Lime hopes to put the squeeze on rideshares
Company behind e-scooters starts talks with council on a hire-by-minute car service in Auckland
A new rideshare craze could soon hit the streets in the form of two-seater cars you locate on a cellphone app, hire by the minute, then leave at the nearest carpark once you are done.
LimePods are the latest venture from Lime, the company behind the hugely popular e-scooters which have appeared throughout Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
The company plans to seek a licence from the Auckland Council to park the pods in council-controlled spaces, sparking fears parking spots in the congested city might be even more difficult to find.
In an exclusive interview with the Weekend Herald, Lime founder Toby Sun unveiled his hopes to extend the company’s new service to cars.
Pods — which were launched in Seattle late last year — would come to Auckland first before the company looked at introducing them to regional towns.
The compact vehicle, by Italian carmaker Fiat, can be unlocked using a smartphone app and QR-Code; the same way its scooters are unlocked.
The first time you use a LimePod, you have to supply your driver’s licence details and pay a fee, which is US$15 ($21.15) in the US. Once applications are completed online, users receive credit to their Lime Wallet. Unlocking the vehicle costs US$1 ($1.44) and the per minute price is up to US40c (60c).
A non-removable key is in the ignition. Once you finish your trip, the vehicle auto-locks itself.
Rides can also be paused, so you won’t lose your Pod if you nip into the dairy for some milk.
Drivers must stay within the city limits or incur a fine.
Lime covers all insurance and fuel costs.
Drivers have to have held a full licence for at least a year and a clean driving record — which Lime defines as “at minimum, no alcohol or drug-related incidents in the past seven years, no more than two minor violations in the past three years; and no more than one accident in the past three years”.
“We take a user-centric approach and a lot of people want to take longer trips that might not be a good fit for a scooter. So we’re piloting the LimePod programme,” Sun said.
“We want people to use micromobility [scooters and bikes] in highdensity areas maybe and car-share or pod-share for suburban areas.” Negotiations for the LimePods are expected to begin with the council should the company gain a permanent licence for its scooters, after their trial period ends on March 31.
There are a number of carsharing companies popping up around the country. Electric car company Yoogo, which launched in Christchurch last year, has now come to Auckland but has just two cars in the city and must be picked up and dropped off at the ANZ Centre car park on Albert St.
They can be booked by the minute and unlocked via an app and picked up. Cityhop has a fleet of more than 80 vehicles in Auckland and Wellington. But they charge by the hour rather than by the minute and have fewer, designated parking areas than what Lime wants. Other companies, Roam, Yourdrive and Mevo allow private car owners to rent their vehicles to members of the public. The NZ Automobile Association has welcomed Lime’s idea, saying it would offer people more options.
AA principal adviser for infrastructure, Barney Irvine, said typically, these kinds of schemes worked best in cities with much higher population density to that in Auckland.
“It would be really interesting to see how much demand there is out there,” he said. “If they can make it work, it’s only good news for the transport business.” Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of the car review website dogandlemon.com is skeptical.
“Adding cars to a gridlocked city isn't going to help with congestion and isn't going to be a very quick way of getting around, unless you're travelling after hours. The problem is, most people want to travel at the same time, which is how rush hours are created.”
In Seattle, Lime is using the Fiat 500, a petrol-powered car, and Lime staff run around town to refuel the cars.
Sun says the ultimate aim is to convert Pod to an electric vehicle fleet.
“We want to make it very affordable,” Sun said.
“It’s . . . cheaper than a taxi or an Uber, and it’s cheaper than taking your own car because you don’t have to pay for the parking.”
If Lime launches in Auckland with petrol-powered Pods, it will buy carbon credits to offset emissions, Sun said.
It was not yet known how many pods would be involved in an initial rollout.
Lime Asia-Pacific manager Mitchell Price said the company was in talks with Auckland Council about making public carparks in some areas of the city mixed-use, so they could be used for one Pod or five Lime scooters. An Auckland Council spokeswoman told the Weekend Herald it was yet to be formally approached about the idea, but is open to meeting with the company to discuss the venture.
Chris Keall
The shape of a possible deal between Lime and Auckland Council is starting to emerge — one that could set a template for the e-scooter company’s negotiations with other local bodies.
Councillor Chris Darby — who chairs the planning committee that will be instrumental in deciding Lime’s fate after its trial mobiletrading licence expires at the end of March — has proposed the idea of a “Lime levy”.
Darby has not put a figure on the mooted e-scooter tax, but the Herald understands that a 5c levy has been discussed between Lime and the council, which could come on top of the 60c per minute charged by Lime. It’s not yet clear whether that would be 5c a minute, per ride, or charged on some other basis.
Lime co-founder and chief executive Toby Sun says he’s “very open to the idea”. It is yet to be decided if Lime would absorb the fee, or pass it on.
So far, only a token amount of money has exchanged hands. Lime paid the council $3326 for its initial trial licence to January 14 and $2644 to extend it until March 31. The council does not receive any share of the company’s income or profits.
