Check out Lime’s new seated electric scooter with shopping bag storage and ‘women appeal’
Lime has a new electric scooter dropping today and you’ll want to be seated for the announcement… and for the ride. The new scooter, creatively named the “Gen4 Seated”, adds a padded platform to the ride for a more comfortable and stable experience.
Today’s new scooter launch doesn’t just include the updated seat. That’s the main selling point, but underneath that seat you’ll find something perhaps even more crucial for those that want to use scooters for everyday vehicle replacements – a cargo storage compartment.
Hidden away under the seat platform is an open container that can hold shopping bags or loose cargo, meaning riders won’t have to dangerously dangle bags off of the handlebars.
Structurally, those are the main two additions to the scooter, which is largely built on top of the existing Lime Gen4 standing electric scooter platform. That means it uses the same motor, the same removable batteries and reaches the same 15 mph (25 km/h) top speed.
But the new seated design is said to appeal to a much wider audience. From a pilot study earlier this year, Lime shared that “results from the pilot found the vehicle appealed to older riders, women riders, and riders with limited mobility more than Lime’s traditional e-bike and e-scooter offerings. For example, the Gen4 Seated attracted 33% more first-time female riders than Lime’s Gen4 e-scooters.”
It’s true, why stand when you can sit? The seated design isn’t only more comfortable on longer rides, but it also makes the scooter feel more stable due to the lower center of gravity. For those that have years of bicycle experience, even if that experience was gained long ago, a seated electric scooter is easier to pick up more quickly. For many people that are new to scooters, it just feels more natural.
Now available in Chicago and Milwaukee, Lime plans to launch the Gen4 Seated scooter in a dozen more cities in the coming months. Australia and New Zealand launches are said to be slated for later next year.
As Lime’s President Joe Kraus explained:
“We’re excited to roll out the Gen4 Seated scooter globally to welcome more riders onto the Lime platform. The new design allows for added comfort and, when paired with our new storage compartment, will provide for more use cases, encouraging more people to consider Lime to fit their needs. The Gen4 Seated aims to empower our riders to navigate their day-to-day with ease, welcoming a wider audience to micromobility via a more approachable and comfortable ride.”
The Gen4 Seated scooters will be available to rent on the street just like Lime’s existing scooters, offering a more accessible option for daily commuters or occasional errand running.
This isn’t the first time Lime has explored seated scooter options. Just over a year ago Lime unveiled a dedicated seated electric scooter built on its own platform, which itself replaced a previous partnership with NIU seeing electric scooters and mopeds operating under the Lime umbrella.
Electrek’s Take
This is a risky move as a straight, white, able-bodied male brimming with privilege, but I’m going to go there. I can actually see this being quite attractive to female riders. The reason I say that is because I know that each time I say to my wife, “Do you want to go there on scooters?”, she just gives me that look.
She’s got nothing against micromobility. She loves her e-bike and she bikes to work almost every day. But there’s just something about standing scooters that don’t sit right with her. Maybe it’s the vulnerable feeling of standing, or the small wheels, or the fact that she can’t put both feet down for stability while moving slowly like she can on a bike. Whatever it is, when we’re out in the city and don’t have our bikes with us, I’ve never been able to convince her to just rent scooters for quick trips. But this… I can see her liking this. She’s loved riding other seated moped-style electric scooters in the past for this very reason – they feel more stable to her. And I’m guessing my wife isn’t unique in that sense.
Of course these won’t only appeal to women. I’d ride a Gen4 Seated Lime scooter too. But the biggest benefit, in my humble opinion, is for all those out there that have previously said, “Nah, a scooter isn’t for me.” Maybe now it is.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports10 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway