A collage of apps and services that are or have been available in the D.C. region.

Step outside in the D.C. region and you’re bound to see a few rentable vehicles. Cars, scooters, bikes and now mopeds abound.

It’s hard to keep track of all the startup companies coming and going (remember dockless bikes or car-sharing service Maven?) So we compiled a list of what’s available in the region.

Yes, each company requires you to download their app, which can lead to a crowded transportation folder on your iPhone.

You also have to turn on GPS location, scan your license (for most) and add a credit card. Prices vary and have been known to change with little notice. Usually, scooters and bikes cost a dollar to unlock and run 15 to 25 cents a minute. Most of the apps let you scan a QR code or use Bluetooth to unlock a vehicle.

Because there are 24 localities across two states and the District, each with their own rules, availability can vary.

Cars

Car2Go was the first free-floating car-sharing service in D.C. going back to 2012.

D.C. was an early adopter of car sharing as a means to help reduce traffic congestion and personal car ownership. Shared cars can be rented by the minute, hour or day. They can either be point-to-point meaning you can park them in any legal street parking spot or reserved space, which means you have to return the car to its designated spot. D.C. allows point-to-point companies to have 100 to 600 vehicles in the city.

Zipcar: The first of the modern wave of app-based vehicles, Zipcar launched in the pre-smartphone era — 2000. The reserved space car share says it has more than 950 vehicles in the region, including luxury sedans to trucks, vans, SUVs and hatchbacks.

Car2Go: The point-to-point car share launched in 2012 and started with tiny, two-seat Smart cars. It later added Mercedes sedans and crossovers. Daimler, which owns Mercedes, now fully owns the carshare company.

Free2Move: Chevy Equinox SUVs and Chevy Cruze sedans are the only vehicles offered by this point-to-point car share, which launched with 600 vehicles in the District and Arlington. It’s owned by Groupe PSA, the European company that owns the Peugeot, Citroen and Opel car brands.

Getaround: This is the Airbnb of cars, basically. While other services require you to meet in person to rent other people’s cars, Getaround allows you to unlock cars with your smartphone and the keys are in the vehicle. The peer-to-peer system launched here in 2015.

Bikes

JUMP Bikes are electric bikes owned by Uber. They arrived in D.C. in fall 2017.

Capital Bikeshare: Since 2010, the regional system has grown to serve five jurisdictions, with 500 stations and 4,300 bikes.

JUMP e-bikes: Owned by Uber, JUMP bikes are the only electric motor-boosted bike available in D.C. Capital Bikeshare had e-bikes for a few months before a similar model caught fire in another city, but they’re expected to come back at some point. JUMP bikes are only available in D.C.

Scooters

Ridehailing company Lyft launched a fleet of black-and-pink scooters in the District.

Shortly after their introduction in spring 2018, scooters replaced dockless bikes as the vehicle of choice in the District. Montgomery County, Arlington County, Fairfax City, Alexandria and Silver Spring all have scooter programs.  Each scooter company has similar models. Suspension, shock absorption and riding styles vary. Here’s how to tell the different scooters apart.

Lime: Green. One of the earliest scooter companies in the District.

Bird: Black and white. Uses its own app.

Skip: Blue and yellow. Temporarily taken off the streets after a battery fire on the streets and in a Skip warehouse. Also the first scooters on the scene last spring back when the company was known as “Waybots.”

Spin: Orange. Owned by Ford Motor Company.

Lyft: Pink, purple and black. Owned, as the name implies, by ride-hailing company Lyft.

JUMP: Red. Owned by Uber and rentable on the Uber app.

Bolt: Yellow. Uses its own app. These scooters have a split footboard so you ride with one foot on either side of the center of gravity. Olympic sprint Usain Bolt is an investor.

Mopeds

Revel says it’s bringing 400 mopeds to D.C.

Revel: The electric moped company launched in New York last year and came to the District in August 2019 as part of a four-month pilot. The sit-down scooters are similar to other Vespa-like scooters and must be driven only on local roads, not bike lanes or sidewalks.

What Left The Region

Maven car-sharing: Similar to Zipcar, Maven was owned by General Motors. It launched at the end of 2018, but quietly left the District and many other cities in May.

Ofo, Mobike, Lime, Spin dockless bikes: Launched in September 2017, dockless bikes are gone from the region, except for the electric JUMP bikes. Mobike cited D.C.’s pilot program cap as the reason it left. Ofo imploded after it tried to reorganize its efforts across the globe. You’ll sometimes see the bikes out and about. Some were sold as surplus.

What’s Not Available Yet

Cangaroo pogo sticks: Skeptics wondered if this was a massive troll, but people thought scooters were silly, too. This Swedish pogo stick startup is supposed to launch stateside in San Francisco this summer.

Wheels e-bikes are only in California so far, like these in Santa Monica.

Wheels: A pedal-less e-bike, Wheels is only in California so far. The company says, “We’re working closely with cities and their leaders to help make transportation easier and more environmentally friendly.”

Razor sit-down scooter: These are similar to the other electric scooters… except you can sit. And they have baskets.

Bird Cruiser: Not much is known about Bird’s new pedal-less e-bike. Bird says it will be “available in a few test markets this summer.”

https://twitter.com/JRogers202/status/1161966333048819712

Whatever this split-foot scooter thing is: Honestly, we don’t know what to call these, but it appears MPD use them.

Lutalo Madzimoyo is one of the founder of the D.C. meetup group, the Glydiators. The electric unicycle enthusiasts go on weekly rides around different parts of the region.

Electric unicycles/One Wheels/electric skateboards: none of these are available via app (that we can find) but there is a big hobbyist community around the vehicles.

This story originally appeared on WAMU.

Filed Under: transportation, wamu,