Both Darby and Lime want to see any Lime levy money earmarked for improving cycleways — the better to get e-scooters off footpaths where they have caused so much near-miss mayhem.
“We need to get Limes off the pavement,” Sun said.
The trouble is, as the law stands, it’s illegal to ride a Lime in a cycleway. But there is a widespread consensus that it would be sensible to allow e-scooters to share space with cyclists, and Transport Minister Phil Twyford is open to a law change.
But the lack of cycleways is a bigger sticking point.
“We encourage people to ride off the footpaths, but we also realise some people ride on the footpaths because there is not enough infrastructure to ride on the road,” said Sun. “We’re actively working with the city to see how we can adjust this from an education perspective and an infrastructure perspective to build more bike lanes.”
Sun was in town on Thursday to celebrate his company’s millionth ride in New Zealand. In fact, since it launched in Auckland and Christchurch in October, and expanded into Upper and Lower Hutt and Dunedin in the New Year, it has now clocked up 1.2 million rides.
In Lime’s world, Auckland is a star. The ride-sharing company is now in more than 100 cities. Auckland is its third biggest market, with the 1000 or so scooters on its trial licence now racking up 7500 rides per day.
Throughout New Zealand, more than 250,000 people have registered for a Lime account, Sun says, 150,000 of them in Auckland.
Sun also met with Auckland mayor Phil Goff.
Goff told the Herald shortly after the meeting, “I welcome Lime’s investment in Auckland, commitment to ongoing safety campaigns and innovation to increase safety features
We encourage people to ride off the footpaths, but we also realise some people ride on the footpaths because there is not enough infrastructure to ride on the road. Lime co-founder Toby Sun
on the scooters.”
Councillor Darby — a keen Lime user — is boy-ish in his enthusiasm for e-scooters, but says his committee must also balance safety concerns and that he’ll wait for reports from AT and the council’s licensing division before making a decision on Lime’s bid for a permanent licence.
The cost of Lime injuries has been a key focus for critics. There have been 655 e-scooter ACC injury claims since they launched in Auckland in October last year and later elsewhere. The cost of injuries to date is $228,364.
Lime’s government relations manager Mitchell Price says his company could potentially come to the party on ACC costs. If a per-ride Lime levy was introduced, some of it could be potentially carved off to the state insurer, he says. But there’s a catch. Lime would need certainty about its long-term trading licence before it committed to any such deal.
In interviews early in the two-yearold Lime’s life, Sun talked about an ideal ratio of 100 citizens to each scooter, implying 15,000 Limes on the streets of Auckland.
But this week he said he now favoured “a more measured approach. If we see enough support to go over 10,000, we may go there. But if we see enough utilisation at 5000 or 3000, we could also stop there.” (The Herald understands 20,000 Limes is the figure that has been discussed with the council for a permanent licence, to give the company flexibility.)
Short term, Lime is keen to double the number of e-scooters on its trial from 1000 to 2000 as soon as possible, so it can put 1000 into outer suburbs for the remaining weeks of its trial period. Sun says 1000 e-scooters leaves central Auckland “undersupplied” as it is.
It’s a sign of Lime’s financial muscle that it has 1000 Limes in a Kingsland warehouse, ready to go, just in case the council says yes.
Potential e-scooter rivals Onzo (which is homegrown and best known for its e-bikes) and the Australianbased Wave could have both launched trials in November, but chose to wait to see how Lime fares.
Goff has floated the idea of a 10km/ h Lime speed limit (the e-scooters can hit 27km/h on the flat, or more downhill).
Sun says he opposes a blanket speed limit. “We think a speed limitation is important in some areas with a very, very high density, but also we think having enough speed for people to get from A to B fast is also important,” he said.
But again, compromise seems in reach.
“We’re working on the solutions. In some of the markets where we operate in the US, we do have an area where we limit the speed as per the request of the city — and we can explore that option for Auckland potentially for selected areas.”
It could be that Lime’s technology enforces a 10km/h speed limit in shared spaces such as the Britomart precinct, for example.
“We’re keen to work with the city to find out those area were we could potentially limit the speed,” Sun said.
One Lime manager told the Herald there needed to be some onus on the user, noting that Toyota doesn’t get blamed if a Corolla’s driver gets a speeding ticket.
Sun, however, was more diplomatic, saying the solution lay partly with Lime’s technology, partly through Lime and the council cooperating on better infrastructure such as more cycleways and partly with the rider — encouraged by education events such as the one Lime recently held at Eden Park.
Goff has suggested a second legal tweak: mandatory helmets.
Lime says it’s up to local lawmakers to set the rules. It will follow them. Currently, Lime encourages users to wear helmets, but there is no legal requirement and it’s rare to see one outside the company’s promotional material.
Sun says his company will ramp up its safety efforts regardless of whether there is any law change. He said Lime had given away tens of thousands of helmets in the US. It could do the same here, or import a concept from an e-bike programme in Melbourne that has seen helmets distributed for a token A$5.
Once scooter issues are sorted, Lime is keen on taking the next step in mobility for hire: bringing its “Pods” — otherwise known as cars — to Auckland’s streets.