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Ebike and escooter rideshare company Lime had a record year in 2023, with about five trips booked every second, totaling around 156 million trips globally. Now, it's trying to boost those numbers by expanding the accessibility of its vehicles. Two new ebikes are entering a pilot program and may be added to Lime's fleet by early 2025: the LimeBike and the LimeGlider.
Both are designed to be more inclusive to attract women and older riders. Compared to Lime's 2022 Gen4 ebike, the new models are smaller, with 20-inch wheels instead of the standard 26-inch size. The tires are wider too, offering a more comfortable ride. The step-through frame is much lower to the ground, making it easier to hop on the bike. Lime says its current ridership is predominantly men (roughly a 70 to 30 percent split between men and women), and the average rider's age is 33. It's hoping these new models can chip away at those sizable disparities.
Whereas the new LimeBike is a traditional ebike with pedal assistance, the LimeGlider doesn't have pedals and is more like a sit-down scooter with a throttle. But the new Lime models both have throttles, and this is the first time you'll find a throttle on a Lime ebike. So if you get tired of pedaling the class two LimeBike, you can just mash the throttle and be on your way. Neither of these new models will replace the existing ebikes in Lime's fleet. However, now when the company's older ebikes reach the ends of their lives, Lime will replace them with a new model like the Gen4, LimeBike, or LimeGlider. (Lime estimates its current models have a lifespan of five years.)
The addition of throttles might raise some eyebrows, since the thumb-activated accelerator allow riders to blast around town without turning the pedals. And even though many privately owned ebikes come with throttles, the LimeGlider's pedal-free design blurs the line between what's a bicycle and what isn't.
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“It's not a moped,” Jason Parrish, Lime's senior product director for hardware, assures me. “It's slower, it's lighter, it's designed to ride in bike lanes. We're not trying to introduce a 40-mph ebike here; we're talking about a bike-lane compatible vehicle.”
Speeds typically top out around 15 or 17 mph, but specific limits are set based on each city's laws.
The seat height, height of the pedals, and distance to the handlebars are still the same as the Gen4 Lime models currently in service, meaning these new models aren't restricted to a specific group of riders. I got a chance to test ride the LimeBike and LimeGlider and didn't find them too short for my 6'4" frame. In fact, I preferred them—they felt nimbler and easier to maneuver. The LimeGlider has a longer seat, so taller folks only have to sit further back to have their feet comfortably on the footrests. My ride was short.
There are some small upgrades from the Gen4 ebike. There's a much nicer smartphone clamp that can fit even the largest iPhone. (It fits my folded Galaxy Z Fold6 just fine.) Lime also claims the front basket is the largest in the rideshare segment. It's wider and can fit small to medium backpacks, with wider holes on the base to let rainwater through. And the seat height adjustment is eerily similar to the one on Lyft's rideshare ebike, which is to say it's easy to tweak. Lime says it's also exploring rear storage options.
At the bottom of the phone clamp is a tiny display where you can see your speed mode; this is where Lime will indicate geo-restrictions, or whether or not you're allowed to park your ebike in the area you're in. Lime uses built-in GPS on its fleet to track the bikes and enforce these restrictions.
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Lime's fleets are largely free-floating, which has attracted ire. Undocked rideshare ebikes and escooters have long been scrutinized as they've inevitably crowded sidewalks and even ended up in rivers. Lime says it's “agnostic” to free-floating and parking areas and does both based on what cities require. Some markets have “corrals” where riders park their scooters and bikes, and there are penalties if riders do not park in these areas. Critics say the fines for bad behavior aren't harsh enough.
Many of the components in the new models are shared across Lime's other products. For example, the brake levers are the same as the ones on Lime's scooters, as the company found them to perform well. The batteries are the same as the Gen4 ebike, making swaps faster and cheaper. Lime also says all the screw heads on the bike are the same size, so operators do not need to switch drill bits when making repairs. Parrish says these changes increase the availability of these vehicles and lower Lime's operating costs.
That's important, as many other micro-mobility rideshare companies are faltering. Bird filed for bankruptcy last year, and Lyft is exploring a sale of Citi Bike in New York City (the city's comptroller found decreasing service reliability under Lyft's tenure, especially in low-income neighborhoods). And in a blow to Lime and its peers in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympics, Paris banned shared scooters last year after a spate of injuries and deaths. The company says no other city has taken a similar step as Paris, which according to Lime's global communications director, Russell Murphy, “further underscores how the referendum was a blip in the rearview."
“Lime currently has 15,000 ebikes available in Paris and the surrounding suburbs to help conveniently and sustainably shepherd visitors to venues,” Murphy says. "We're proud of the support we've received from the city to make this possible.”
The LimeGlider and LimeBike aren't going to change any of these issues. They'll still be free-floating and dockless, or corralled in markets that require it. Also, I can't imagine throttle-powered ebikes being safer than nonthrottle ebikes, especially since you do not need to kick off for the throttle to work like you do on kick escooters. (Lime says the new models' kickstands disable the throttle when deployed.) But at the very least, a wider range of people may feel more comfortable using these shared ebikes.
The pilot program has already started in Atlanta and Zurich, where riders will see the option to book the LimeBike. The LimeGlider will fully launch in Seattle in mid-August and then in Zurich later in the summer. If reception is positive after two to three months, they will likely enter production and join Lime's global fleets in 2025.
