/2020)
- NEW>Rebranded Zoomer moved (successfully) to direct sales to consumers (2/17/2021)
- Skip
- NEW>Helbiz plans to acquire Skip's scooters (12/31/2020)
- Spin
- VeoRide (now simply called Veo)
- Wheels
A Highly Competitive (and Not Yet Profitable?) Business
- NEW>Lime launches app-less rides and no fee reservations to get more people riding (3/24/2021)
- NEW>Micromobility company Lime is partnering with commuting benefits provider Edenred in anticipation of the post-pandemic surge in two-wheeled office treks (1/22/2021)
- Investors are going wild for Europe's e-scooter start-ups after U.S. players stumbled (12/7/2020)
- E-scooter startup Tier raises $250 million round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (11/10/2020)
- Can scooters give bike-share a boost? Lime data shows both services are growing in Seattle (11/3/2020)
- Bird Seeks to Unload Santa Monica HQ as Fund Marks Down Shares (10/19/2020)
- Wheels' seated e-scooters merged into Lime's app as scooter companies team up (10/8/2020)
- E Scooter Moped And E Motorcycle Market Insight, Present Scenario & Growth Prospect 2026 (9/28/2020)
- U.S. Scooter Ridership Surged in 2019. Now What? (8/27/2020)
- Superpedestrian is launching a shared e-scooter service called Link (6/4/2020)
- Lime Just Became the Biggest Micromobility Company in the World (5/11/2020)
- Bolt Mobility raises $30 million for electric scooter rollout (3/3/2020)
- Bird Pay tries to appease local businesses plagued by scooters (2/25/2020)
- Pay to charge Lime scooters has sunk so low 'juicers' won’t do it anymore (2/20/2020) (San Francisco)
- Lime Has Significantly Dropped Pay Rates for the Contractors Who Charge its Scooters (2/20/2020) (Portland< OR)
- The Local Regulations That Can Kill E-Scooters (2/10/2020)
- Building Micromobility At A Global Scale (1/31/2020) (Helbiz / new entrant in US/ DC/ employees not gig workers and free rides for low-income persons)
- Bird deploys the Bird Two scooter (1/30/2020)
- Scooters, Other Forms of Micromobility Are Here to Stay (1/27/2020) (charging stations/role of urban parking lot)
- 4 Predictions for the Electric Scooter Industry (1/27/2020) (companies culled/city regulations will sort/new form factors will appear/data-sharing will be an issue)
- Scooter app wars begin, and Lime isn't happy about it (1/24/2020)
- Skip pulls back the curtain on the high costs of electric scooter maintenance (1/21/2020)
- The Electric Scooter Wars of 2019 (1/11/2020)
- Lime and Bolt Abruptly Yank E-Scooters From Multiple Markets Across the U.S. (1/10/2020)
- Different Franchise model: GOAT scooters land in El Dorado, resident leaving mark on city (12/22/2019)
- “Quite a shock”: Scoot employees laid off by Bird in SF scooter shake-up (12/6/2019)
- Lime's Chinese-Made Scooters Get Caught Up in Trump's Trade War (12/5/2019)
- Bike and Scooter Rental Market by Service, Propulsion, Operational Model, Vehicle And Region - Global Forecast to 2027 (2019)
- Lyft is pulling its scooters from [smaller] cities across the US (11/18/2019)
- You Lost How Much on Scooters? (10/22/2019)
- That scooter ride is going to cost you a lot more (10/18/2019)
- One Way to Keep the Sidewalk Clear: Remote-Controlled Scooter-Bots (10/15/2019) (Tortoise)
- Surge pricing for scooters? Uber’s Jump will test prices in Dallas that go up or down based on demand (10/15/2019)
- Bubble or Boom? 2-Year-Old Scooter Startup Bird Is Now Worth $2.5 Billion (10/4/2019)
- Electric scooter company Bird raises $275 million, with a new focus on profitability (10/3/2019)
- E-Scooters: the bull and the bear (9/27/2019)
- Scooter startup Skip raises more funding, talks strategy (9/21/2019)
- Lime brings electric scooter Group Ride option to US so you’ll stop riding tandem (9/7/2019)
- The World Market for Bike & Scooter Rentals, 2019-2027: Projected to Witness a CAGR of 18.9% (9/16/2019)
- Spin may be first SF e-scooter company to unionize in bid for permit (9/2/2019)
- Lyft Just Raised Its Scooter Prices. How Much Do All The Scooters Cost, Anyway? (8/22/2019)
- Lime’s partnership with Google Maps (8/14/2019)
- Skip unveils its first custom electric scooter (8/14/2019)
- Bird Raising New Funding At $2.5 Billion Valuation (7/23/2019)
- Reduce, reuse, rescoot? A look at e-scooters' long-term sustainability (7/2019)
- 84 Million Trips Taken on Shared Bikes and Scooters Across the U.S. in 2018 (4/17/2019)
- One User's Comparative Review of Lime, Spin, Lyft, and Bird Scooters (in Minneapolis) (7/16/2019)
- Electric scooters: Your complete guide (6/14/2019)
- The electric scooter wars won't end (6/14/2019)
- Bird buys Scoot, and more electric scooter deals could be on the way (6/12/2019)
- Scooter startup Bird buys struggling competitor Scoot (6/12/2019)
- Electric-Scooter startups are becoming more cautious (6/6/2019)
- Scooter consolidation may finally be upon us (6/5/2019)
- Charlotte becomes the latest city where Lime is ditching dockless bikes. Here’s why (4/18/2019)
- Scooter companies' meteoric rise in one chart (5/20/2019)
- Map: Watch the electric scooter boom spread across the U.S. (4/27/2019)
- E-scooters aren't going anywhere — In fact, their numbers are still growing (4/26/2019)
- Electric Scooters Are Taking over American Cities (4/22/2019) (commenting on the report by the National Association of Transportation Officials on shared bicycle and scooter trips in 2018)
- Skip Is Way More Popular than Scoot in San Francisco (4/15/2019)
- Inboard Refunds Electric Scooter Customers as it Pivots to Shared Fleets (4/9/2019)
- How Bird plans to blanket the world with electric scooters without going bankrupt (3/07/2019)
- Google Maps Now Shows Lime Scooters, Bike And E-Bike Rental Options Directly On The App (3/04/2019)
- Lime dropped the ‘bike’ from its name; now the bikes are disappearing (2/15/2019)
- Security Engineering: Inside the Scooter Startups (2/12/2019)
- 14 Months, 120 Cities, $2 Billion: There's Never Been a Company Like Bird. Is the World Ready? (2/2019)
- Electric Scooters And Micro-Mobility: Here's Everything You Need To Know (2/1/2019)
- Lime and Bird Raise Millions, But at Far Lower Valuations Than Hoped (1/18/2019)
- 2018 Was the Year of the Scooter. What Happens Now? (12/30/2018)
- The Electric Scooter Wars of 2018 (12/23/2018)
- Here Are the Big Players in the Great Scooter Startup War (5/22/2018)
Improvements in the E-Scooters Themselves
- NEW>Spin is testing remote-controlled electric scooters to prevent blocked sidewalks (1/27/2021) (3-wheeled) (to be tested in Boise, ID)
- NEW>Lime uses sensor data to keep scooters off sidewalks (1/28/2021)
- NEW>Ford's Spin unit to boost e-scooters with software that alerts pedestrians of sidewalk riders (12/17/2020)
- NEW>Spin is adding sensor-powered ADAS to its electric scooters to curb scofflaw riding (12/17/2020)
- NEW>Spin to equip its e-scooters with on-vehicle artificial intelligence (12/17/2020)
- NEW>Lime partners with what3words to find abandoned e-scooters and bikes (and with transit mapping platform, Citymapper) (12/10/2020)
- Fat tires: Phat Scooters (however, all models except the Phlex exceed the common 100 pound limit )
- Bolt unveils its fourth-generation scooter (12/3/2020)
- SFMTA launches pilot program to test adaptive scooters for people with disabilities (1/22/2020)
- SF scooter companies introduce models for disabled riders (1/15/2020)
- A more intelligent system for the scooter wars (8/21/2019)
- Europe’s Cobbled Streets Are Breaking Scooters (8/8/2019)
- Bird’s new electric scooter has a better battery and anti-vandalism sensors (8/1/2019)
- Spin Rolls Out 3G e-Scooter (7/28/2019)
- Ford’s Spin reveals new e-scooter and logo (7/25/2019)
- Bird has ‘positive unit economics’ with its custom scooter model, CEO says (7/12/2019)
- This dangerous looking two-person electric scooter wants to challenge Bird (7/2/2019)
- Portland accessibility scooters with seats (6/14/2019)
- Can Bird build a better scooter before it runs out of cash? (5/5/2019)
- Shared scooters don't last long (2/26/2019)
Alternative Modes of Providing E-Scooters (Sales, Cash Rental, Long-Term Rental, Group Rental)
- NEW>Unagi is expanding its electric scooter subscription service to more cities (3/17/2021) [adding San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Phoenix, Miami, and Nashville to NYC and LA]
- NEW>This Chicago startup wants to bring e-scooters to your apartment and office building (2/26/2021) [to be offered to tenants as an amenity by building owner]
- Franchise operators - fixed facility rentals
- Ride FiiK (see Scooters Are Back in Birmingham! Here’s What You Need to Know (9/24/2020))
- Mercedes-Benz’s New Electric Scooter Aims to Bring Luxury to Your Last Mile (10/5/2020)
- Ridepanda wants to be your ‘one-stop shop’ for electric bikes and scooters (10/2/2020) (online sales, financing, support)
- Unagi Opens a bricks and mortar store in LA that offers both scooter sales and monthly rental (9/23/2020)
- Bird doubles down on selling electric scooters directly to customers (9/21/2020)
- Unagi launches $39-a-month subscription for its stylish electric scooters (8/5/2020)
