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After the approval of the city of Santa Monica, Uber deploys bikes and its first scooter game via JUMP, the bikeshare boot acquired earlier this year. Although these are Xiaomi Ninebot scooters, Uber said that it marks them with JUMP for the sake of coherence with regard to its personal electric vehicle services.
"JUMP is a leader in this field. People have come to know, love and appreciate the quality of JUMP's product and we rely on that brand value to invest more. That's one of the biggest drivers, "said Rhea Dookeran, product manager for Uber Scooter, at TechCrunch.
As part of the pilot program, Uber can have up to 500 bikes and 250 scooters on the streets at a time. Riders must also be sure to stay in the Santa Monica service area and not venture into the wider Los Angeles area. Otherwise, they will be fined.
But Uber does not operate the only electric scooter service in Santa Monica. In mid-September, Lyft launched electric scooters in Santa Monica just weeks after they moved to Denver, Colorado. In addition to Uber / JUMP and Lyft, Bird and Lime use electric scooters in Santa Monica.
Until October 7, JUMP scooters from Uber will be free. After that, scooters cost $ 1 to unlock, then 15 cents a minute after the first five minutes. Before your first outing, you must upload a photo of your driver's license. At the end of each trip, you will need to take a picture of where you parked the scooter. Unlike other scooter startups, Uber will rely on its own employees to pick up the scooters at night, charge them overnight, and then redeploy them in the morning.
"The reliability and quality of your service is the key to differentiation and the users you choose in this type of market," said Dookeran. "This translates into the fact that we want to touch every part of this process and make sure our standards and service are up to par."
Last month, Uber facilitated the switchover between traditional rides, scooters and bikes – a feature that allows Uber to deploy electric scooters today. This decision comes after Uber, in July, invested money in his ambitions to get into scooters when he participated in a $ 335 million round of financing for Lime.
In the future, Uber plans to launch electric scooters in other cities in the United States this year. Uber also plans to fully integrate Lime's electric scooters into its offer by the end of the year.
"We will of course need to post their inventory in our app as soon as we are ready to roll," said Dookeran. "The complete transaction will be possible via the Uber application."
In San Francisco, electric scooters are expected to return to the streets in two weeks. Uber / JUMP, however, will not be part of it.
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