What Is a Lime Juicer?
A Lime Juicer is an independent contractor who charges Lime’s electric scooter in exchange for a fee.
Electric scooter services are popular ways for people to get around big cities. However, with so many people using them, scooters running out of electricity could be a big problem for the service’s usability.
To solve this issue, Lime pays people to find scooters that need to be charged, pick them up, charge them, and return them to a specific location.
This flexible service offers income for the Juicer and helps Lime keep its e-scooter fleet ready for customers to rent.
How the Lime Scooter Charger Gig Works
As a Lime Juicer, most of your work will be made up of charging tasks, which you can accept as it fits your schedule.
These tasks involve picking up (otherwise known as “harvesting”) scooters from the street and bringing them back to your home to fully charge.
You’re paid to use the electricity in their own homes to charge the scooters and release them the next morning.
Once each scooter reaches at least a 95% charge, or by 7 a.m. the next morning, you’ll need to drop off (or “serve”) the scooters to a LimeHub to receive your payout.
LimeHubs are areas where electric scooters are stored for consumer use.
Throughout this entire process, Uber scooter chargers work off their smartphones, on the Juicer mode of their Lime app. This app allows them to find scooters, unlock scooters by scanning QR codes, track each scooter’s charge, and find LimeHub locations.
In some cases, you may also find retrieval and deployment tasks on your Lime app. These do not require you to charge Lime scooters.You’ll simply get paid for picking up and dropping off scooters around the specific areas of the city.
Other Questions to Understand
Here are a few of the most commonly asked questions regarding Lime Juicer.
How Much Charge Does a Scooter Need to Have to Count?
Lime requires Juicers to charge the scooter to at least 95% full before returning it to the LimeHub, ensuring the scooters have enough charge to service customers throughout the day.
If you want to receive prompt payment, it’s a good idea to double-check that all your scooters are charged at least 95% before dropping them off.
How Do You Find Scooters?
Finding scooters to pick up is easy with the Lime app.
Open the app and navigate to the map page.
This page will show you all the scooters available for pick up in your area. You can zoom out or zoom in to get a better idea of each scooter’s location and which route would be best for you to take.
Lime has also introduced a feature that allows you to reserve scooters you want to pick up, so other Juicers can’t swipe them before you get there, which is to help reduce some of the more aggressive Juicers.
Next, you can use your phone’s navigation to find each scooter.
The scooter won’t always be exactly where the marker is, so you may need to search before finding it.
Where Do You Charge the Scooters?
You should be charging the scooters at your home using Lime’s scooter charger. The charger plugs into regular wall outlets.
What Time Do Lime Juicers Work?
Before becoming a Lime Juicer, you should know whether this side gig could fit into your schedule. Thankfully, being a Lime Juicer is one of the most flexible services available.
When Do You Pick Up the Scooters?
Lime Juicers can pick up scooters whenever they see one on the app that needs charging. However, check the app after 9 pm, and you may find some other scooters Lime would like charged for the next day.
When Do You Drop Off the Scooters?
Lime requires Juicers to drop the scooters off at a specific location by 7 am the next day.
This drop-off time ensures they’re ready for customers to pick up and rent. This time is often convenient for people who commute to work and want to drop off the scooters on the way.
How Much Do Lime Juicers Make?
Most Lime Juicers make about $5 per scooter that they complete a task for. This payment can sometimes be higher (usually up to $12 per scooter) based on location and demand. Weekends often lead to increases in the base pay.
A Dallas reporter asked Jeff Roberts, the Operations Manager of Limebike, how much Lime Juicers make and he responded, “They get paid between five and 12 dollars per night, per scooter.
They could go and pick up 10 if they can charge that number of scooters every night.” Roberts continues, “So they could make anywhere from $50 to $100 a night just for picking up and charging scooters.”
It’s common for Lime Juicers to make a decent $20 to $30 per hour.
Of course, keep in mind that you’re responsible for all your expenses as an independent contractor — though most business-related expenses are tax-deductible.
Lime Juicer Requirements
If the Lime juicing gig sounds like a great fit for you, the next step is taking a look at Lime scooter charger requirements, so you know if you’re eligible.
To qualify as a Lime Juicer, you must:
- Be at least 18 years old
- Have a valid U.S. driver’s license
- Have a Social Security number
- Own a vehicle that can store at least one scooter
- Own a smartphone that works with the iPhone app (iOS 10.0 or later) or Android app (Android 4.4 or later)
Still, this gig is incredibly easy to qualify for and doesn’t even require a background check, since you’re not providing a direct service to consumers.
