Uber ready to shift from cars to bikes with a short-term financial hit forecast

Uber is planning to focus more on electric scooters and the bike business and less on cars, even though the decision could harm the company’s profits. The Chief, Dara Khosrowshahi, however, thinks that it will only be a short-term hit. “Short-term financially, maybe it’s not a win for us, but the strategically long term we think that is exactly where we want to head,” he told the Financial Times. He believes that the mode of transport will be good for inner city travel. He also forecasted that users would make more frequent shorter journeys. [caption id=“attachment_5051701” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] JUMP bikes on Uber’s app. Image: Uber[/caption] The ride-hailing service makes less money from a bike ride than a car ride, but Khosrowshahi is pretty confident about the increase in the number of short distance journeys. Uber had added e-bikes to its app earlier this year after acquiring Jump electric bikes, which was a start-up. The service is currently available in eight US cities, including New York and Washington DC. According to various reports, the service will soon launch in Denver. Uber has also collaborated with lime, which is an electric scooter company. We already know that Uber is going to launch its new e-bikes sharing service in Seattle, next month. Uber’s e-bikes are electric assisted, which still need to pedal, but an electric motor (with a maximum speed of 32 km per hour) will help, especially riding uphill.