Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT 🚙🚐
Grab published its (lukewarm) Q4 & 2023 results - highlights: in 2023 GMV grew 5% YoY to $21 billion; revenue up 65% to $2.39 billion; Q4 was the 1st ever profitable Q for Grab with $11M in profit; loss for 2023 is $485M. In 2024 the company expects circa 15% revenue growth and positive circa $190M Adjusted-EBITDA. For the earnings call deck.
Flix released a snippet of its 2023 report: 81 million travels to over 5,600 destinations; €2 billion revenue, growing 30% YoY; continent breakdown - Europe 57%, North America 30%, Turkey 9.5%; South America & India 3.5%. Flix is not a public company, so that’s all we have for now.
Uber partners with the ONDC network to integrate into the ONDC, initially for intercity bus ticketing and metro rail ticketing as a buyer application. This comes after Uber’s competitors Ola and Namma Yatri onboarded the network.
Bolt expands To Botswana, waving driver commission for the first 6 months. This is Bolt’s 14th African country, and in Botswana the company faces InDrive, which has been operating in the country for five years, and just now, on February 28th, together with Bolt’s launch, have started charging drivers a 10% commission. Bolt usually charges 15-20% commission - is InDrive signalling to drivers that, in the long run, it is the cheaper option, or did Bolt wait for InDrive to announce commission implementation and choose that date to launch? Readers who know please DM me.
Kakao Mobility faces severe penalties for alleged accounting fraud. The company collected 20% commission from taxis and identified all as revenue, but 16-17% were contractually returned to taxis for participation in marketing and advertising; the local financial regulator found that the company should have recognised as revenue only the 3-4%, i.e. Kakao inflated revenue. Hence the penalties.
Grab is working with the Philippine government to ease regulation and allow the company use of motorcycle taxis. Grab does operate car and food delivery services in the country. The authorised motorcycle taxis companies are Joyride, Angkas, and Move It… which was acquired by Grab back in August 2022. The founder/CEO of Angkas also supports easing of current regulation.
Marti, a Turkish mobility “super-app” offering micromobiity and ride-hailing services,integrates taxis into its platform. Freenow launch in Granada, its 11th Spanish city. zTrip debuts in Denver, its 36th city. Mana Yatri is a new Indian ride-hailing player on the ONDC platform launched in Hyderabad, coming from the same people who built Namma Yatri in Bengaluru.Uber launches ShareX, its shared ride-hailing service, in Warsaw.
Spare launch a microtransit service in Texas and a paratransit service in Ontario. Via launches its 3rd service in Sweden. Litango launches on-demand service for under-served Maori communities in New Zealand.
Asia Mobiliti launches SEA's first multimodal MaaS app with DRT in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. RideLink is a MaaS pilot launched in Vancouver, integrating Modo and Evo, two car-share solutions and the Mobi local bikeshare solution. The project is managed by movmi, and has been in the works from 2018. Whim, by MaaS Global, to be discontinued in Helsinki.
In Mexico, InDrive introduces driver loans. Average loan expected at $300, with interest rates close to the overall standard in the country - that being 46%... In Kenya, Bolt to finance over 1,000 vehicles. In Malaysia, InDrive partners with GoInsuran, digital insurance solution. Uber sues drivers’ insurer alleging its claims practices have fueled tort litigation. Watch the US insurance space - prices are sharply increasing, policies fail to cover and both Uber and Lyft are moving to captive (self) insurance.
RideTandem has achieved B-Corp certification. Freenow answers identity security regulation in Poland. Uber new “Teen” account feature - enabling monthly customised spending limits for parents and guardians.
Car Sharing/renting 🚗
German car-sharing industry report: 5.5 million users, up 23.1% YoY; 43,100 vehicles, up 27.1%; free-floating is the bigger category, with 4.5 million users (out of 5.5 million); 17.8% of cars are electric, versus roughly 2.7% in the general population; a total of 293 providers in Germany. That’s a simple average of 147 vehicles per operator, which sounds ripe for consolidation… big players are Miles, ShareNow and stadtmobil. For more.
Getaround management change - Eduardo Iniguez, a CFO by profession and the former CEO of HyreCar, which was sold to Getaround in mid-2023, becomes CEO. Jason Mudrick, founder and chief investment officer of Mudrick Capital, who led getaround’s $20M post-IPO debt raise back in January, is now Chairman of the Board. Earlier this year Getaround announced a 30% workforce reduction. We don’t have getaround’s 2023 financial reports yet, but do have unaudited Q3/23 numbers: in the nine months ending September, the company had $54M in revenue versus $128M in operating expenses (!!!) - that led to a $74M operating loss (and net loss of $80.5M). I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the words “Chapter 11”.