Though large vehicles — such as SUVs, trucks, and vans — are preferred, as they allow you to save time while harvesting a large amount of scooters at once, pretty much any standard car will do. scooters charged and dropped off. There’s no waiting.
Does Lime Juicing/harvesting earnings come under TAX preview ?
They have started service in Vienna/Austria since some weeks.
Why would it be different to any other freelance job? You have certain amounts you can make per month where you don’t have to pay tax. If you’re above that you will have to pay tax. As if there is any (legal) job that can be tax free..
Beware the price of electricity. $.28/kWh in northern California for example (so high, it is cheaper to fuel a comparable gas car than an electric).
It’s not a monthly amount- it’s a yearly amount…
If you are a freelancer, the amount of money you need to earn and to file a tax return is $400. Yes. That is not a misprint. It is $400.
To be clear, this is not true of the group of people who call themselves freelancers and who are paid on W-2’s. It is true for the freelancers who get paid for the whole amount they earn, do not have any taxes withheld, and have or should have their income declared on a 1099.
Why is the number $400? While you may not owe any income taxes, as a freelancer, you must pay self-employment taxes in addition to regular income taxes. Self-employment taxes start if you earn $400 or more. Therefore you must file a tax return if you gross $400 or more.
If you have business expenses that should be taken into account, do not expect the IRS to know that. You must file a Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ that indicate your expenses. That way it may be that you don’t owe any self-employment taxes.
For example, you earned $5600 as a freelancer but you had $5300 of expenses. Your net is $300. As a result, you wouldn’t owe any taxes, either income taxes or self-employment taxes. You must, however, file your returns because you grossed $400 or more. If you don’t, you could well get a letter from the IRS with a bill and a request for an explanation for why you shouldn’t owe this money. I believe it’s better to file the return and avoid the correspondence.
If you earned $5600 and had $4600 of expenses, your net is $1000. You wouldn’t owe any income taxes but you would owe self-employment taxes and would have to file a tax return.
I found this to be true with Bird last summer, I’m sure the same goes with Lime: Their business model (for lack of a better phrase) is totally F’d up and it promotes hoarding. This is how they should be doing it:
Rather than having designated times of day for charging and for riding, it should all be 24/7. Once a scooter gets below a X% charge (say 5-10%) it gets locked and can no longer be used to ride (though, obviously not in the middle of a ride.) But it becomes available to charge. A Juicer comes along, picks it up, and brings it home to charge. Once it is fully charged, they can immediately release it back out to be ridden.
This method does several things: 1. It discourages hoarding. 2. It creates a high rate of scooter turnover so they are actually available for people to ride. 3. It allows people who might need them at night more options. 4. It allows Juicers to actually have their own schedule (since they can do it any time of day.) 5. It allows scooters to be on the streets for a longer period of time (many of the scooters I found were still at 60-75% charge.) 6. Either the company pays out less total across the board ($5-7 per scooter rather than $10-15 or even $20 due to hoarding) or they pay the same amount total, but the whole system is more efficient.
It really makes me wonder about the people who started these companies. Like how did these ideas not come up during the planning phases? It’s not rocket science. And obviously the technology exists to lock and unlock the scooters remotely, that’s how the whole thing works.
Edit: Lime is SO much better than Bird. The only complaint I have is that they still have the business model where if you don’t Serve them between 4 and 7 am, you don’t get the full payout, but I’ve earned $125 since May 5th (plus the $30 I’ll get for the ones I just served.) I’ve done 29 in five days, so it’ll probably be pretty easy to hit whatever that bonus number is (though I haven’t seen anything in their communications mentioning a bonus, so that may have only been a limited deal.) One more complaint: Their app sucks when it comes to Serving. It crashes constantly. But overall it’s been a pretty good experience…
They sent a link to their shopify for Lime and they want $19.00 per charger! How are people getting 4 chargers for $20 and promo codes to make them free?
Same here – the chargers are $19 each plus $6 shipping
Ah… Completely untrue. (a) Electricity cost in CA is around $0.18/kWh, and (b) even a 100 kWh Tesla would only cost $18 to charge from completely empty, whereas a comparable gas car would cost $60 to fill up.
