In the latest development, Tier Mobility, which was established in 2018, has started the process of replacing its Parisian fleet with new e-scooters equipped with swappable batteries.
Lawrence Leuschner, CEO and Co-founder of TIER Mobility:
Swappable batteries are a real ecological game-changer for the entire e-scooter industry. As the leading European player, we are proud to be the first ones to operate with this model. This is a huge step forward in our mission to change mobility for good and becoming carbon neutral as a company in the next 12 months fully.
World’s first scooter sharing provider with swappable batteries
With this move, the micro-mobility company becomes the first scooter sharing provider worldwide to roll out an operating model based on swappable batteries.
For the uninitiated, Tier founded by Lawrence Leuschner, Julian Blessin, and Matthias Laug to reduce pollution in cities with their e-scooters. The company aims to fight the current status quo of polluted cities, smog, and ineffective/overpriced transportation modes together with their users and local communities.
Deployed 200 scooters!
At present, the company has deployed 200 scooters with swappable batteries in Paris. According to the company, the entire Paris fleet will run on swappable batteries in November 2019. It’s worth mentioning that the new scooter with the swappable batteries offers more features, such as a larger front wheel designed for the winter season.
A game changer in terms of sustainability
Equipping the scooters with swappable batteries will make the need to transport scooters to warehouses every day back and forth for charging obsolete. A new fleet of e-cargo and e-vans will enable local operations to quickly recover and replace empty batteries without relying on traditional, gas-powered vehicles. Also, the local operations teams will also be responsible for safety checks and the repositioning of scooters in-line with local regulation.
Alexandre Souter, General Manager France at TIER Mobility:
The brilliant thing about this new operation model is that we still keep our level of maintenance and service very high while it goes along with a system of relocating improperly parked scooters. ‘dI’d also like to emphasize that we won’t work with gig economy freelancers, but employ our people based on fair working conditions.
The company has selected the Paris as a starting point for this paradigm shift, as the city has become the crystallization point for the entire European e-scooter industry – with a massive demand for micro-mobility services, but also with significant challenges for sustainable operations in scooter logistics.
Last week, Tier Mobility secured around $60 million (approx €55 million) in Series B funding round led by Mubadala Capital and Goodwater Capital. The Berlin-headquartered mobility service is now operating in 40+ cities across 12 markets worldwide and employs over 350 people.
Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more European technology news.
Editor’s note: The headline has been edited.
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