The Lime-S Generation 3 scooter makes headway down the wrong road

The Lime-S Generation 3 comes with a larger battery that promises to boost range by 20% to almost 50 kilometers. The wheels have also increased in size from 8 inches to 10 inches, meaning that cruising over bumps and curbs will be a little more comfortable. There’s also built-in suspension that looks like a smaller version of something you’d find on a mountain bike.

There’s also multi-modal braking, giving riders the option of stopping with either electrical, drum or foot brakes. The display has also received an upgrade and now shows speed, a battery reading and Lime says it will soon be able to show a warning message when the scooter is currently in a no-park zone.

Lime even says that it plans to develop the screen further, allowing it to display step by step navigation instructions for riders, and notify them if a sudden weather change has been detected.

The frame itself looks significantly more robust than the old design. As well as being stronger overall, the key components are IP67 water resistant and all wires are now hidden inside the frame to further protect against the elements.

The upgrades combine to create what certainly looks like a significantly improved mode of transport, but I can’t help but think that Lime is racing down the wrong road, chased by both Uber and Lyft.

The mobility revolution that nobody wants

I don’t blame for Lime choosing to upgrade its line of electric scooters. With both Uber and Lyft entering the market with similar products, evolution was necessary. However, my concern is that all three of these companies are heading down the wrong path.

Lime is unlikely to say this outright, but a lot of these Gen 3 upgrades are solving problems the company’s last generation of scooters had with the backlash to hundreds of these turning up on street corners. Housing all the wires in that new sturdier frame certainly makes the scooter more like to stand up to vandalism and as for the new water-proofing, perhaps IP67 won’t be enough to save these things when they get thrown in city waterways, but it helps!

Lime might have been kicked out of San Francisco, but in other US cities and across Europe the green and yellow scooters are not going away. How much longer do we have to suffer this fad before we follow the San Franciscans and de-clutter our streets of these scooters? They’re too fast for the pavement, too slow for the roads, too ugly to be cool and too dangerous to be practical. Will the third generation of Lime’s electric scooters change that? I doubt it.

What do you think about the Lime-S Generation 3 scooter? Do you have e-scooters in your city? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Engadget