The Race to Capture Micro-Mobility: ‘I Don’t Think Any of Us Expected Scooters to Be the Thing’

This week on The Interchange podcast: Where did all those electric scooters come from?

Who would have thought that electric scooters would spark the next transportation race?

This spring, electric bikes and electric scooters started showing up on the streets of a handful of major U.S. cities in droves. They were put there by a new breed of Silicon Valley tech companies focused on creating a new "micro-mobility" service. (The term is still up for debate.)

A series of factors — the wild success of app-based ride-sharing and bike-sharing, the falling cost of batteries, and the growing popularity of electrified personal transport — made electric scooters a perfect choice. These mobility startups have spread so quickly that even Uber and Lyft are getting in on the action.

This week on The Interchange podcast, we talk with Emily Warren, the senior director of public policy at Lime. Lime is one of the leading micro-mobility companies hitting the streets. We'll speak with Emily about what this new form of mobility borrows (and hopes to avoid) from the last six years of ride-sharing.

"That first wave of on-demand transportation has now prepared the public and the market to accept a much broader variety of transportation modes. They've now opened the door for a whole bunch of additional kinds of options that are coming on the scene. Frankly, I don't think any of us expected that scooters were going to be the thing," explained Warren.

Support for The Interchange comes from Wunder Capital. According to ​GTM Research​, Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Click here to find out how Wunder Capital can help you finance your next commercial solar project.

The Interchange is also brought to you by Shoals Technologies Group, the gold standard for solar and storage balance-of-systems solutions. Learn more about how Shoals can make your project operate at the highest level.

Recommended reading/listening: 

Subscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsStitcherSpotify or wherever you find your audio content. Or integrate our RSS feed into the app of your choice.