Scooters | The Verge

An electric scooter that accelerates faster than a Tesla Model 3? No thanks!

2025-07-18T15:32:44-04:00

Personally, I think electric scooters are a little goofy, but I'm glad they exist. I know a lot of people who don't want to drop a couple thousand dollars on an electric bike, but still want the joy and freedom of zipping around town at a modest 18mph, while being able to hop on a subway or bus if needed. They want something you can carry with one hand, but that still has the stability to carry you around town.

This is not one of those scooters. The Bo Turbo was designed by a team of ex-Formula One engineers, and glancing at the spec sheet, it would appear that these folks brought some of that manic energy from F1 to this scooter project.

…

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Lime renews vows with Uber ahead of busy summer season

2025-06-04T20:11:00-04:00

Lime, the shared scooter and bike company, is getting ready for another busy summer by cozying up to one of its biggest supporters, Uber.

The two companies recently signed a new multiyear agreement that allows Uber to continue to feature Lime's shared bikes and scooters on its ridehail app. As part of the deal, Lime's rented bikes and scooters will continue to appear in Uber's app in the markets in which they overlap, including the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The previous agreement was set to expire later this year.

"We're pleased to extend this fruitful relationship into the future so riders can discover and quickly bo …

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Lime will recycle bike and scooter batteries with Redwood Materials

2025-04-14T09:30:43-04:00

Lime, the largest bike- and scooter-sharing company in the world, announced that it has struck a deal with Redwood Materials to recycle its lithium-ion batteries.

Lime says its e-bike and e-scooter batteries typically last 500 charge cycles, or between five and seven years. Once those batteries reach their end of life, Lime will ship them to Redwood's North Nevada recycling facility, where the first step will be to figure out how much of the battery is reusable, such as various connectors, wires, plastics, and other components.

After that, Redwood will begin a chemical recycling process, in which it strips out and refines the relevant ele …

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Rivian spins out secret e-bike lab into a new company called Also

2025-03-26T12:18:54-04:00

Rivian announced the creation of a new micromobility company called Also. The deal includes $105 million in Series B funding from venture capital firm Eclipse and will focus on the development and production of lightweight electric vehicles like bikes and scooters.

"For the world to fully transition to electrified transportation, a range of vehicle types and form factors will be needed," said Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe in a statement. "I am extremely excited about the innovations developed by the Also team that will underpin a range of highly compelling micromobility products that will help define new categories."

Rivian says its …

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Segway at CES: a powerful pair of e-bikes, a 50mph scooter, and a robot mower

2025-01-07T08:10:23-05:00

Segway’s Xafari and Xyber e-bikes. | Image: Segway

For CES this year, Segway ditched the goofy self-balancing pods and paintball-shooting go-karts and got back to basics.

The Ninebot-owned brand, once known for its pioneering self-balancing scooters, is reintroducing a pair of e-bikes (both first announced last year) with additional information on pricing and ordering. And it's also rolling out its next-generation lineup of kick scooters, with more powerful drivetrains and rugged, all-terrain features. And because it's CES, it's also giving us new details about the robot mower it introduced last year.

The e-bikes Segway announced last year, the powerful Xyber and the more approachable Xaf …

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The Lightfoot electric scooter is wrapped in solar panels to address range anxiety

2024-11-13T12:42:32-05:00

The Lightfoot scooter’s 120W solar panels can extend its range by up to 20 miles in the Summer, its creators claim. | Image: Otherlab

Otherlab has announced a new electric scooter called the Lightfoot that can extend its range not by fast charging or quick battery swaps, but by soaking up the sun. The scooter is shrouded in two large solar panels that Otherlab says can extend its range by an extra three miles for every hour it's left in the sun.

The company, which describes itself as an "independent research & design lab" bringing "new solutions in renewable energy," is planning to make the Lightfoot available for preorder starting today. It will sell for $4,995 and delivery is expected as early as January, 2025.

The Lightfoot is powered by a pair of 750W brushless DC mo …

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Segway’s first off-road scooter rolls over rough terrain on 11-inch wheels

2024-09-05T06:00:00-04:00

The Segway-Ninebot ZT3 Pro has six inches of ground clearance thanks to 11-inch tubeless tires. | Image: Segway-Ninebot

The new Segway-Ninebot ZT3 Pro is the company's first electric scooter that's designed to handle terrain considerably rougher than the average urban commute.

Weighing a hefty 65.5lbs, the ZT3 Pro pairs 11-inch tubeless tires with a fork suspension on the front, a coil suspension swing arm on the back, and six inches of ground clearance beneath its deck. That setup should not only provide a smoother ride when going off road but also help reduce the risk of the ZT3 Pro bottoming out when traversing uneven terrain.

Powered by a 1,600-watt electric motor, the US version of the ZT3 Pro will have a top speed of 24.9mph and a maximum range of 18. …

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Segway’s new electric kick scooter gives kids a boost with every push

2024-08-16T09:41:54-04:00

Kids just learning to ride a scooter can use a power assist mode that doesn’t require them to master the throttle controller. | Image: Segway

Segway's new Ninebot eKickScooter C2 Lite is targeted at kids who have not yet mastered operating a throttle control and nervous parents who want to limit the top speed for a young rider who's still learning.

Designed for kids between six and 10 years old and who are under 110 pounds, the eKickScooter C2 Lite has a smaller frame that's easier and safer for children to operate than a larger scooter designed for adults. The eKickScooter C2 Lite also offers three different speed modes designed to match a child's riding proficiency:

Standard mode includes a less aggressive acceleration when the throttle is activated and is limited to a top spee …

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A crowd destroyed a driverless Waymo car in San Francisco

2024-02-11T12:46:46-05:00

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Firefighters attempt to put out the Waymo car. | Image: FriscoLive415

A person jumped on the hood of a Waymo driverless taxi and smashed its windshield in San Francisco's Chinatown last night around 9PM PT, generating applause before a crowd formed around the car and covered it in spray paint, breaking its windows, and ultimately set it on fire. The fire department arrived minutes later, according to a report in The Autopian, but by then flames had already fully engulfed the car.

At the moment, no outlets seem to have reported a motive for the attack. Waymo representative Sandy Karp told The Verge via email that the fully autonomous car "was not transporting any riders" when it was attacked and fireworks were …

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Bird may be bankrupt, but shared micromobility is doing just fine

2023-12-21T12:46:27-05:00

On the surface, electric scooter pioneer Bird filing for bankruptcy would seem to be a nail in the coffin for shared micromobility - that nebulous term often used to describe rentable electric bikes and scooters in cities. After a number of mergers and some bad financial management, the OG scooter company is going belly up. That can't bode well for the future of scooters in general, right?

But actually, shared electric mobility is doing just fine. Sure, the margins are tight and profitability is still rare, but shared scooter and bike companies are becoming more integral to city life in ways we never thought possible.

The only thing that's …

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