SBS Transit, Singapore public transport operator, and GetGo, car sharing, partner to offer last-mile public transport connectivity, utilising 400 GetGo cars which are parked under 10 minutes walk to selected statons.
GreenGo expands in Budapest and adds cargo vans. GreenGo has circa 500 vehicles and its revenue in 2022 was ±$2.7M, up 45% YoY; loss in 2022 was $1M. GoMore expands to Estonia. Wible, by Kia and Repsol, saw 17% increase in the number of trips in 2023 and achieved revenue of €6.6M in 2023, up 12% YoY, with a “very tight EBITDA”. Zoomcar welcomes SPARKCARS, EV fleet, to its car-sharing network, thus increasing available EVs. UFODRIVE and Stellantis Financial Services Europe partner; to begin with, Stellantis will pilot UFO’s SaaS platform in Belgium.
Micromobility 🚲🛴
Cityscoot, shared mopeds, acquired for €400k by Spanish rival Cooltra - after raising £80M. 0.4/80=0.5%. Cityscoot filed for insolvency back in November and has seen an attempt by the former founder/CEO to acquire it via a mix of crowdfunding and additional investors, which was not favoured by the court. Cityscoot, which operates next to Cooltra and Yego in Paris, has roughly ⅔ of the market.
Yulu, Indian shared electric motorbikes, raise $19.25M; funds will be used for additional expansion. Traficar - Polish car-sharing leader with 5,000 shared cars - plans to launch micromobility services in Q2/24. Nextbike deployed 1,860 out of 7,000 e-bikes in 8 out of 31 cities in Poland. Seat shuts down shared motorcycle service in Barcelona due to poor profitability.
Delivery 🍽🧺
Just Eat Takeaway FY23 results - highlights: GTV -6% YoY to €26.4 billion, mostly attributed to weaker US (Grubhub) performance; revenue down 7.1% YoY to €5.17 billion; Adjusted-EBITDA €324M from €19M in 2022; cash-flow-positive in H2/23; net loss improved 67% to €1.85 billion. 2024 outlook: a near 40% rise in 2024 core profit and €450M adjusted-EBITDA.
Delivery Hero announces termination of foodpanda’s sale talks with Grab. It seems that Grab is confident of its ability to win the market without the foodpanda acquisition.
Glovo (by Delivery Hero) is facing crushing government fines over unaccrued social security contributions, stemming from the Spanish government classifying gig-economy workers as entitled to those benefits. Glovo, who reported losses of more than €420M in 2022 and €209M in 2023, is under pressure to pay the Labour Authority a fine of circa €205M, in a move that could break the company.
Everli sees an injection of €21M from recent buyer and welcomes Jonathan Hannestad as CEO, after he left his COO role at Micromobility.com.
Wolt launches in Luxemburg; this is the brand’s 26th country. Keeta to launch takeaway services in Hong Kong. In Italy, Glovo launches 30-min grocery deliveries with Carrefour. UberEats, Cartken and Mitsubishi Electric to launch autonomous delivery bots in Tokyo, Japan. Zepto is launching its subscription program - Zepto Pass - allowing discounts of up to 20%. Swiggy already has a similar loyalty program.
In Saudi Arabia, Careem partners with RedBox, parcel locker network, to introduce scheduled home delivery service. UberEats and Domino’s partner in Kenya. DoorDash partners with Pet Supplies in the US. Los Angeles County sues Grubhub for unfair business practices and false advertising
Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡
Apple’s autonomous electric car project - nicknamed “Titan” - is now cancelled. The Titan team had some 1,400 members, and hundreds are likely to be laid off. It makes sense for Apple to cancel the project - the world has changed much since Apple launched the project in 2015 - autonomous technology is farther than thought, and past years have shown how difficult it is to manufacture EVs. In addition, Apple was never able, or willing, to partner with an OEM to be able to pull through. So despite racking up autonomous miles in the past years, and past pivots, Apple has now shut it down.
The CPUC, California’s regulator, authorises Waymo’s expansion into the San Francisco Peninsula and to parts of Los Angeles. This decision came with opposition from local government, and just 11 days after the CPUC declared a 120 days application suspension, which turned out to be “a ceiling, not a floor”.
Cruise is preparing to resume autonomous public road operations, aiming to launch in Texas. Expect a slow return, with no commercial operations and a safety driver on-board.
Haomo.ai raises $14M in Series B for autonomous driving tech, bringing total funding to ±$150M. Haomo.ai develops L2 ADAS for passenger cars, also selling to Great Wall, one of the current investors; and L4 tech for logistics use-cases.
