Lime is rolling out a new type of electric scooter better equipped to take on the bumps and bounces of Brussels’ cobblestone streets.
“These scooters are more robust,” Chama Moumil, Lime’s Regional Communications Manager for France, Benelux & Southern Europe, told The Brussels Times. “They have a softer and more sustainable ride.”
The newer Gen 3 scooter has two-sided suspension, bigger wheels, and an aluminium frame that should make driving smoother on the sometimes unpredictable terrain of the Belgian capital.
“We continue to push the boundaries of innovation and improve the functionality of our vehicles, taking into account the needs of local users to provide the most comfortable, sustainable and safe driving experience on the market,” said Romain Dekeyser, Head of Operations at Lime in Belgium.
The scooter company is also changing its prices (scooter rentals will be €1 to unlock and then 17 cents per minute, which is the same for bikes), saying that the lowered rental costs make it “the cheapest micro-mobility service on the market.”
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“With this new price, we want to offer all Brussels residents the opportunity to commute to work, do their shopping, or move around the city using soft mobility, at low cost and without constraints,” said Benjamin Barnathan, General Manager of Lime in Belgium.
Lime removed many of its electric scooters for several weeks around this time last year to help reduce the spread of the coronavirus. The company explained that it had suspended operations as a precautionary measure and to comply with government directives, and later began reintroducing the scooters when infection rates went down.
The global shared e-scooter market is expected to boom over the next four years, with the number of shared scooters in use expected to quadruple, from about 774,000 in 2019 to more than 4 million by 2024.
Even before the health crisis, e-scooters were gaining in popularity, with their sales being on the rise since August 2019, and they should overtake those of electric bicycles this year, according to experts.
Lime first came to Belgium in 2018.
Helen Lyons
The Brussels Times