- Lime expands its scooter subscription service to include daily and monthly passes (6/18/2020)
- Unbanked, credit card-less riders can now rent scooters with cash (12/23/2019)
- It's Getting Easier To Rent E-Scooters In SF With Good Old-Fashioned Cash (12/22/2019)
- Lime launches weekly subscription service for frequent riders (12/17/2019)
- Lime starts rolling out group scooter rides so a single user can pay for others (7/4/2019)
- Bird is now selling its electric scooters directly to consumers (5/8/2019)
- Lime will open brick-and-mortar scooter "lifestyle stores" (10/22/2018)
Structuring the Staff Needed for Charging, Repairing, and Redeployment
- Spin workers just ratified their first union contract (9/29/2020)
- Bird Is Quietly Luring Contract Workers Into Debt Through a New Scooter Scheme (9/28/2020)
- BIRD BRAINED: Inside the electric scooter startup with big workplace problems (4/23/2020)
- Bird cuts 30% of workforce as coronavirus pushes scooters out of cities (3/27/2020)
- Scooter Giant Lime Preparing Layoffs as Rider Numbers Collapse (3/21/2020)
- Spin scooters, too good to be true (1/6/2020) (San Diego: Spin's switch from free-lance chargers to employees)
- In the Van With the ‘Juicers’ Who Round Up and Recharge Lime Scooters (10/25/2019)
- The weird and messy work of charging electric scooters in the Bay Area (7/3/2019)
- Scooter Startups Are Ditching Gig Workers for Real Employees (3/07/2019)
Parking and Charging Stations Combined with User or Charger Incentives for Their Use
- How scooter charging startups want to make the industry more profitable (1/17/2020)
- Swiftmile will become the ‘gas station’ for electric bikes and scooters in Austin (10/24/2019)
- Spin Adding Docks and Parking Incentives for its Dockless E-Scooters (10/21/2019) (Arlington, VA)
Developments that May Assist Enforcement of Local Rules or Rider Safety
- NEW>Rented e-scooters get skid-detection to spot and ban careless riders [Bird] (1/17/2021)
- 'Silent’ e-scooters fitted with artificial noise to warn pedestrians (11/4/2020)
- Keeping e-scooters off sidewalks (10/16/2020)
- Breakthrough Technology for e-Scooters to Increase Pedestrian Safety (8/31/2020) (sidewalk detection)
- Free app provides safer micromobility-specific GPS navigation for e-bikes and scooters (8/12/2020)
- Product Safety Regulations for Electric Bikes and Scooters (8/7/2020)
- Teleoperated scooters: Go X and Tortoise test micromobility’s future in Georgia pilot (7/7/2020)
- A new scooter company is in town, and technology is helping make sure devices stay clean (7/2/2020)
- Portland startup Ride Report raises $10 million to support e-scooters, rental bikes (3/12/2020) (Ride Report enables cities to track vehicle locations and usage so they can monitor compliance)
- This SF scooter company knows if you’re riding illegally on a sidewalk. Here’s how (1/28/2020)
- Bird deploys the Bird Two scooter in San Francisco (1/30/2020) (self reports damage)
- Autoliv Performs First Crash Test of an E-scooter Airbag (1/31/2020)
- This SF scooter company knows if you’re riding illegally on a sidewalk. Here’s how (1/28/2020)
- Lime uses sensor data to keep scooters off sidewalks (1/28/2020) (San Jose)
- Bird will give you free scooter rides if you take a selfie while wearing a helmet (11/19/2019)
- Spin's introduction of docking stations on private property (8/26/2019)
- Ford's (Spin) Bid for Safer Scooters? Sensors Everywhere (8/21/2019)
- Effectiveness of geofencing
- Austin Transportation publishes new dockless mobility open data tools (1/14/2019)
- Portland’s E-Scooter Pilot Could Set Public-Private Data Sharing Precedents for Mobility Partnerships (4/29/2019)
- Populus raises $3.1 million to help cities make sense of shared scooters and bikes (3/14/2019)
- A Fix for Electric Scooter Sidewalk Chaos: Solar Docks (3/13/2019)
- Skip Scooters Get a Latch so They Don't Junk Up the Sidewalks (10/20/2018)
- Bird flooded cities with electric scooters, and now it wants to help them better manage the influx (8/29/2018) (geofencing, data-sharing)
- As Cities Push Back Against E-Scooters, One Company Launches "GovTech Platform" (9/7/2018)
Scooter Companies Lobbying against Tighter State Regulation
Vandalism
- Ellis attempts to get scooters and other contaminants out of city waterways (1/23/2020)
- They pulled 9 Lime scooters out of Commencement Bay. Now they want answers and solutions (1/17/2020) (Tacoma)
- Night Prowler in Florida Cut Electric Scooters’ Brakes, Police Say (10/2/2019) (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)