UPDATED 22:00 EDT / MARCH 03 2019

EMERGING TECH

Google Maps support for Lime bikes and e-scooters expands to 80+ cities

Google LLC is expanded its partnership with LimeBike Inc., adding support for Lime bikes and e-scooters listings in Google Maps to more than 80 cities worldwide starting this week.

The feature was initially launched in limited markets in December. Now, Google Maps users will be given transit information about Lime devices alongside public transit information and ride-hailing options.

“When you need to travel short distances or that last mile, Google Maps can tell you if a Lime vehicle is available, how long it’ll take to walk to the vehicle, an estimate of how much your ride could cost, along with your total journey time and ETA,” Google said in a blog post Sunday. The service will cover all markets serviced by Lime in the United States as well as locations in Australia, Europe, New Zealand and Mexico.

The tie-up with Google doesn’t come as a surprise given that GV, the venture capital arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., led a $335 million round of investment into the startup back in July. For Lime, inclusion in Google Maps exposes its “last-mile” transportation options to a wider audience.

Even as the various startups in the rapidly growing bike and e-scooter sector battle for market dominance, however, a separate report has questioned the economics of e-scooter rentals. Quartz reporter Ali Griswold published data last week on revenue per scooter using open data sets provided by the city of Louisville, Kentucky, and found that so far the economics don’t stack up.

Griswold found that the average scooter lived 28 days, with a median lifespan of 23 days, though the oldest vehicles lasted 32 and 28 days, respectively. Using the oldest vehicles for a baseline, she found that the median e-scooter took 70 trips over 85 miles during its lifespan for average revenue per e-scooter of $65 to $75.

Bird Rides Inc., the e-scooter startup the data was based on, is quoted as saying that each scooter costs it $551, though hopes to get that down to $360 per scooter. Even on a lower-cost scooter, Griswold noted, there would still be a loss of $285 to $295 per scooter in the Louisville area. Although the data is only for one company in one city, it’s not unfair to extrapolate the loss factor to other companies in other cities.

Not unlike ride-hailing companies such as Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. that both maintain large losses, scooter-sharing startups, earlier in their development cycle, are also playing a long-term game.

That game is to gain market dominance while also developing cheaper solutions. In the case of companies such as Lime and Bird, it may be cheaper, more reliable and longer-lasting e-scooters, whereas companies such as Uber are looking toward the introduction of self-driving cars to reduce costs.

Photo: Pexels

 


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