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Uber app will soon offer car rentals, electric bikes, and public transit services

Embattled ride-sharing company announces a trio of major expansions coming this year.
By
April 11, 2018
Uber bike
TL;DR
  • Uber is introducing e-bike, car rental, and public transit tickets to its primary app.
  • The ride-sharing company is rolling out the Uber Bike service in Washington, D.C. from today.
  • Uber Rent will launch in San Francisco later this month.

You’ll soon be able to rent cars, electric bicycles, and book trips on public transport using only the Uber app. The ride-sharing company’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, outlined his vision for Uber’s future at an event in Washington D.C. earlier today (via The Verge).

The expansion kicked off earlier this week after Uber announced that it had acquired bike-sharing startup Jump. The deal, rumored to have been worth over $100 million, means that Uber no owns 12,000 e-bikes spanning 40 cities across six countries, including the U.S. and U.K.

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Starting today, Uber users in Washington will be able to book dockless Jump bikes directly through the app. The service will appropriately be called Uber Bike.

Uber’s second major expansion relates to car rentals. Dubbed Uber Rent, app users will soon be able to rent cars for a short time thanks to the firm’s new partnership with car-sharing startup Getaround. Uber Rent will be introduced in San Francisco later this month, with a wider U.S. rollout expected throughout the year.

Finally, Uber is looking to cover as many transportation means as possible by offering public transit services directly through the Uber app. The scheme doesn’t appear to have a catchy name just yet (Uber Transit?), but we do know that it involves mobile ticketing company Masabi.

The London-based outfit provides paperless ticketing for over 30 transport operators around the world. These include New York’s MTA, Boston’s MBTA, Las Vegas’ RTC, Los Angeles’ Metrolink, and the National Express Bus and Thames Clippers in the U.K.

The three-pronged expansion represents a major step forward for a company that has been dogged by countless wide-ranging controversies for well over a year.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see if the new features and Uber’s generally more consumer-friendly outlook will be enough to convince the #DeleteUber crowd to come back to the fold.

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