Lime bike

Neutron Holdings, Inc. ; Lime Bike
legal form	privat ; GmbH (German branch)
founding	June 2017
Seat	San Mateo (California) , United States
management	8 people
Branch	Bike rental
Website	www.limebike.de
	As of December 16, 2019

Lime E in Berlin-Lichtenberg

Lime Bike ( spelling LimeBike ) is an American bicycle and e-scooter rental company . The operating company, Neutron Holdings Inc., founded in 2017 by Toby Sun and Brad Bao, has specialized in the modern versions of city bikes and electric scooters with electric drive. Lime offers its services in 99 cities in the United States, and Lime has rental facilities in Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, Singapore and nine European countries. In Germany, the rental company has been represented in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Cologne, Bonn, Dresden, Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart since spring 2018, there should be more than 70 stores with around 35,000 vehicles (as of July 2019).

description

overview

Bicycles and pedelecs can be rented, as well as e-scooters since June . All vehicles are stationless ( dockless bike sharing ), but parked on public transport. They are available around the clock, but may only be used within the urban area (exception: in Berlin, the bikes can also be driven to Potsdam and parked there.)

The loan of all vehicles is limited to 24 hours. In the media appearance, LimeBike is the only rental company that has distributed e-bikes in Berlin in addition to normal bicycles, starting with 500 bicycles and 500 e-bikes in Berlin-Mitte and Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg .

All two-wheelers used are unlocked via a mobile app previously downloaded to the smartphone and a scan of the QR code , which is located both on the steering head and on the battery carrier above the rear wheel. The location of the next available free vehicles is also displayed via the app. For further and faster distribution, LimeBike has also developed a rental facility in Seattle without a smartphone app - the potential user can first obtain a cash card from a LimeBike office, which he can then top up with a desired amount.

The vehicles are painted in green and yellow, which corresponds to the name and the chosen company logo of a lime .

Since the Google holding company Alphabet Inc. and Google Ventures invested around 300 million US dollars in the company, Google Maps has shown scooters and bikes available in city maps in route planning. You can see what a trip with a scooter would cost, how far it is and how many there are nearby. Competing providers have not yet been supported in this way by Google Maps.

Cycles

The wheels are technically simple, the rims have solid rubber tires and they have no mechanical gear shift. A metal luggage basket for a maximum load of 6.8 kg is mounted on the front frame part. The batteries should be designed for a range of 100 km, they can also be charged via a solar panel while they are stationary or in use. Empty batteries are exchanged by employees of the company.

The Stiftung Warentest carried out a safety check on the Lime bike wheels in May 2019. Due to an inadequate braking effect and the lack of a prescribed securing mechanism for the electric motor of the pedelecs, Lime Bike received an overall rating of “poor”.

E-scooter / e-kick scooter

Electric scooter in Vienna

Lime also operates an e-scooter rental system . The first around 1,000 e-scooters (also known as e-scooters ) were brought to the streets of Berlin in June 2019: locations are at Alexanderplatz , at the Brandenburg Gate and at Checkpoint Charlie . The electric motor can accelerate up to 20 km / h, the range is specified, but also depends on the road conditions and inclines. Borrowing according to the procedure described costs 6 euros per half hour. The e-scooters are collected by so-called juicers from 9 p.m. , charged and distributed in the areas by around 7 a.m. the following day; the juicers are not employees of the company and are paid per charge. According to the ver.di union , Lime pays four euros per unit for charging, but the juicer has to bear all costs, especially for transport and charging power.

In the meantime (as of August 2020) the e-scooters can be rented in the following cities: Basel, Berlin, Bonn, Dortmund, Dresden, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt a. M., Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Linz, Lübeck, Mainz, Munich, Stuttgart, Vienna, Wiesbaden and Zurich. Use in Germany costs € 1.00 for unlocking and € 0.20 or € 0.25 per minute. In Switzerland, unlocking costs CHF 1 and the minute CHF 0.35.

At the beginning of 2020, Lime discontinued its offer in twelve cities: Linz, Atlanta, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Lima, Puerto Vallarta, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. This is accompanied by a reduction in the workforce by one seventh.

Incidents

In Switzerland, all e-mini scooters were withdrawn from circulation at the beginning of 2019; 500 scooters were previously in use in Basel and Zurich. The reason for the action: several serious accidents had occurred due to a blocking front brake as a result of a total software failure. Since September 2019, Lime has been back in Switzerland with new models that have passed an external safety test.

Web links

Commons : Lime Bike - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

LimeBike website
Johannes Studnik: Even more rental bikes - LimeBike is now rolling through Berlin , Berliner Zeitung , accessed on December 10, 2018.

Individual evidence

↑ About us / Our team
↑ New e-scooter rental: Lime starts in Nuremberg on nordbayern.de, July 31, 2020, accessed on August 4, 2020
↑ li.me: Locations
↑ ^a ^b Thomas Heuzeroth: Bicycle sharing: LimeBike rents out e-bikes in Berlin on welt.de, April 20, 2018; accessed on December 10, 2018.
↑ LimeBike website .
↑ One wheel, everywhere , test , issue 5/2019, page 66ff.
↑ Annika Leister: Fun without meaning . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 20, 2019, p. 9.
↑ Lime Bike-Juicer , accessed July 8, 2019.
↑ High Roller? The risky business with rental scooters. In: The Standard . April 27, 2019, accessed July 16, 2019 .
↑ ver.di: Something is still rolling. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
↑ ePowers: Costs and areas of LimeBike e-scooter sharing. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
^ ^A ^b André Müller: E-Scooter in Zurich: Lime returns . September 4, 2019, ISSN 0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed September 24, 2019]).
↑ https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Lime-gibt-in-12-Staedten-auf-reduziert-Belegschaft-4631606.html
^ After the series of accidents: Lime is pulling all e-scooters out of circulation in Switzerland. In: watson.ch . January 8, 2019, accessed January 9, 2019 .

[1] About us / Our team

[2] New e-scooter rental: Lime starts in Nuremberg on nordbayern.de, July 31, 2020, accessed on August 4, 2020

[3] .me: Locations

[Heuze-4] Thomas Heuzeroth: Bicycle sharing: LimeBike rents out e-bikes in Berlin on welt.de, April 20, 2018; accessed on December 10, 2018.

[5] LimeBike website .

[test-6] One wheel, everywhere , test , issue 5/2019, page 66ff.

[7] Annika Leister: Fun without meaning . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 20, 2019, p. 9.

[8] Lime Bike-Juicer , accessed July 8, 2019.

[9] High Roller? The risky business with rental scooters. In: The Standard . April 27, 2019, accessed July 16, 2019 .

[10] ver.di: Something is still rolling. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .

[11] Powers: Costs and areas of LimeBike e-scooter sharing. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .

[:0-12] A ^b André Müller: E-Scooter in Zurich: Lime returns . September 4, 2019, ISSN 0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed September 24, 2019]).

[13] ttps://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Lime-gibt-in-12-Staedten-auf-reduziert-Belegschaft-4631606.html

[14] After the series of accidents: Lime is pulling all e-scooters out of circulation in Switzerland. In: watson.ch . January 8, 2019, accessed January 9, 2019 .