Renowned scooter company, Lime, has recently invested $50 million to expand its shared electric bicycle network in a bid to get back to its roots. Reportedly, the firm, earlier known as LimeBike, will add a new model of bike to its portfolio and double the number of its operational cities.

For the record, Lime commenced its business for shared bikes only to rapidly pivot following Bird’s first introduction of the dockless electric scooters concept in 2017.

Reportedly, Lime dropped “bike” from its name and began phasing out its bikes in the year 2019. However, the following year, the scooter-making firm acquired Jump, a bike-share company,  from Uber to bring the bikes back on the menu. 

Apparently, this $50 million investment is largely directed towards the designing, manufacturing, and assembling of the company’s next-generation bikes that are anticipated to start rolling out this coming summer. Also, the new model is deployed with a more powerful 350-watt motor as well as a swappable battery that can operate for up to 25 miles of range.

Furthermore, the battery can be interchanged with the ones used in the company’s Gen4 electric scooters to offer a standardized battery charging operation. Apart from this, a two-speed gear shifter would offer easy hill climbs, and an integrated, as well as electronically controlled hub lock, which would assist in keeping the bike secure from theft and vandalism.

The company is now working to double down on shared electric bikes, in order to launch them in over a dozen new cities across North America by later this year, apart from several other regions in Europe and other markets. In addition, the firm is also planning to introduce its bikes in around 50 new cities by early 2022, nearly quadrupling its fleet size.

As per reliable sources, Lime has also disclosed its plans to launch electric mopeds in Paris and Washington, DC.

Source Credits:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/1/22303364/lime-ebike-expansion-new-cities-50-million-investment