Can a Parisian electric moped be Uber cool?

The short version:

Uber is adding electric moped to its sharing service.
They have partnered with French startup Cityscoot, and will offer the service starting in Paris later this month.
Currently, Cityscoot has around 4,000 scooters in Paris.
Each ride costs around 29 cents per minute, with the payment charged automatically to the rider’s Uber account.
This is the first time Uber has included electric mopeds in their app.

Uber is doing its best to maintain market reputation and share, and adding electric moped is a great way to do that. The good thing is that there isn’t much risk for cannibalization here. There are times when a scooter makes sense, times when a moped is better, and times when you want to hail a car. As far as expansion, I’m sure there will be a line of companies willing to get their hardware on the Uber app.

One potential problem is that a moped is a more complicated piece of machinery than a scooter or a bicycle. What happens when there is a crash because the brakes failed? Or a tire goes flat? Who’s a fault? Who pays for damages? Is Uber setting itself up for a pile of lawsuits?