Uber-backed e-scooter start-up Lime enters Japan after Korea exit
- Lime, which has a global fleet of around 200,000 e-bikes and scooters, on Monday launched its service in some of Tokyo’s most densely populated neighbourhoods
Uber Technologies-backed Lime is entering Japan’s growing e-scooter ride market in a foray that pits the San Francisco-based start-up against home-grown Luup.
Lime, which has a global fleet of around 200,000 e-bikes and scooters, on Monday launched its service in some of Tokyo’s most densely populated neighbourhoods of Shibuya, Shinjuku, Meguro and Setagaya wards. Lime now has around 200 electric scooters and more than 40 recharging ports. Tokyo-based Luup, which controls more than 90 per cent of the domestic market in terms of ride mileage, operates 9,100 ports.
“We’re starting small,” Lime Chief Executive Officer Wayne Ting said in an interview. “We want to grow slowly with the city and really earn the trust of local regulators and city officials.”
Lime’s entry in Japan is the latest sign of the country’s belated acceptance of the sharing economy, thanks in part to years of dialogue between Luup and regulators, local governments and police. The e-scooter market is expanding in Japan, in contrast to slowdowns elsewhere, as cities impose tougher restrictions or outright bans to deal with abandoned e-scooters clogging pavements.
Japan’s government, which for years stonewalled the likes of Uber and Airbnb, was slow to allow shared e-scooter rides. It instead set up regulations requiring riders to park in designated charging ports and abide by local traffic rules, including lower speed restrictions on pavements. Once those restrictions were in place, it then passed a new traffic law doing away with helmet and license requirements for e-scooter users last year, clearing a major hurdle to growth.
