Technology
Uber Is Building Its Own Scooter to Compete in Frenzy
The company is playing catch-up in a market already flush with billion-dollar startups.
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This spring, Uber moved into a cavernous brick building at San Francisco’s Pier 70, along a postindustrial stretch of waterfront. Shipbuilders occupied the 130,000-square-foot facility in the late 1800s, but today Uber uses it to tinker with self-driving cars, flying taxis, and, most recently, scooters.
In the past several months, Uber has announced plans to integrate bike- and scooter-sharing services on its app, an acknowledgment that cars aren’t always the best form of urban transport. Now the company has quietly begun engineering its own scooter, say people familiar with the plans, which haven’t been previously reported. Jump Bikes, which Uber acquired in April for more than $100 million, is overseeing the project.