Thousands More Rental E-bikes Set To Come To London As New Firm Enters Market

Source: Found here

Thousands more rental e-bikes are due to hit London 's streets as a new company attempts to compete for riders.

Voi, which already operates e-scooters in the capital, is currently in talks with borough councils over where and when it can launch the new bikes.

It comes after the company warned earlier this summer that providing rental e-scooters in the city had become "financially unsustainable", as the smaller and more heavily-regulated vehicles "cannot compete with" London's less-regulated bikes.

Voi - who intend to keep providing their e-scooters alongside the new bikes - will be competing against existing operators like Lime, Forest and Transport for London's (TfL) Santander Cycles for a share of the capital's riders.

James Bolton, Voi UK's general manager, said: "It's not just a case of coming in and undercutting [on price], that's not what we want to do.

"We want to come in and compete fairly, and if as a result of that, that means prices reducing overall across the industry in London, that's obviously a fairer outcome for the consumer, and that's something boroughs are very interested in."

He added that the company was seeking to take a "ground up approach" by asking boroughs what arrangements they'd be comfortable with in terms of parking requirements and size of fleet.

Mr Bolton also said Voi would take an interventionist, "re-balancing" approach to the bikes, with the goal of "trying to generate as many rides as possible with as few vehicles as possible".

The company plans to do this by using electric vans to transport the bikes to the locations where its algorithm says they are likeliest to be used at particular times of day.