Uber to redirect focus to bikes and electric scooters

Uber intends to focus more on its electric scooter and bike business as it says individual modes of transport are better-suited to inner city travel. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, believes users will make more frequent, shorter journeys in the future, the Financial Times reports. "During rush hour, it is very inefficient for a one-tonne hulk of metal to take one person ten blocks,” he says. Uber’s Jump electric bikes are now available in eight US cities such as San Francisco and Washington DC, and are
August 28, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

8336 Uber intends to focus more on its electric scooter and bike business as it says individual modes of transport are better-suited to inner city travel.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, believes users will make more frequent, shorter journeys in the future, the %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external Financial Times Financial Times website link false https://www.ft.com/content/986d878a-a7c4-11e8-8ecf-a7ae1beff35b false false%> reports.

"During rush hour, it is very inefficient for a one-tonne hulk of metal to take one person ten blocks,” he says.

Uber’s Jump electric bikes are now available in eight US cities such as San Francisco and Washington DC, and are set to launch in Berlin.

The ride-sharing company has also joined forces with electric scooter company Lime.

Khosrowshahi recognises that Uber makes more money from a car journey than a bike trip - but says this would be offset as users engage with the app more regularly for shorter journeys.
"We are willing to trade off short-term per-unit economics for long-term higher engagement."

The move comes as Uber announced it was to supply its proprietary self-driving system to %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external Toyota Sienna Minivans Uber website link false https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-toyota-team-self-driving-cars/ false false%>. “Rather than owning and operating the fleet of self-driving vehicles, these minivans will be owned and operated by an agreed upon third party, a new business model for Uber,” the company said in a statement.

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Los Angeles launches own ‘Green New Deal’
    May 2, 2019
    The city of Los Angeles has released what it calls ‘LA’s Green New Deal’, pledging $860 million per year “to expand the transportation system”. Electric vehicles are at the fore: it pledges an $8 billion upgrade to the city’s electricity grid by 2022, to help build the US’s “largest, cleanest and most reliable urban electrical grid to power the next generation of green transportation”. The city authorities will “expand electric car sharing options” and support implementation of Metro’s first/last mile pl
    Read More
  • Frogparking displays GPS-enabled electronic permit
    March 25, 2014
    New Zealand-based Frogparking is showing a new, GPS-enabled electronic parking permit that gives parking companies more visibility of their customers’ movements. The permit can be scanned by parking wardens to check its validity, while a built-in accelerometer allows the parking company to know exactly when a driver has parked or moved off, enabling precise billing of the time used.
    Read More
  • Eco-AT: Release 1 of C-ITS system specifications
    December 17, 2014
    The ECo-AT (European Corridor – Austrian Testbed for Cooperative Systems) is the Austrian part of the Cooperative ITS corridor crossing Germany, Netherlands and Austria. It aims to specify and implement harmonised and standardised cooperative ITS applications. The related system specifications documents will be developed in four releases and the first release is available now. It comprises: Explanatory note to Release 1 documents Use case Overview Document Use case Road Works Warning (RWW) Document
    Read More
  • Entries open for ITS America’s 10th student essay competition
    January 18, 2019
    US college and university students are being invited to submit their thoughts on the future of mobility in an ITS America scheme which offers a $1,000 prize. Submissions will be accepted until 14 April for the competition, which is sponsored by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). As well as the cash, the winner will get a paid trip to Washington, DC for the ITS America 2019 annual meeting on 4-7 June. They will need to write something on the topic: “How do you envision disruptive technologies impact
    Read More

Highlighted Content