Germany is seeing a surge in e-scooter use, with private consumers now supplying the momentum that rental fleets generated when the category first took off. Operators like Lime and Bolt are grappling with increasingly unfavorable business conditions as that shift continues.
The rental side of the market, by contrast, shrank.
That shift has changed the composition of e-scooter traffic in German cities. According to the GDV, more than 80% of e-scooters in the country are now privately owned, and private ownership has nearly tripled over the past four years. Insurers and regulators now face a market in which the majority of devices are privately owned and used without the corporate oversight that came with rental fleets.
The GDV's data confirms that e-scooter growth is now driven by privately-owned devices. Those vehicles are taking a different path from the shared scooters that made the machines popular, and their expansion kept going while rental operations shrank.
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Rental providers have been facing a much more difficult environment. Higher prices for riders, more frequent damage to scooters, stricter rules, and a wave of municipal prohibitions have all squeezed rental companies.
Those pressures have already produced major shakeouts. Bird Global Inc., an early industry leader set up by a one-time Uber Technologies Inc. executive, went bankrupt in late 2023. A year later, Tier Mobility SE needed emergency financing and, after months of trying, merged with Dott. One recent exception was last month, when the company behind Lime's scooters and bicycles completed an initial public offering.
Berlin has declined to copy other big European cities that have banned e-scooters, even though some residents object. Paris prohibited them in 2023, Madrid did the same in 2024, and Brussels has approved a prohibition that starts next year.
Accident numbers are rising alongside the popularity of e-scooters.
Germany's e-scooter crash tally climbed to 16,496 in the latest annual count, up almost 40%, with roughly half of those occurring in major cities.
The spread of privately owned scooters has widened Germany's road-safety discussion. Insurers point to climbing crash numbers and the growing share of privately owned scooters as evidence that clearer liability rules are needed. The result has been a push for regulatory changes.
The proposed rules come as accident numbers have climbed. In May, lawmakers introduced legislation designed to smooth the path for holding e-scooter companies accountable. The GDV said the measure would strengthen safeguards and improve compensation for people injured in accidents.
Anja Käfer-Rohrbach, a GDV deputy managing director, said, "It would therefore be an important contribution to greater safety and better compensation after accidents."
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