Ford Motor Co. unveiled a two-pronged future this week, with its gasoline-powered and electrical companies divided into two new enterprise items.

Do two-wheeled autos match into that imaginative and prescient? Not a lot. Amid the brand new structural developments introduced this week, Ford quietly bought its electrical bike and scooter division, Spin, to European micromobility operator Tier Mobility AG.

Phrases of the transaction weren’t disclosed.

Ford had acquired Spin for $100 million in November 2018, a time when the automaker wished to discover new branches of mobility and scooter startups proliferated.

Together with the shuttering of ride-sharing service Chariot in 2019, the Spin sale and its EV-minded overhaul all affirm Ford’s imaginative and prescient of mobility stays one centered on personally owned cars.

Spin’s operations throughout the U.S. give Tier its first foothold in North America. The corporate says it operates in roughly 410 cities with a fleet of 250,000 autos. With the acquisition of Spin, it now has a worldwide community of 520 cities and 300,000 autos.

Tier’s imaginative and prescient for the mixed operations is one which’s decidedly completely different for the transportation panorama.

“Each corporations consider in a partnership-first strategy, working with staff relatively than contractors, and serving to get individuals out of vehicles by providing sustainable, equitable and protected micromobility providers,” Spin CEO Ben Bear stated in a written assertion.

Berlin-based Tier will quickly embark on investing and modernizing Spin’s fleet, with plans so as to add swappable batteries to e-bikes and scooters throughout the fleet.

The acquisition marks the newest main improvement for Tier, which closed a $200 million collection D funding spherical in October. Final 12 months, Tier acquired Italian market chief Wind Mobility and German competitor Nextbike.

Tier, based in 2018, says it has raised $660 million in fairness and debt since its inception. Its traders embody SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund 2, Mubadala Capital, Northzone, Goodwater Capital and others.

Ford acquired San Francisco-based Spin at a time when the micromobility firm had operations in 13 cities throughout the U.S., and when the corporate’s e-scooters price $1 to hire and 15 cents per minute. The corporate noticed a possibility to assist individuals on journeys that have been three miles or much less.

“All over the place you look across the U.S., individuals’s mobility decisions are altering,” Sunny Madra, then-vice president of Ford X, the corporate’s inside startup accelerator and incubator, wrote on the time of the acquisition. “In crowded and congested cities, particularly, many are reconsidering their transportation choices.”

With 4 years of hindsight, it now appears, no less than from Ford’s perspective, these issues nonetheless exist — however these choices are primarily between inside combustion engines and electrical powertrains for conventional cars.