Lyft Buys a Scooter Company, Bikes. Hires a Tesla Executive

Lyft plans to design its own electric scooters and bikes from the ground up, and has hired Liam O’Connor, who held top supply-chain jobs at Apple and Tesla, to lead the project. Lyft’s bikes and scooters team is still taking shape; its July deal to buy the U.S. bike-share leader, Motivate, still hasn’t closed. Lyft has also rolled out small scooter fleets in Washington, D.C., Denver and Santa Monica, Calif. Meanwhile, Ford is buying the e-scooter startup Spin for around $100 million.