Everybody, even outside the world of bikesharing knows Lime (formerly Lime Bike). The company is one of the most developing in freefloating systems operation: they started with human-powered bicycles, then electric-assisted bicycles and electric scooters (their last important and strategic launch being in Paris on june 22nd).

Well here is the big news: Lime is willing to develop its offer, by including what they call internally an “electric transit pod” with a plan to launch in one or two cities in the fourth quarter of 2018. They are working on the project with a budget of $50M. Lime seems to have an accurate and deeply thought business plan, very different from the “throw as many bikes in the streets as you can” that is sometimes published in some media. The argumentation for the need of transit pods, according to Lime’s CEO Brad Bao,..

What we know about the vehicle are the following characteristics:

• top speed of 40mph / 50 km/h
• 3 or 4-wheeler
• driving in traffic

Concretely, it will certainly be a 1 or 2-persons car, such as a Renault Twizy or Toyota i-Road. It is not clear yet if they will try to develop ther own product or use one a existing motorist, but developing and industrializing such a product with such a planning make me vote for the second option.

Mobility mutation continues.