Paris/e-scooters: a bump in the boulevard to profitability

Parisians are driving rented e-scooters off their picturesque boulevards. The French capital on Sunday held a plebiscite on whether rented trottinettes électriques should be banned. Only 4 per cent of the city’s residents voted. The result among those who did was a strong non merci.

There are already rows over the low turnout. Yet the referendum highlights how the nascent scooter-sharing industry is vulnerable to local politics and regulation in its quest for sustainable profits.

Paris was a pioneering market for rental e-scooters after their introduction in the city in 2018. The industry’s evolution there, with the introduction of permits for operators, has helped to inform market expansion elsewhere.

It remains among the top five markets globally for Uber-backed Lime, one of the three scooter-sharing operators affected by the ban from September.

There is some built-in protection. Operators, including Franco-Dutch group Dott and Germany’s Tier, have shared e-bike schemes in Paris as well. There are 400,000 registered shared e-scooter users in Paris. At least some of those will swap to two larger wheels.

Between 2017 and 2020 venture capitalists poured hundreds of millions of dollars into e-scooter companies including Lime, US rival Bird and Tier. Profits remain elusive. Privately held Lime in February claimed to be the first shared electric vehicle company to achieve a full profitable year, with adjusted ebitda of $15mn. 

Operators insist other cities, including some in France, are still forging ahead with shared e-scooter tenders despite the Parisian ban.

For some cities, shared scooters are a possible answer to traffic-choked, polluted streets. For some vocal Parisians, though, shared e-scooters had become a nuisance that resulted in “uncivil behaviour” when users rode too fast. The same arguments stand between e-scooter rental businesses and mature profitability in many big cities.

The Lex team is interested in hearing more from readers. Please tell us what you think of the Parisian ban on rented e-scooters in the comments section below.