Ford plans to sell e-scooter division to German rival Tier
Spin was first launched in March 2017 in Seattle after working with the city to create a policy framework for regulating dockless bikes
• This is German firm, Tier’s third two-wheeler company acquisition
• Backed by Softbank, Tier has a fleet of 250,000 vehicles across 410 cities
Ford (NYSE: F) plans to sell its electric scooter division, Spin, to its German competitor Tier, in exchange for equity.
Ford’s decision to sell off the e-scooter division comes at a time when the company is trying to “focus on its core business”.
Spin was first launched in March 2017 in Seattle after working with the city to create a policy framework for regulating dockless bikes.
Euwyn Poon was inspired to create a dockless bike company after visiting Beijing and seeing the growing interest in micromobility services in that city. He founded the company and moved to electric scooters after Bird’s success in Southern California.
This is Tier’s third two-wheeler company acquisition. The Softbank-backed company acquired German bike-sharing platform NextBike in November and Vento Mobility, the Italian subsidiary of Wind Mobility, in December.
With a fleet of 250,000 vehicles across 410 cities, CEO Lawrence Leuschner told CNBC that the company is now the largest “multimodal micromobility operator” in the world, in terms of the number of cities and vehicles.
Tier is way ahead of its U.S. competitors such as Bird and Lime, with half of its vehicles being e-scooters and the other half being e-bikes.