Spin launched a fleet of 100 scooters in D.C. on Thursday,

/ Courtesy of Spin

Spin, a “micro-mobility” company recently acquired by Ford, launched a new fleet of e-scooters in the District Friday, joining four other one-named scooter companies that are currently operating in the city.

The new orange scooters cost $1 to unlock, plus 15 cents for every minute thereafter.

Spin originally came to D.C. in the fall of 2017 as a dockless bike operator, one of the first companies to launch under the D.C. Department of Transportation’s dockless vehicle pilot program. But as with some of its competitors, Spin announced over the summer that it would soon transition from bicycles to an e-scooter fleet. The launch was originally slated for November 15, but it was delayed by a day amid the snow.

Before Spin, ridehailing company Lyft was the most recent operator to jump on the scooter bandwagon. Lime, Bird, and Skip also offer scooters, and Uber-owned Jump has a fleet of e-bikes on the road.

The District finally announced permanent regulations earlier this month governing dockless vehicles that will go into effect in 2019. The new rules allow for companies to have more vehicles–increasing the limit from 400 to 600–but they now must cap scooter speeds to 10 miles per hour.

The new rules have several companies grumbling.

Bird sent a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser asking her to intervene, saying the cap on vehicles will “render it impossible for any provider to serve the D.C. community.” Lime is asking its users to lobby Bowser and DDOT directly in a bid to raise the limit. The standard letter they suggest writing, as captured by Brian McEntee, reads in part: “In a city of nearly 700,00 people, it makes no sense to impose a cap of 400 vehicles per company. Raise the cap to 20,000 vehicles in the 2019 permit.”

Spin is taking a different tack, instead focusing on the speed limit.

“We see no problems in having operators capped at 600 vehicles in DC while the city understands demand and usage in service areas,” the company said in a statement. “That said, we think that a 10mph speed limit for electric scooters is the wrong way to address the District’s safety concerns about electric scooters–and may actually deter usage of an electric vehicle that is designed to quickly take people their first- and last-mile.”

The company placed about 100 scooters on the streets in D.C. today, and aims to reach the current 400 cap by the end of the year.