Jelly is a new electric scooter company preparing to launch at Purdue University in Indiana. Outwardly, it appears very similar to other scooter startups that have quickly spread across the country in the last 12 months. Except for one key difference: Jelly is apparently a subsidiary of Ford, one of the largest automakers in the world.
Ford wanted to stay anonymous at first
Of course, you wouldn’t know that by going to Jelly’s website, because there’s nothing there except the words “Coming Soon!” set against a purple background. Nor would you know it to read Purdue University’s announcement, which describes Jelly as “a campus-wide research project on best practices for using e-scooters,” but makes no mention of Ford.
Purdue’s eagle-eyed students discovered the truth soon enough. Sameer Kapur, a student at Purdue, was the first to notice the automaker’s involvement, tweeting that Jelly’s rental agreement contained contact information for Ford Smart Mobility LLC, the tech-focused subsidiary that spun off from Ford Motor Company in 2016.
1/ @Ford is entering the e-scooter rental business, through a subsidiary called
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