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There is a new front in the scooter war without anchorage.
The European taxi company Taxify will launch electric scooters for rent in Paris this week, going beyond private taxis for the first time and jumping on a major project in Silicon Valley.
The company will deploy this week a fleet of scooters without anchorage in the French capital under the new brand Bolt. Passengers can rent Bolt scooters throughout the city through the main application of Taxify and rent them for € 0.15 per minute, with a minimum fare of € 1.
Scooters will come with built-in GPS and passengers can "unlock" them by scanning a QR code on vehicles. Taxify said it would collect scooters every night to recharge and maintain them.
Paris has become the main point of departure for scooter start-ups launched in Europe, as electric scooters are currently illegal in the United Kingdom through the Highway Act 1835.
Well-established American start-ups, Bird and Lime, have raised huge sums through venture capital and flooded US scooter cities before launching into Europe in recent months, starting with Paris.
Taxify CEO Markus Villig said his company already has 500,000 users in Paris. He also said the regulation was not a big challenge for the launch.
"You have to have good relations with a city to deploy hundreds or thousands of scooters," he told Business Insider. "We have been negotiating with the local mayor for months and they basically welcome scooters."
Bird was launched in Paris in early August with a similar offer to Taxify, while Lime was launched in the French capital at the end of June.
Asked about the competition, Villig said the goal was to convince his competitors of the Taxify app.
"Currently we own all our scooters, but we have an ecosystem where we can connect with other suppliers," Villig said. "At the end of the day, our goal is to be a transportation provider … giving passengers as many options as possible.
"The trip should start with" Where do you want to go? "and we then offer them a range of options, but we do not have to do everything ourselves."
Uber, who also moves from racing bicycles to electric motorcycles and scooters, has already signed a similar partnership with Lime.
Taxify said it was planning to launch scooters in other European cities, and Mr Villig told Business Insider that the company was in talks with the London transport regulator about a problem. British launch. The company is already banned from operating its freight service in London, due to licensing issues, and is currently fighting to revive its activity in the capital.
Mr Villig said: "We are in talks with the city both on the frontline and on the launch of scooters.It is obvious that in the long run, small vehicles are much more efficient from the point of view of the traffic, [and] environmental impact, [and] ease of use … It's about knowing how fast cities will achieve that and regulate. "
Bird and Lime are currently pushing for an amendment to the law authorizing scooters in the UK.
Taxify eyes IPO
Taxify raised $ 153 million from the Daimler auto company in May to fund its expansion. Asked if the company planned to follow Uber and Lyft on the IPO route, Villig said a float was likely to occur but the company was still in the construction phase.
"Certainly, as we need additional funds, an IPO is one of the options for us," he said. "We are still in the development phase [and that is] a little longer on the line. "
He also said that a long-term partnership with Daimler could involve the exploration of autonomous vehicles.
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