New York City is finally allowing shared e-scooters on its streets this spring. In March, the city is kicking off the two-year pilot program that Lime hopes to be a part of.
"We certainly hope to be selected by the city government and earn the responsibility of serving the city," Adam Kovacevich, head of North America and Asia Pacific government relations at Lime, told Cheddar. "One of the things we believe really strongly is that experience counts in this space."
Lime, the world's largest e-scooter rental company, is operational in some of the biggest cities in the world like Seoul, Paris, and Los Angeles.
"We're in all these huge markets, and it's given us the experience to learn how to serve cities well, how to manage things like parking," Kovacevich said. "Certainly we hope that that will make a difference when it comes to New York's selection."
The hold-up was due, in part, to safety concerns, as multiple U.S. cities have reported numerous injuries resulting from accidents involving the vehicles.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo previously vetoed a bill in 2019 that would have legalized e-scooters, arguing the legislation's verbiage didn't go far enough to protect riders.
Kovacevich said Lime's newest mode of micromobility, a fourth-generation scooter set to be rolled out later this year, has safety as its top priority.
"This will be the safest, most advanced scooter we've ever offered — that anyone has ever offered," Kovacevich said.
Despite an unpredictable 2020, Lime turned a quarterly profit for the first time in the startup's four-year history. In May, it also scored an investment from Uber as part of a $170 million funding round.
"COVID has actually forced a lot of people, a lot of cities, to rethink their transportation options," Kovacevich said. "We've seen people gravitate to scooters, in particular, as a socially-distant, open-air, safe form of transportation."
Beyond e-scooters and e-bikes, Lime is looking into other modes of transportation to suit every need a city-dweller could have.
"It's something we're exploring," Kovacevich said. "We see the future, and I think one of the things we've seen is cities during the pandemic have devoted more street space to 'slow streets' — to bikes — and that's the future."
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
