The funding has helped the agency launch its fourth-generation e-bike and increase its bodily footprint to incorporate the boroughs of Hackney and Hammersmith and Fulham. In keeping with Lime, use of its e-bikes grew 117% within the first six months of the 12 months.
Lime CEO Wayne Ting instructed the Commonplace: “As folks get out of the pandemic they’re searching for new methods to maneuver.
“London has been a pacesetter in considering by means of transformative transportation coverage — I don’t know of one other main metropolis that’s implementing one thing of that scale.
“This 12 months is shaping as much as be the very best 12 months ever. We’ve now bought the largest warehouse of any micro mobility agency in London and we’re on a path attending to long-term profitability.”
E-bike firms equivalent to Lime have come beneath hearth in current months amid accusations its rent cycles have been creating an “impediment course” for residents, as they don’t require the person to return the cycle to a dock on the finish of the rental, that means they’re left wherever the person ends their journey.
In August, Westminster Council started seizing dockless rent bikes that are left blocking pavements and roads, with one Westminster councillor describing the issue of discarded bikes as “doubtlessly harmful, particularly for these with disabilities”.
Nonetheless, Ting mentioned the difficulty of pavements being crowded with bikes was right down to an absence of cycle infrastructure provision within the capital.
“We will all the time do a greater job to make sure our bikes don’t block the streets – however we don’t have sufficient areas within the metropolis to park our bikes on the road,” he mentioned.
“Folks complain to me on social media that an e-bike is obstructing their road, however proper behind that bike is tons of of automobiles taking over much more area.
“Why don’t we take a tenth of the 6.8 million automobile parking spots and provides them over to bike parking as a substitute.”