Lime adds electric mopeds to its line of scooters and bicycles

Lime is adding a new member to its family of shared electric vehicles: mopeds. Mopeds are being offered as part of a pilot program to test whether Lime customers prefer faster, heavier and possibly more risky vehicles than a regular scooter.

Mopeds can be rented through the Lime smartphone app, as can the company’s e-scooters. Lime is still finalizing the price per mile for mopeds, but aims to be competitive with other shared mobility services.

Other scooter companies have been flirting with expanding their product lines to include mopeds, but Lime insists that his rider will anticipate a larger launch in the spring. For starters, Lime will launch mopeds in the coming months in just two cities: Washington, DC and Paris. The company plans to spread 600 mopeds across the US capital, while the number to be launched in Paris has yet to be determined. Mopeds are likely to hit the streets in early March.

The mopeds are manufactured by NIU, a Chinese company that also supplies mopeds to Revel, a mobility company based in New York. NIU mopeds typically reach between 25-100 miles in range. Lime’s mopeds will have a speed limited to 28 mph and can be controlled and monitored using wireless connectivity.

Mopeds aim to give credence to Lime’s claims to be more than just another scooter company. The company sees itself as a “platform” for different types of low-speed electric mobility. Last year, Lime added Wheels-less e-bikes to its app in several cities as part of a new effort to integrate third-party micromobility providers.

Lime CEO Wayne Ting says his company is “the first micromobility provider to offer three vehicles on one platform”. (Gotcha, a 12-year-old company based in Charleston, South Carolina, already offered electric scooters, seated scooters, bicycles and tricycles on its platform. The company was recently acquired by another scooter company called Bolt.)

Mopeds are arguably a faster way to get around, but they can also be more dangerous, especially for novice riders. Revel was forced to temporarily cease his service in New York City last year after two customers died and one was seriously injured while riding on shared electric mopeds. The company finally resumed service with new protection measures for pilots, such as a mandatory in-app safety test and a requirement that all pilots take a selfie wearing a helmet before being allowed to ride.

Lime hopes to avoid a similar tragedy by taking a series of security measures immediately. Riders must take a safety course for riders with several chapters, developed in partnership with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. The test was “optimized for learning retention,” says Lime, and must be completed before any user can start a tour. Customers will only need to have a driver’s license – not a motorcycle license – in order to drive.

Each moped also comes with two helmets, one large and one small, which are locked in a cargo compartment at the back. Lime will have three different checkpoints to ensure that pilots do not escape without wearing a helmet. Pilots will be required to take a selfie wearing the helmet, and there will be a prompt in the app to confirm that the helmet is being worn. In addition, the helmet compartment includes an infrared sensor that can confirm that the helmet has been removed.

Helmets will be cleaned whenever a member of Lime’s operations team handles the motorcycle – which is likely to happen once every three days or more. Lime will also offer head protectors on each helmet for extra protection.

Lime will also offer free 45-minute face-to-face classes for all riders, taught by certified motorcycle instructors in small classes. According to the company, the classes are designed to help pilots become familiar with maneuvers such as braking, turning and parking.

“Lime will take strict enforcement measures for repeated security violators, including removing the platform, to avoid putting themselves and other road users at risk,” said the company.

Lime is not the first scooter company to be interested in mopeds. Bird launched moped-style e-bikes, probably manufactured by the e-bike company Juiced, based in California, Los Angeles in 2019 and Austin in 2020. Also in 2019, Uber joined the French startup Cityscoot to integrate around 4,000 of the company’s mopeds on the Uber app in Paris.