Electric moped sharing startup Revel is expanding beyond New York City and to Washington, DC. Beginning this weekend, Revel’s mopeds (which are more like speed-limited electric motor scooters, since they don’t have pedals) will be available to rent and ride in the capital city as part of a four-month pilot program. Revel says it’s going to roll out 400 of its mopeds at DC, almost half as many as the 1,000 currently on the streets of Brooklyn and Queens.
Pricing is going to be exactly like it is in New York City. It Prices $19 to sign up, the majority of which Revel says goes to verifying each consumer’s driver’s license and history. Each ride costs $1 to begin, and $0.25 per minute. Rides may be”paused” if the user would like to, say, run an errand and not have someone else nab the moped. That drops the cost to $0.10 per minute.
Every one of Revel’s mopeds (that are produced by Chinese company NIU) includes two helmets. Drivers must be 21 to use the service, and up to two people can ride at a time. The mopeds are capped at 30 mph, so they are only intended to be driven on city streets. They are supposed to be parked on the street, also, so that they (ideally) will not mess up DC sidewalks.
Bringing another town online so soon didn’t appear to be in the cards when The Verge Spoke to Revel CEO Frank Reig earlier this season. “Right now the entire group is focused on creating a million mopeds entirely safe, [ensuring they’re] operating economically, and making certain this city enjoys us, because if we are not doing that, we are doing it wrong. So that is the complete focus at this time,” he said at the moment. “I’d really like to think about expanding the fleet. But that is next year. I believe at this time, we will need to focus on just making sure that people love us, making sure this is a value add the community, and that’s it. Dead stop. That is all we will need to do.”
That said, Washington, DC’s pilot program — that was declared earlier this month — may have been shown to be too great an chance to pass up. And despite their defects and fights with fertility , Mobility services that are shared are en vogue. The first few months of Revel’s full service in New York City has gone mostly without incident, too, which is notable considering the 1,000 mopeds apparently appeared overnight.
Revel will approximately replicate its New York operation At Washington DC, hiring 30 full-time workers with benefits. The push Is likely being financed from the $5 million in financing the company has raised. Reig told that the Verge which was mostly used to Finance the new york operation, but the company was holding a chunk of it as cash in the bank. Revel also doesn’t own its mopeds. Rather, external firms buy the mopeds, and they let them the startup.
