Ride-hailing companies Lyft, Taxify launch e-scooter rental

Two of the world's largest on-demand transportation companies are getting into the e-scooter business.

Lyft Scooters is launching in Denver, with plans to expand to at least 10 additional cities by the end of the year and to continue growth into 2019.

The map in the Lyft app shows the location and availability of the scooters, which cost $1 to unlock and 15 cents for each minute they are reserved or ridden. The scooters are available from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.

In a blog post in July, Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green explained the company’s strategy for bikes and scooters as part of its goal to “bridge the first- and last-mile gap” and to “maximize a reduction in vehicle miles traveled.”

And because of their affordability, Lyft says its bikes and scooters will “extend mobility to communities that have historically been underserved.”

The company says 250,000 Lyft community members gave up their personal cars in 2017, and they intend to take one million cars off the road by the end of 2019.

Taxify's plans 

European transportation platform Taxify is also now offering e-scooters.

The company, which says it has 15 million customers in 25 countries around the world - primarily in Europe and Africa - is launching the service in Paris with plans to expand in Europe and Australia.

The new brand of e-scooter, called Bolt, is available in the Taxify app and rents for 15 cents a minute with a minimum fare of one euro. Taxify will collect the scooters every evening for recharging and maintenance.

“To solve people’s problems effectively, you need to go down to the city, sometimes even neighborhood level. When you do that, you really learn a lot about how people move around, so you can figure out ways to make it even easier and faster,” says Markus Villig, CEO and co-founder of Taxify.

“One in five Taxify rides is less than three kilometers, which is the perfect distance to cover with an electric scooter. We already serve millions of customers on our ride-hailing platform. In the future, we expect some of them to opt for scooters for shorter distances, but we’re also pretty excited to be attracting a whole new group of customers with different needs. This means we’ll be able to help more people with their daily transportation problems.”

Taxify launched in 2013 in Estonia and has investors including Daimler, Didi Chuxing, Korelya Capital and TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus.