“Lime” Starts to Offer Uber-like Shared Scooter Services in Brazil

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – The scooter market in Brazil gets a little tighter as of this Tuesday, July 2nd. The American company Lime, one of the leading companies operating the shared scooter business in the United States and Europe, has announced its arrival in Brazil.

Available from this Tuesday in São Paulo, the scooters will be found in the regions of Pinheiros, Vila Olímpia, Brooklin and Vila Nova Conceição. According to Lime, “there are many more regions to come.”

In Rio de Janeiro, the service will start operating next Thursday, July 4th, on beaches in the southern zone, in the Leme-Gávea stretch, as well as Leblon, Copacabana, and Ipanema.

There will be an initial fee of R$3.00 (US$0.75) for using the scooters and, subsequently, an additional fee of R$0.50 (US$0.12) per minute.

Lime has established partnerships with local retailers to allow equipment parking at some of their facilities.

Despite being a new name around here, Lime announced a partnership with a well-known company to Brazilians — Uber — which disclosed last Monday the sharing of scooters and electric bicycles in two U.S. cities (San Diego and Atlanta).

In Brazil, the scooters will be provided by Lime’s own App – while in the United States, they share space in the Uber App.

“We are here to rethink car use and allow people to choose the most appropriate vehicle for their mobility,” said Joe Kraus, Lime’s global president.

Uber is also one of Lime’s major investors, which claims to be the largest company in the sector: last year the app-based transportation company injected US$335 million into Lime, alongside venture capital market giants and Google’s mother company, Alphabet.

Related coverage: Food Giant Nestlé Closes Milk Processing Plant in South of Brazil · Innovative Time-share Model in São Paulo Allows Apartment to Have Several Owners · "Aphrodisiac" Seafood is Produced on a Large Scale in Florianópolis · Curitiba's Startup "Pipefy" Raises US Million From the U.S.

More: Brazil news in English, every day from The Rio Times.

This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated AI newsroom. Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. The Rio Times also runs Ask Rio Times, which answers from 100,000+ of our own articles, the daily Latin America Power Map, and prediction-market odds on elections and markets.. How we use AI · Report an error

Brazil runoff, Sunday, October 25: Brazil runoff start time and results schedule. Latest: Brazil runoff polls, Flávio 51%, Lula 49%.