INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Uber and Lyft have officially put their respective names into the electric scooter competition
Uber and Lyft are among the 11 companies that applied to operate an electric scooter-sharing service within San Francisco city limits
The city, however, will only offer up to five companies permits to operate as part of a one-year test program.
Uber declined to comment, but
confirmed that it has applied for a permit via JUMP, the bike-share startup Uber acquired for about $200 million in April
Once Uber is cleared to operate electric scooters, the plan is to integrate them into the Uber app and continue fleshing out Uber CEO Dara
Khosrowshahi vision for a full-fledged multi-modal transportation platform.
Lyft also confirmed to TechCrunch that the company applied for a
permit, but declined to share any further details
Here the full list of companies that applied, via the SFMTA:
Bird
CycleHop
JUMP via Uber
Lime
Lyft
ofo
Razor (yes, *that*
Skip
Spin
USSCooter
San Francisco permit process came as a result of Bird, Lime and Spin deploying their electric scooters without
permission in the city in March
As part of a new city law, which went into effect June 4, scooter companies are not able to operate their services in San Francisco without
The SFMTA said it aiming to notify companies of their permit status by the end of June.
For more information about electric scooter
regulation in San Francisco, be sure to check out my previous coverage.
Here how SF wants to regulate electric scooters
The electric
scooter saga in San Francisco
