The inconveniences caused by scooters controlled via smartphone contributed to something of a micromobility meltdown a few years ago.
But in 2025, the micromobility sector aims to learn from the mistakes of its past and ride a fresh wave of interest in solutions that can help people get from Point A to Point B without a car. Last-mile delivery of both goods and people, return-to-office mandates, and the soaring popularity of e-bikes are among the factors fueling micromobility’s next chapter.
“The big story is that, in my view, the next big winner in micromobility does not exist today. That company has yet to be built,” Jiten Behl, partner at venture-capital firm Eclipse Ventures, told Tech Brew. “It’s a wide-open field for an actual Tesla of micromobility.”
Lessons learned: The history of micromobility dates back decades, but in December 2001, the US saw the introduction of a product that would in many ways represent the sector’s promises and failures: the Segway, an electric scooter that never quite delivered on its mission to transform transportation (unless your name is Paul Blart).
Washington, DC, was home to the first bikeshare pilot in the US in 2008, according to a National League of Cities report. Then, in 2013, New York City launched Citi Bike, followed soon after by bikeshare programs in San Francisco and Chicago. Chinese bikeshare company Ofo in 2014 introduced a dockless bike with GPS tech. Electric scooter startups Bird and Lime came onto the scene in 2017 and quickly drew massive investments.
The sudden surge in micromobility deployments drove interest in the concept, Chinmay Malaviya, CEO and co-founder of micromobility startup Ridepanda and a Lime alum, told us––but the underlying business models didn’t make sense. It turned out to be extremely costly to scale and manage large fleets of bikes and scooters, especially when the vehicles were strewn across cities all over the country.
“While the demand was there, and we saw it literally in front of our eyes, it was not a great business model, because of poor quality vehicles to start with and just a heavy operational overload, added on top of the vandalism, theft and all that,” Malaviya said. “A mix of these reasons led to what’s seen as a bubble in 2020, 2021.”
Ridepanda launched in 2020 as a shared micromobility platform, but pivoted to offering micromobility solutions to enterprise customers like Amazon that wanted to offer transit options to employees. Now, Ridepanda’s platform offers a curated selection of bikes and scooters on a subscription basis. The idea is that employers benefit by giving workers the means to get to the office, while saving on parking costs and promoting sustainability and wellness.
“With our model, people actually take care of their vehicles, because they’re the ones that are going to be using them the next day,” Charlie Depman, Ridepanda’s CTO and co-founder, said.
Behl, too, pointed the finger at the sector’s unwieldy cost structure.
“There’s all this margin stacking going on in the supply base, with little or no innovation, resulting in an inflated cost base, but not an exciting performance,” he said. “That has to switch.”
On the dock: Following some of the micromobility startup failures of the early 2020s, the sector is seeing some positive signs. Smart Cities Dive reported that the number of shared bike and scooter rides in the US grew 16% in 2023. Bird recently reorganized after going through bankruptcy.
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And in September, Lyft affirmed its commitment to micromobility following a restructuring into what’s now called Lyft Urban Solutions, a division that encompasses eight Lyft-operated micromobility programs in the US and supplier partnerships in dozens of global markets. In some cities where Lyft doesn’t have its own micromobility solutions, it’s partnered with Bird and Spin to give users access via the Lyft app.
“We are more confident than ever about the promise that bikes and scooters represent,” CEO David Risher said.
As part of the restructuring, Lyft opted to do away with dockless solutions and go all-in on docked bikes and scooters.
“We’ve really made the decision to no longer be distracted by that, and really lean into what we do best, which is providing station-based programs in a long-term context,” Caroline Samponaro, VP and head of external affairs at Lyft Urban Solutions, told us.
Lyft looked at its own data and decided to double down on micromobility: The company saw “major ridership records” across its bikeshare systems for the third consecutive year, including 50% growth in e-bike rides on Citi Bike in New York, per a company report.
Another trend that shows up in Lyft’s data: the rise of e-bikes. Lyft reported a 169% surge in e-bike ridership in Washington, DC, and a 96% increase in Toronto, for example, and in 2023 some 800,000 people took their first e-bike ride on the company’s platform.
“E-bikes have made biking for transportation something that a much wider range of people can now do,” Samponaro said. “And that’s obviously great for the environment, great for congestion, etc.”
To support this trend, Lyft is in the process of installing a charging network for its e-bikes, and recently introduced a new modular charging station called Pillar. It also launched a next-gen e-bike that it designed and built from the ground up, featuring new safety and software features.
Pairing e-bikes with innovative software solutions is key to capitalizing on their popularity, Behl said.
“When you insert an amazing software experience along with an e-bike architecture, it’s basically Peloton on wings,” he said. “Software-defined e-bike is a category that, in my view, does not exist in its purest and its best form. That is going to change the way people take to using their e-bikes for commutes, for their workouts.”
B2B: On the commercial side of the equation, Behl pointed to the rapid growth of e-commerce as a significant opportunity for micromobility. Imagine, for example, a scenario where instead of an Amazon truck parking on the side of a street while the driver delivers a dozen packages, smaller vehicles were sent out more frequently with smaller deliveries.
“We were happy with stuff being delivered every two days, and then it went to one day, to four hours, to two hours. And if you go to places in Asia, you need to get it in 30 minutes,” Behl said. “And you’re not going to drive a van or a car to deliver a small packet of something. And therefore…those last-mile deliveries are only possible if you have these small, cheap form factors. And that’s the micromobility story, from the B2B point of view.”
This is one of the stories of our Quarter Century Project, which highlights the various ways industry has changed over the last 25 years. Check back each month for new pieces in this series and explore our timeline featuring the ongoing series.
