SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Neptune Scooters today launched a comprehensive scooter sharing system engineered to address cities' biggest worries when it comes to micromobility adoption while making scooters more fun to ride. The platform, developed from the ground up, combines fleet-optimized scooter technology with an automated multidock charging station to increase rider access, safety, and enjoyment while decreasing maintenance costs.
Neptune Scooters engineered a robust, powerful scooter equipped with a heavy-duty frame, dual motors, hydraulic brakes, and bright LED lighting and signals. Capable of taking a 250-pound rider up a 40% incline and equipped with a high-capacity battery that extends a charge range to over 60 miles, the Neptune Scooter offers a reliable, enjoyable, safer ride. The robust construction and large, integrated battery provide operators a more durable, long-lasting, fleet-ready vehicle.
Paired with the scooter, the company developed an automated, modular, multidock station that cleans, charges, and stores as many as 20 scooters in a 35 x 2 ft. profile, five times less space than bike share parking. The multidocks use a rail system, allowing them to expand or present in various configurations to accommodate siting needs at transportation hubs and business and shopping centers. The multidock creates a better user experience by automatically ending a rental session and locking the scooter when the scooter enters the dock. While securely nested, the multidock charges and sanitizes the scooter with UV-C light, making it available for the next user. The automatic locking feature protects the scooter from abuse and vandalism.
Scooter sharing offers significant benefits to city residents, who travel 40% of their trips within a two-mile radius, and for cities that are looking to relieve automobile congestion, reduce pollution, and increase public transit access without investing in significant infrastructure. Scooter shares are cost-effective, energy efficient, and a powerful, immediate tool to positively transform our communities.
However, the industry risks both a backlash and a growth bottleneck as both riders and city managers grapple with unsightly piles of vehicles that block rights-of-way and stray scooters that are only half charged or worse, broken from vandalism or abuse. The Neptune Scooters system addresses the most important issues impeding rider and operator adoption: clutter, hardware quality, and availability. Neptune's vision is to create a streamlined experience that delivers fun, functional, and reliable benefits of scooter sharing in a modular system that appeals to cities, resorts, and walkable communities alike.
The Neptune Scooters platform offers strong economic advantages to operators. Operating expenditures are lowered because there is less need for gig workers to retrieve and charge scooters. Capital expenditures are reduced because the secured, durable scooters last longer in the urban environment. Neptune's lower costs improve profit, allowing the system to serve more riders.
"After twenty years focused on electric mobility, I've never seen as great an opportunity to push sustainable transit on a massive scale as with cost- and energy-efficient scooter sharing," said Forrest North, CEO and founder, Neptune Scooters. "With Neptune Scooters, we can address micromobility's biggest challenges to growth and truly deliver on the escooter promise: enabling the most efficient way to move people through their first and last mile."
The company launches with initial seed funding from Proeza Ventures (PV), the largest mobility fund in Latin America, addressing the opportunity for shared mobility in cities around the world.
"At Proeza Ventures (PV), we are confident that micromobility, and in particular scooter sharing adoption, will accelerate now that the pandemic has pushed cities to question the role of cars and look for alternative transportation solutions that are efficient, affordable and environmentally friendly, while reducing traffic and overall improving its citizens' quality of life. Neptune Scooters is positioning itself strongly in this market by providing a novel docking station concept and vehicle that has a longer lifespan, is more reliable and robust, and makes scooters a joy to ride," said Enrique M. Zambrano, principal at PV.
The multidock features:
Automatically parks the scooter in the most compact way
Recharges batteries
Sanitizes handlebars using UV-C radiation
Located at strategic points such as transportation hubs and in business and shopping centers
Twenty scooters can fit in a 35 foot x 2 foot profile, five times the efficiency of bike share parking
Protected from abuse and vandalism
Rail system that can go up and down and curve around corners, provides flexibility, reliability, density and scalability
The scooter features:
12" wide wheels
Double brakes: electric and hydraulic discs
60 mile range
Able to take a 250 pound rider up a 40% grade hill
LED lighting all around and turn signals
Integrated lock
About Neptune Scooters
Neptune Scooters is addressing first and last mile electric mobility by rethinking scooter sharing with cities in mind. The Neptune Scooter platform couples a fleet-optimized scooter designed for best-in-class performance, reliability and safety, with a proprietary multidock system that secures, charges and sanitizes high volumes of scooters in a minimal, urban-friendly footprint. By addressing clutter, quality and availability challenges, Neptune makes scooter sharing attractive to cities and joyful to riders. To learn more about Neptune, visit http://www.neptunescooters.com.
Media Contact
Madeline Luce, Blue Practice, +1 5038530968, [email protected]
SOURCE Neptune Scooters
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