Welcome back to closing bell on Shadow News. Everyone
americans now have even more opportunities to scoot their hearts
out as electric scooter companies spin teams up with lift
, allowing riders in major cities across the US to
rent spin scooters directly through the lift app. We're
joining me now after more is spin Ceo Ben Bear
a bet. It's good to see you talk to
me more about this partnership with Lyft and where Exactly
it's rolling out. Yeah. Thanks Kristen it's been
a long time in the making um and we're really
excited to roll out exclusively with lift in more than
60 markets across the country this year. The first
market, it's currently live in testing in Nashville,
there's going to be about 13 more markets behind that
in Phase two and we're just super, excited lift
has tens of millions of monthly active users and we're
completely aligned in terms of what we're focused, on
which is providing more options to get people out of
personal cars and to get around cities in a sustainable
, in an equitable way. Okay, so for
anyone then opening the lift app, is it intuitive
, how do they find the option to rent one
of your scooters? Yeah, so by trips left
is probably the number one micromobility provider in the country
and since they're in new york with Citi bike and
D. C. In san Francisco. And so
they've built a really great flow into their app and
from a user perspective it's really no different than if
you were renting a city like you open the app
, you see the scooters on the map, you
open the QR code scanner. Um and then,
you know, basically from there, the trip starts
, you never have to leave the lift app.
It's a completely native integration. And we think reducing
that friction is just going to be key to getting
more people out of personal cars and onto bikes and
scooters across the country. Does this mean that more
scooters are going to be supplied to some of these
key destinations then to make sure that anyone who wants
to take advantage of a scooter ride has one in
their near vicinity. Yeah, absolutely. Um so
you know, as you know, we talked a
couple of weeks ago, um we recently joined forces
with tear to create the number one global player and
micromobility. And one of the things we're getting a
lot of interesting learnings from tear about is just how
important density is to driving trips to making sure that
you're as reliable and when you get out of your
house and as a car which is there and you
can turn the key and it works. And so
we're gonna be working closely with cities who are really
excited about this partnership in this integration to make sure
that we have enough scooters on the street to meet
demand in all the key markets where it's going to
be rolling out is the pricing of flat fee or
will it be more of a dynamic pricing model based
on demand at a given time? So we don't
do dynamic pricing at the moment. Um, it's
sort of a one size fits all shop. What
we do do is have slightly different prices across markets
and right in the different markets. Sorry, you
broke up there for a second, what was the
question? What are some of the prices then that
users kind of expect to pay in different markets?
Yeah, So all in, you know, trip
costs can vary based on the length of the trip
, but we see that most trips end up in
anywhere in that 3 to$6 range, so it's
almost always cheaper than taking a ride share for those
short trips. And that's why we think this is
such a great compliment, you know, for that
last mile, last mile and a half with ride
share that you can get a longer distance and talk
to me about the charging process as well. We're
showing kind of how some of these scooters are lined
up to make sure that they have the juice to
go the distance that they need to. Um,
what is that process like? And does it change
where people can find these scooters? Yeah, this
has been a big innovation in the electric scooter space
over the last two years or so. Um,
and we're in the process of making a transition from
scooters where you've got to pick them up, take
them back to the warehouse and charge them to a
fully swappable fleet. And that's something that Tyra is
investing in to really modernize our fleet across the country
. And what that does is it allows you to
run much more efficient, much more profitable operations.
You only have to go out every 234 days depending
on the demand to swap the batteries and for the
ops technicians instead of having to go and carryÂŁ50
scooters back to the warehouse every day. Both from
a quality of life perspective and also from an efficiency
perspective, swappable batteries as the game changer, please
have the infrastructure to accommodate these scooters safely. So
this has been a big topic and you know,
one of the things that's been exciting to see over
the last couple of years is cities not just in
the U. S. But globally, you know
, really you know turning the crisis into an opportunity
to invest in infrastructure to invest in park let's and
an outdoor dining to make cities more better for pedestrians
better for people rather than just cars. And you
know, it's an ongoing effort and certainly the infrastructure
bill is going to be pouring into municipalities across the
country. And you know, one of the things
that's top of mind for cities is they make determinations
on how they want to allocate that funding is definitely
infrastructure for bikes and scooters as well as as they
think about charging infrastructure. How does micromobility fit into
that world as well because we do have our spin
hub charging stations across the country and sort of many
of the really high traffic areas as well as covid
cases are certainly down from their own Macron peak,
the weather is warming up, People are returning to
the office, how is that impacting demand? You
expect that demand will pick up here as we enter
the spring. Yeah, I was just on the
bar this morning and it, it felt like pre
Covid, I think the car was like 80 90%
full, you know, completely standing room only.
So really great to see public transit starting to bounce
back, tourism, starting to back bounce back people
coming into cities and we're definitely starting to see that
in our numbers and I think This integration with lift
is going to be an even greater headwind, getting
access to almost 20 million users that, that used
lift regularly. Any other markets, Ben that you
think could come online after we see this initial rollout
. Yeah, so we're starting in Nashville um,
as I mentioned, um, and then there's quite
a few markets behind that. We're not releasing a
ton of detail around what exactly the sequencing will be
for the markets yet, but more to come there
and we'll be doing a lot of local outreach in
the communities to make sure that folks are aware that
they have this option. And I think another cool
thing to call out is that there will be co
branding on the scooters as well. And so you'll
see you know exactly where a lift eligible scooter is
and you saw some of the other markets on that
map that you just flash that will be rolling out
soon, as as the sort of expansion to 60-plus
markets Goes Forward throughout 2021. Alright, well,
good time to go for a spin. Certainly as
the weather warms up, that's been Ceo, that
Bear Ben, we appreciate it.