Scoot Adds Hundreds Of Electric Scooters To Its Fleet

Scoot  is a ride sharing service in San Francisco that has been in business since 2012. The heart of its operation is a fleet of electric scooters. Parking in major cities is always a problem, but it is especially bad in The City By The Bay. With Scoot, you simply pick up a scooter wherever you are, ride to where you are going, and leave it. Simple, convenient, and it is all done using a smartphone app. Scoot also has a limited number of Renault Twizy electric cars available.

Scoot has recently received a new round of funding thanks to Mahindra Partners and Vision Ridge, an investment firm that focuses on sustainability. The money will be used to add hundreds of Mahindra GenZe 2.0 electric scooters to Scoot’s fleet. Scoot founder and CEO Michael Keating sees the new funding as a clear sign of success. “We are proving that electric transportation can be both affordable and profitable,” he says. “We now have the vehicles and resources we need to scale the business, thanks to our partnership with Mahindra and the ongoing support of our earlier investors.”

Since the service began, Scoot riders have ridden more than 1 million zero emissions miles. Since the scooters are limited to a top speed of 30 mph, they are not considered motorcycles by the California DMV. That means riders don’t need a motorcycle license to operate them. Scoot offers a number of pricing plans and options for residents, depending on how often they use the service, but visitors to the city can obtain a 2 day Visitor Pass that provides access to the fleet. The electric scooters are great for running errands or getting anywhere in the city. They can even carry up to 75 pounds in the rear storage area.

Zhooben Bhiwandiwala, managing partner of Mahindra Partners, says: “Scoot’s service is both consumer friendly and ecologically sustainable. The problem they are addressing is global in nature and will grow in importance over the next few decades with the continued concentration of populations within dense urban centers.”

Part of the new money available to Scoot will be used to expand the ride sharing service to other cities, although the company has not released details of its expansion plans. We’ll have to wait to see which cities will be the next to get emissions free improvements to urban livability.

Source: Autoblog, CleanTechnica

San Fran Leads Nation In Reduction Of Solo Car Commuting

The San Francisco Bay Area saw the greatest shift from solo auto commuting to “alternative” forms of transportation in the whole of the country for the years of 2006 through 2013, according to new figures from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

In 2012, the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA, metropolitan statistical area even had the third-lowest solo-commuting rate in the whole of the country (69.8%) — behind only Ithaca, NY (68.7%) and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA area (56.9%).

“Workers in the San Francisco Bay Area made the nation’s most dramatic shift from commuting via automobile to using alternative transportation between 2006 and 2013, according to a new Census Bureau report,” stated Dan Walters while writing for The Sacramento Bee on the Census report release last month.

These numbers compare to a national average (solo commuting) rate of 76.4%. Worth noting here is that the 3.8% decrease revered in the San Francisco Bay Area over the period in question was well above the next closest areas. Those were: the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH, area (3.3%) and the Durham-Chapel Hill, NC, area (2.9%).

On the national level, roughly 9.4% of people carpool to work, 5.2% use public transportation, 4.4% work from home, 2.8% walk, and 1.32% make their way to work via other means. Bicycling accounts for 0.6% of the 1.32% figure above.

“In recent years, the percentage of workers who commute by private vehicle remained relatively stable after decades of consistent increase,” study author Brian McKenzie noted. “For several individual years since the mid-2000s, the average number of vehicle miles traveled in the United States has either increased at a slower pace than in previous decades or declined. Although such shifts in travel behavior are slight, they have captured attention because they represent a disruption in an unequivocal, decades-long pattern of increased automobile travel.”

“Overall, automobile commuting has declined since 2000, in part, due to the continuation of a long-standing pattern of a decline in carpooling,” McKenzie stated recently. “One out of 5 US workers carpooled in 1980, but in 2013, only one out of 10 carpooled.”

Worth a note here is that when non-prominent factors are accounted for, the buying power of the average American has been declining for several decades now.

Source: Gas2

Over half of all EVs in America are in these five cities

If someone were to tell you that electric vehicles are popular in Los Angeles, there's no reason to be surprised. Same thing with San Francisco and New York City. But if someone were to tell you she had collected a list of the top five EV cities in the US, which would round out the list? The picture above is a hint, if you recognize the skyline.

We'll string out the answer just a little bit by first telling you that the data comes from R.L. Polk, according toEV World, and it was Anthony Pratt, R.L. Polk's director of forecasting-Americas, that shared the data earlier this month up at the annual Management Briefing Seminars, in Traverse City, MI. If you add up the plug-in vehicles sold or leased in the five cities, you find that they make up 52 percent of all the EVs in the US. The reasons, Pratt said, are good charging infrastructure and local EV incentives like HOV lane access and tax credits.

Okay, fine, we've made you wait too long. Here's the list: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, and Atlanta.

News Source: EV World

San Francisco approves purchase of 45 new hybrid electric buses

The Board of Directors of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which oversees all transportation in the city, including the Municipal Railway (Muni), recently approved the purchase of 45 new hybrid electric 40-foot buses from New Flyer Industries. These new vehicles will replace 13-year-old buses currently in service.

Pending final approval from the Board of Supervisors, the SFMTA expects to have a prototype on the road next winter for a month long test in regular passenger service. All 45 new buses are expected to arrive by the end of summer 2013.

In order to expedite the purchasing process, the SFMTA joined a current, competitively bid vehicle contract with the State of Minnesota. The vehicles specified under the Minnesota contract were updated to include features necessary for San Francisco’s unique operating environment and high passenger loads. The total vehicle cost will be approximately $33.8 million or $752,000 per vehicle and is funded through federal, state, and local support.

The SFMTA is pursuing replacement and rehabilitation programs on all buses, light rail vehicles, and historic streetcars. Within the next two years, SFMTA expects to purchase 60 articulated trolley buses to replace current 20-year-old vehicles. These programs directly support the agency’s two-year budget, focusing on maintenance and infrastructure improvements.