Uber offloads JUMP Bikes and E-Scooters to Lime

Uber had their quarterly earnings call yesterday and some interesting news was announced. Uber has offloaded their JUMP bicycles and e-scooters business to competitor Lime. They have also made a $85 million investment into Lime. Lime raised, in total, $170 million from Uber, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and others. JUMP bikes and e-scooters will still be available from within the Uber app, however all operations will now be handled by Lime.

Uber has also announced the roll out of their 5th generation JUMP vehicles. This generation of vehicles now have some battery design upgrades. “Shared swappable batteries between bikes and scooters, is being tested in an effort to increase durability and reduce operational costs.”

Some JUMP users are reporting that bikes and scooters are no longer available in the app. This could be part of the transition to Lime’s operational control, but Lime has also halted some operations due to COVID-19. These newly acquired JUMP vehicles to their fleet could have just be taken out of service due like other vehicles in Lime’s fleet.