A massive expansion has taken place in the electric bike and scooter rental industry in the last two years. Not only is there more bike and scooter stations placed on street corners throughout various cities around the world recently, but companies have also been trying to invest in the industry to garner a profit.
Uber (NYSE: UBER), one of the top ride-sharing companies, has announced its plan to double its investment in electric bikes and scooters in 2020. The company intends to expand this investment in Europe as well. This decision took place after Uber purchased Jump, a bike-sharing company that recently expanded to major European cities.
"We want to double down on micro-mobility," Christian Freese, Jump's head of EMEA, said in an interview with CNBC. "We have seen how beautifully it works with our core business and ride-sharing, and want to invest more and deeper, especially in Europe."
Other companies are also taking advantage of the electric bike and scooter industry, seeing that it has the potential of being profitable. After a surplus of scooters was placed on street corners in San Francisco, they vanished just as quickly as they came due to public panic that they weren't safe to have on the sidewalks along with sidewalk users.
Several cities across the U.S. are looking to find a better way to incorporate the inexpensive method of public transportation because electric scooter and bike users have been found to weave through crowds of people and disregarding traffic which has lead to many injuries.
Citi Bike has offered a way to fight this problem in New York City by offering online resources of users to teach them how to ride responsibly and how using the bikes can benefit both tourists and locals. Other companies that are in the market include Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT), Ford (NYSE: F), General Motors (NYSE: GM),Lime (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), and Bird.