Winners and losers as Auckland Council reveals new e-bike, e-scooter licences

Beam and Lime e-scooters in Auckland's city centre. Photo / Cole Slawson

There’s a slimmed-down field for Auckland Council’s new e-bike and e-scooter licensing period - which kicks in on November 4 and will run through to 2024.

And there will be a slightly smaller number of e-scooters around the CBD.

There were seven applications from five operators, but only two winners: the Uber-backed Lime and Singapore's Beam.

The unsuccessful Neuron will have until midnight on November 3 to deactivate its e-scooters and e-bikes from the city's streets, and until November 18 to remove them.

Local contender Flamingo, which did have an e-scooter in Auckland until it lost out in a 2020 licensing round, made a bid to return but failed (Flamingo remains on the streets of the capital, Palmerston North and Waimakariri).

Historically, there's been little love lost between Lime and Flamingo's youthful founders.

US operator Bird - which enjoyed a brief stint on Auckland streets in 2019 when local firm Wave used its technology - also missed out.

Under the previous 12-month licensing period, Lime, Beam and Neuron could operate 330 e-scooters for hire each in the CBD, or a total of 990.

For the period from November 4, Beam and Lime will each operate 450, or a total of 900 in the city centre.

Across the city, Beam and Lime will have 1200 e-scooters each for a total 2400 - down on the pre-Covid beak of 3200.

Beam recently launched in Manukau and Papatoetoe and says it will be expanding further in South Auckland.

Beam and Lime will also operate a total of 500 e-bikes between them, down from the previous licensing period's 650.

A lot of the head has gone out of the micro-mobility debate since Lime burst onto Auckland's streets in 2018.

More cycleways in the CBD, 15km speed limits around most of the city centre (auto-enforced by GPS) and parking restrictions (ditto) have helped bring down the temperature of the debate.

Cracking the pavement code

Now things have been tightened up further with Auckland Council's new Rental Micromobility Code of Practice, where operators have to report non-compliant parking or damage within 90 minutes.

Banned parking areas for e-scooters and e-bikes include accessways, near intersections, anywhere that blocks pedestrian flow, berms, and anywhere within 300m of a school.

The code also requires operators to hold public liability insurance of at least $2 million.

Applicants for the latest rounds also had to demonstrate plans for remote monitoring, remote locking and limiting anti-social behaviour.

Lime recently launched its fourth-generation e-scooters in Auckland.

The firm had to pause operations in more than 100 cities when Covid first hit, but was helped by a US$170m raise in May 2020, led by its major backer Uber. Lime was merged with Uber-owned Jump at the same time.

Lime raised another US$523m in November last year as Uber tipped in more capital, along with several global funds. The money was earmarked for expansion.

For its part, Beam says Auckland will be the first city in the world to get its new Saturn 5 e-scooter, with new technology that "will accurately and reliably identify whether the vehicle is travelling on sidewalks, streets or bike lanes" and apply applicable restrictions.