Uber Reportedly Developing Electric Scooters to Enter the Bike Sharing Market

Back in April, Uber acquired Jump, a start-up which provides dockless bike sharing services for around $200 million, indicating that the company was willing to experiment with the idea of providing bike sharing services. Now, a new report from Bloomberg states that Uber is developing its own electric scooter technology to grab a pie of the rapidly growing bike-sharing market.

Uber’s electric scooter sharing project is still in the early stages of development and not much is known about the scale of operations Uber plans for the rollout of its scooter-sharing service.

Insider sources have revealed that Uber will deploy Jump-branded electric scooters bought from Chinese manufacturers, but will eventually phase them out and roll out its own electric scooters bearing the Uber logo. Bloomberg’s sources added that Jump makes better quality electric scooters than rivals, which would be the USP of Uber’s scooter sharing-service once it goes live in the United States.

“The way these scooters are failing is a predictable result of the design and engineering process”, said Nick Foley, head of Jump’s product division. However, Foley declined to reveal additional information about Uber’s endeavors in the domain. Uber has applied to roll out its scooter-sharing service in Santa Monica and San Francisco, and aims to make the electric two-wheelers available as a ride-hailing option on the official Uber app in the foreseeable future.

Uber had to face a minor setback in San Francisco a few days ago, when the city’s transportation authority denied municipal permits to a number of scooter-sharing services, including Jump. But the permit was later granted to Jump alongside Lyft, Lime and Bird, all three of which are the biggest names in the segment.

“There’s going to be a lot of innovation in terms of what types of light electric vehicles are out there”, Jump’s founder and CEO, Ryan Rzepecki said. It now remains to be seen when Uber rolls out its scooter-sharing service and becomes the go-to destination for all transportation needs of the masses.

Comments

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i Review: A Powerful Workhorse

It’s been quite some time since Intel announced its 11th-gen laptop processors, complete with the new logo design and Intel Iris Xe graphics. And yet, so far I’ve not gotten my hands on a laptop packing the new processor and iGPU. That all changed when Lenovo sent over the IdeaPad Slim 5i (Rs. 61,990) with […] The article Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i Review: A Powerful Workhorse was first published on Beebom

Twitter Wants to Build an ‘Open and Decentralized’ Social Media Platform

In an attempt to create a Facebook competitor, which everyone flocks to, Twitter became increasingly centralized over the years. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey believes that’s the case and has now tweeted a lengthy plan to fund research to build an open and decentralized standard for social media platforms. It will “ultimately become a standard” that Twitter’s client will be based upon. Dubbed Bluesky, this project will see a team of up to five researchers , which could include open-source architects, engineers, and designers, being on-boarded in the near future. Currently, Bluesky has no team members but Dorsey tweeted that Twitter’s CTO Parag Agrawal has been tasked with finding a lead. The folks over at Firefox have already extended a helping hand, saying how the non-profit has contributed to decentralization. Enough jibber-jabber, but what exactly is Bluesky? And what does it intend to achieve? Dorsey, in his tweetstorm , states that the challenges being faced by centralized social

Mysterious Drones Spotted in Colorado and Nebraska; Sources Unknown

A group of drones was reportedly been spotted in the sky at night last week in Colorado and Nebraska that made the residents anxious and worried. The police officials in charge have no idea regarding where these drones are from. “They’ve been doing a grid search, a grid pattern. They fly one square and then they fly another square,” Colorado’s Phillips County Sheriff Thomas Elliot told the Denver Post. The drones have an approximate six-foot wingspan and stay 200 to 300 feet away from buildings. At least 17 drones have been spotted till now. They appear at around 7 PM at night and disappear at around 10 PM . Until now, the drones have not been caught doing any illegal or unofficial activities. “They do not seem to be malicious. They don’t seem to be doing anything that would indicate criminal activity,” Sheriff Elliott added. The Federal Aviation Agency, the Air Force, Drug Enforcement Administration, and US Army Forces Command confirmed that the drones did not belong to them.

Techno Bhogi

Search This Blog