Motional lays off 5% of employees, circa 70 people. Motional is/was a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv; the latter announcing last month that it is discontinuing investment in the JV. Motional now is looking to raise.
Waymo snowy weather testing in Buffalo. Waymo can’t get out of a parking lot. Daxing airport, Beijing, approves WeRide, Baidu and Pony.ai for robotaxis rides. Kodiak partners with Martin Brower for interstate autonomous refrigerated freight. Einride partners with GE for autonomous logistic deliveries in the US. Vay on the reason it concentrates efforts in the US: favourable regulation. German-found & bases Vay now runs teledriven car-sharing services in Las Vegas, with a fleet of 15 vehicles.
Flying cars 🚁
Archer Aviation’s Q4 & FY23 shareholder letter - highlights: building three more certification-conforming prototypes and aiming to complete 400 test flights in 2024; building manufacturing plant ready to produce 650 units annually; first deliveries expected in 2025; strong liquidity with $625M in cash; operating expenses in 2023 $446.9M; order book is up to $3.5 billion for 700 units from the US, India and the UAE.
Archer also wants to lead a change in the industry - On the investor call Adam Goldstein, the founder/CEO, said “We’ve decided to embrace the term ‘flying cars’, because to make urban air mobility accessible to the general public, we need to bring the future of transportation into today’s reality”. I couldn’t agree more - I’ve been calling this section “flying cars” since I started following the industry.
Joby Aviation’s Q4 & FY23 results - highlights: Q4 saw Joby sign exclusivity in Dubai and pilot a manned flight in NYC; the company completed stage 3 (of 5) and plans to have commercial services in 2025; first-ever revenue from the work with the US Air Force; $1 billion in cash and short term investments, and operating expenses of $344M. For the complete FY23 report.
Vertical Aerospace founder/CEO, Stephen Fitzpatrick, injects $50M into the company as equality investment; in addition, the company was awarded a £8M grant from the UK government.
Lilium partnered with PhilJets to bring eVTOLs to the Philippines; an MOU between the companies will initially bring 10 Lilium Jets into the region. Lilium launches its customer service organisation - responsible for battery management, maintenance, flight operations, training, and digital solutions. Lilium partnered with Star Charge to develop and provide charging systems for its Lilium Jets; Lilium initial order is 120 chargers. Wisk Aero partners with Sugar Land airport to bring vertiport infrastructure to Houston, Texas. EHang video of 12 vehicles flying in sync.
We probably won’t see air-taxis in the Paris Olympics; regulation isn’t ready.
OEMs 🛺⚡️
Rivian lays off 10% of its workforce. In 2024 the company expects to lose roughly $2.7 billion while continuing investing in new and current manufacturing facilities and go-to-market operations. Rivian released its Q$ & FY23 results - highlights: produced 57,232 vehicles, delivered 50,122 vehicles and recorded revenue of $4.4 billion; improved gross profit by $81K per unit, yet still losing $43,372 per unit. Rivian has enough cash to last ±6 quarters, and Elon Musk recommends Rivian “need to cut costs massively and the exec team needs to live in the factory or they will die”.
Fisker is laying off 15% of staff, roughly 200 people, and warns it doesn’t have enough money to last the year. To increase revenue quicker, the company is pivoting from direct sales to a dealership model. To keep the company alive, Fisker is in discussions with Nissan concerning a $400M investment.
Rivian and Fisker aren’t the only EV manufacturers with challenges - Lucid expects to sell only 9,000 vehicles in 2024. Polestar, out from Volvo Cars but still with the backing of Geely, secured $950M in external funding from 12 international banks.
Gig economy 💰
Uber and Lyft have renewed their threats to leave Minneapolis if the new pay ordinance comes into effect. The latest council proposal is a minimum pay of $1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute while transporting a passenger within city limits. Uber and Lyft proposed a $1.17 per mile, 34-cent-per-minute pay. This pay disagreement has been going back over a year - and been vetoed twice - and probably be vetoed again, as he state is working out its own research to determine the “right” pay.
In Finland, the court finds Wolt’s couriers - entrepreneurs. The court concluded that the courier's ability to delegate / subcontract tasks, the absence of fixed working hours and the courier's discretion in accepting work, all differ them from traditional employees.
GoPuff is partnering with Robinhood to offer its delivery workers access to Robinhood Retirement For Independent Workers. It is Robinhood, not GoPuff, that matches worker contributions. China is updating regulation over gig-employment, to ensure that workers' salaries match local minimum wages, and provide them with time off. In Washington State, families of drivers working for TNCs such as Uber and Lyft will receive enhanced survivor death benefits.
In other news 📰
EIT is opening a new “investment round” - see here how to apply.
Lego real car. Fake bus stations in Germany.
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