RIDEGURU
Who knew? This really a thing now. The $250 million acquisition comes moments after Uber bought their own bike-hare for $200 million.
I never saw the need for this to be run at a national scale to be honest. Every major city already has a functioning shared-bike deployments already, right?
I didn't even know there were so many. See this excerpt from Wired:
"Yes, the race to control every part of the urban transportation system is on. And thanks to the rising popularity of bike- and scooter-shares, the game ain’t just about cars anymore. That makes Motivate an important player. The company’s eight bike-share programs—including the country’s largest, New York’s CitiBike, its oldest, DC’s Capital Bikeshare, plus Chicago’s Divvy, San Francisco’s FordGoBike, and Boston’s Hubway—account for at least three-quarters of last year’s 35 million bike-share trips." https://www.wired.com/story/lyft-bike-share-motivate-acquisition/
Comments
There are 3 things you can count on in this world. Death, Taxes, and Lyft copying Uber.
There is a benefit to having this be run by a national company. Only one app. You can go from a city to city and you'd only have to use one account, one app, and one payment system. The user adoption is key.
and there are lots of Technology and R&D built into these bikes. Dock-less, GPS, and now self-powered. yep, motorized. They are more like unregulated cars these days.
and guess what. Uber plays best in unregulated markets.
You mean they love to disrupt already regulated markets.
Am I the only one that doesn't get Bike sharing? Bikes are fairly inexpensive, why spending money renting one consistently?
I've never taken one, but I'd like to think these things are super cheap? Plus, it's not necessarily from your house to places, right? It could just be to get around from where you already are.