NEW YORK, April 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. announced Sunday that it is removing several thousand electric pedal-assist bikes in New York, Washington D.C. and San Francisco following reports of braking problems.
"We recently received a small number of reports from riders who experienced stronger than expected braking force on the front wheel," read a service update blog post published on the websites of all three affected bike-sharing services.
"Out of an abundance of caution, we are proactively removing the pedal-assist bikes from service for the time being," it said, stressing "reliability and safety come first."
These electric pedal-assist bikes will be "quickly replaced" by classic pedal bikes, it added.
About 3,000 of such bikes were affected by the service removal, while the company still operates some 17,000 traditional bikes in the three cities, Reuters reported.
In November, Lyft acquired the United States' largest bike-sharing service operator Motivate, the owner of New York's Citi Bike, Washington D.C.'s Capital Bikeshare and bike-share services in some other major U.S. cities.
The acquisition is perceived by many as a move to fend off competition from Lyft's archrival Uber Technologies Inc. after the latter purchased electric bike-sharing startup JUMP Bikes months earlier.
