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Bird scooters roll into Mexico City and Brazil

Bird scooters roll into Mexico City and Brazil

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First Latin American foray for dockless scooters

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Photo by Andy Hawkins / The Verge

Bird’s dockless, electric scooters are now available in Latin America. The startup announced Friday that its rolling into Mexico City, and will soon be launching in Brazil.

To start out, Bird will drop 100 scooters in Mexico City’s La Condesa, Nápoles, Polanco, and Reforma neighborhoods. But the scooters won’t be geofenced to those neighborhoods. Like it does in its other markets, Bird’s staff of independent contractors will collect all scooters each evening for charging and maintenance.

Bird hasn’t received explicit permission from Mexico City’s local government to operate scooters, but the city is home to other dockless scooter companies like Grin. “Bird operates in accordance with all of the laws and regulations on the books in every city in which we operate,” a spokesperson said, when asked what permission the company has received from local regulators. “We look forward to working with city and community leaders to help Mexico City reach its goals of getting cars off the road and reducing traffic congestion.”

Mexico City represents Bird’s fifth city outside the US; the company operates its e-scooters in Paris, Brussels, Tel Aviv, and Vienna. Bird has been scaling aggressively since its launch in Santa Monica, California, a little over a year ago.

The scooter rental startup was valued at $2 billion after a $300 million round of financing earlier this year. Earlier this week, Bird unveiled its new, more ruggedized scooter that it says is more capable of handling heavy fleet use.