In view of the increasing number of e-scooters, according to the estimation of the Germany boss of the scooter lender Lime, Jashar Seyfi, new ideas and concepts are needed.
"If I look at the infrastructure in the German cities, it is also manageable for the limited number of scooters we already have," said Seyfi. "There are already piling up complaints that scooters are badly parked and partially block roads." That was partly legitimate criticism. "However, I also ask myself where else should they park?"
It will probably take a while for such changes to happen, "ideally via the rededication of car parking spaces to sharing car parks," Seyfi suggested. Even wider bike paths are possible. This requires close cooperation with cities and municipalities.
Since mid-June, e-scooters in Germany are allowed to cycle on cycle paths and on roads. Since Uber also recently entered the market, six suppliers are vying nationwide for customers.
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The scooter providers promote the vehicles as another, electrically driven element in a future mobility mix in which customers hardly own their own cars, but instead use different sharing and rental offers. However, the scooters are in the criticism because of numerous accidents, the concentration on inner cities, improper use, obstructions on biking and walking paths and a dubious climate balance.
In Berlin, for example, the vehicles are freely available in the so-called free-float model: there are no fixed stations, the electric scooters can be parked at any point. In many places it is currently being discussed to change this, so that parking is only allowed in certain places.
Abstellstationen as a supplement
But the success of the services for Seyfi lies precisely in the free availability of vehicles. "If you artificially tightened that by saying something like," We now have 50 stations in the city and if you want to drive a scooter, you have to go to one of them, it will not work. "But he advocates stations as an addition to free-floating , "which can be very useful, especially at junctions of public transport," said Seyfi.
According to Lime, Germany is the second largest market in the world after the USA. Meanwhile, the company offers a five-digit number of electric scooters in 15 German cities. Bicycles, including electric ones, have been available to customers in Berlin for one and a half years via the platform. But the demand for the scooters is meanwhile much larger than those after the wheels. "We still have enough bicycles here in Berlin on the streets," said Seyfi, "but we've actually scaled down the fleet in favor of more scooters" - even though both offerings basically complemented each other because they would be used for different distances.
According to a study of the Lufthansa Innovation Hub - a market analysis department of the aviation group - Lime has the second largest market share with about one third. Competitor animal comes therefore to 42 percent. However, the company only takes the downloads of the respective applications into account. Seyfi sees his company Lime ahead of any competition in terms of actual usage figures.
The Germany boss also expects a strong cleanup of the electric scooter market. "It's just a hell of a lot of companies trying to get involved in this scooter business," he said. "This can not really go on in shape for years." Regardless of their own success is a consolidation, so a focus on a few providers, "almost inevitably".
It will probably take a while for such changes to happen, "ideally via the rededication of car parking spaces to sharing car parks," Seyfi suggested. Even wider bike paths are possible. This requires close cooperation with cities and municipalities
In the video: Wild West on two wheels - trouble over e-scooter
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