Electric scooter giant Lime has yanked about 2,000 of its bright green rental scooters off the streets of San Diego, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe, citing a manufacturing defect in a battery made by one of its suppliers that could catch fire.
The recall affects less than 1 percent of its fleet, according to the San Mateo-based company. No problems were cited in the nine Bay Area cities from Walnut Creek to San Jose served by the firm.
However, the apparent defect in the Segway Ninebot battery is just the latest problem to plague the rapidly growing firm, which currently serves more than 80 cities in the US and nine other countries.
In a statement posted on its website Tuesday, Lime defended its safety record while noting that another battery also manufactured by Segway may pose a similar problem to the one discovered in August.
“At no time were riders or members of the public put at risk,” the statement said, adding that the company was able to remotely deactivate the affected scooters. “Unfortunately, despite our efforts, we’ve recently received an unconfirmed report that another Segway Ninebot scooter model may also be vulnerable to battery failure, which we are currently investigating.”
The company also reported that it is “studying” a third problem: The baseboards from one scooter manufacturer, Okai, can sometimes crack or break when ridden off a curb at high speed.
The statement noted that scooters are a new mode of transportation and “Lime, together with the micro-mobility industry, remains committed to ensuring everyone knows how to ride safely.”
Lime scooters are available in several East Bay and South Bay cities, including Oakland and San Jose. They’ve faced criticism in a number of communities, including Oakland, where city officials earlier this month held a community meeting to determine how it would regulate the dockless devices. A class-action lawsuit filed in Los Angeles against Lime and Bird, two of the largest providers of the on-demand, short-term scooter rentals, claims that chipped teeth, cut lips, broken bones and bruises are some of the injuries inflicted on pedestrians hit by scooters and on scooter riders themselves.
Earlier this month, San Francisco agreed to issue permits to two scooter companies, Scoot and Skip, after cracking down on the unpermitted proliferation of the two-wheelers. Lime and Bird were denied permits for the first stage of the pilot program.
However, there haven’t been any problems with Lime batteries to date in San Jose, said Colin Heyne, the spokesman for San Jose’s transportation department. There have been complaints about people riding scooters on the sidewalk or parking them in the way of pedestrians and cars. Lime and Bird have about 2,000 scooters on city streets.
Like San Francisco, Santa Monica and other communities, San Jose is working on an ordinance that would require companies to obtain permits to operate here. The proposed rules will be ready for review in December, he said.
“The companies are going to continue to refine the safety aspects,” Heyne said, adding that the city wants to encourage ”innovative alternatives” to traffic-creating vehicles. “There are thousands of trips every day on scooters already, and I don’t think they’re going to disappear.”