Au contraire mon ami. I take it you don’t actually pay a California electric bill because I am looking at mine and Tier 1 is $0.21/kWh, Tier 2 is $0.28 and Tier 3 is (I think, this bill did not reach that) $0.32.
Tier 1 only lasts until you use some electricity, you know, as a car charging customer is likely to do. Additionally, rates are expected to rise another 10% at least very soon to pay for the utilitiy’s negligence and murder convictions.
As for cost comparisons, until this most recent gas spike, it was cheaper to drive a comparable gas car vs my Leaf, I cannot help that this is not your desired outcome but it is indeed true. It is still true if you are comparing a Camry Hybrid for example but you check that yourself at fueleconomyDOTgov, click around and ‘Personalize’ the fuel costs. Cost parity of my Leaf vs the comparably ineffiecient but like-sized Nissan Sentra happens to be 3.25/gallon. A Toyota Camry Hybrid LX (a nice car btw) beats them all, including your Tesla P100 out of the water, even at $4/gallon. NONE of this includes charger losses (~10%), or monthly transmission and distribution fees ($23) and taxes (5%) on the electric bill.
So no, what I wrote is completely true whether you like it or not.
a) You might consider asking PG&E how to better manage your baseline rate. I think if you manage time of use you should be able to stay in tier 1, even with an EV.
b) If you own your home, you also might look into solar panels. Rooftop is now at grid parity in most states.
c) The Camry has an MPG of 52. The Tesla 3 has an MPGe of 133. That’s according to fueleconomyDOTgov.
a) The night time charging plan has a daytime rate of $.42 (last I looked) and makes no sense if you need to use electricity during the day.
b)I happen to own about 19kw of solar, none of it on the house I live because I rent it. Lots and lots of peole rent and will not have that option.
c)An irrelevant comparison as we are talking COSTS. fueleconomyDOTgov has tools to input local fuel costs. Try it, you will be surprised, that Camry Hybrid becomes very attractive.
a) You might want to call them about this.
b) As I said, “If you own your home.”
c) Just ran the fueleconomyDOTgov comparison of the 2019 hybrid Camry vs 2019 Model 3. Results:
Cost to drive 25 miles, Camry = $1.57, Model 3 = $0.83
Check emails from them the promo code is there. (atleast it was for me)
But you have to wait 6 to 8 hours to fully charge and even longer if you are waiting for another Tesla to charge up, say at the mall or other public charging areas. With my gas car I fill up and back on the road in 5 minutes. Time is money in this world ya know.
While your idea might help prevent hoarding it would discourage juicers as a whole. Imagine how annoying it would be to drive all the way downtown only to have a small amount of scooters available at a time. It would suck especially if you like to grab 20-30 scooters at a time; it would mean you would have to stand there all day. Releasing them at night gives juicers a more set and stable schedule as they know they will find scooters to charge in high amounts…
Do what I did. Buy solar AND drive an electric car. The overnight rate from my electric company is $.15 per kWh but my electric company credits me the entire amount that is billed between midnight and 6 a.m. so in essence i pay nothing for charging during those hours. So, I have never paid a penny for charging my electric car.
While solar does cost to install I have paid zero dollars since my panels were installed in January for my electric usage. They only thing i pay my electricity provider is $20.46 which is the connection charge that ALL customers pay, AND in January they will rebate me for all of the power that my solar panels created and were put back into the electrical grid. Can’t wait for that check.
Thanks for the heads up. One of the big mistakes I see people make when they sign up to charge Lime scooters is that they don’t fully understand the price of electricity in their areas. Great point here.
That’s what I would suggest too. Oftentimes they’ll give you a code that either gives them to you at a discount or completely free. I think this is true especially in cities where they need chargers. The discount code reduces the barrier to entry
Great suggestions here, especially in regards to scooter hoarding. That’s a big issue and can definitely have a big impact on the income that Lime scooter chargers earn.
In the company’s defense, they did grow so rapidly that it puts to shame the growth trajectory of most other companies in the past. When you have a PO box as an address instead of a physical one because you’re growing so fast, that says something. I’ll give them a break – when you don’t have time to fully plan, planning small details sometimes fall through the cracks
As of current, Juicers make anywhere from $3-5 per scooter per charge. And with gas prices so high you’d think that they would help compensate, but LIME does not.
The new generation of Lime scooters use the same battery as the LimeBike. They can’t be charged with the old style chargers. And neither new scooter nor bike show up in the juicer app. Is Lime moving away from a freelance charging model?