Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT 🚙🚐
Uber and Waymo strengthen partnership, launching together in Atlanta and Austin early 2025. A joint service has been running in Phoenix since October 2023, side-by-side to Waymo’s “Waymo One” own ride-hailing service. In Atlanta and Austin, Uber will have exclusivity over demand, i.e. no “Waymo One”. The partnership will see Uber responsible for the fleet management / operations side of the business.
Waiting to find out how the service will be priced vs. a human-driven Uber service, and if / by how much would Lyft’s market share in those two cities be negatively affected.
Studio Galilei, Korean 🇰🇷DRT player, analysed its VARO (the name for its commercial DRT scheme) service: Q1/24 in Naju city, Q2/24 in Changwon city and Q2/24 in Ceonan city - three different reports. In Q2/24, VARO is active in 24 service areas across South Korea, with 96 vehicles, ±85,000 monthly passengers and over 680K cumulative passengers. Each (very detailed) report looks at one city and a number of different services at a time, so no key takeaways available - but this is a must read for those in DRT.
Spare completes its Series B, raising a total of $42M CAD (±$30.8 USD) to promote paratransit solutions. Spare is the 2nd largest global DRT player - would this allow Spare to create a gap between close competitors Padam and ioki?
Cabify to exit Mexico 🇲🇽. "Cabify's business model,... has not worked as expected in the Mexican market and no future opportunities have been identified". In 2023, Cabify brought in a total of $900M in revenue and $111M in gross profits.
Bolt partnered with a Kenyan 🇰🇪 financing company to deploy 1,500 vehicles. My thoughts on how vehicle financing is used to control supply in developing markets.
Nigeria 🇳🇬: Bolt increases base fare by 15%, citing high fuel costs. This follows a 10% increase in August. Bolt had to raise prices, or it would have experienced supply shortage or at least a “driver self setting” price mechanism, similar to the one in Kenya. InDrive introduces a car-branding campaign, pays N50,000 (±$30.5) per car per month.
In India 🇮🇳, Namma Yatri reaches 50 million trips milestone and $100M in revenue generated while the ONDC is growing; FlixBus partners with AbhiBus to expand its reach in the Southern part of the country; and Uber faces supply shortage citing high asset ownership costs as a key barrier.
In Vietnam 🇻🇳, following Gojek’s departure, local players are rising to take advantage of the opportunity. Market share in Vietnam: Grab leads with 42%, followed by Be, GSM and Gojek with 32%, 19%, and 7%, respectively.
Taxi drivers in Ireland 🇮🇪 are worried they may owe VAT on commissions paid to Uber. Lately, drivers found out that Uber does not pay and collect taxes, unlike the way that Freenow and Bolt operate in the country. In Dubai 🇦🇪. BluSmart partners with ATS Travel, a business travel company. InDrive is trying to get price bidding into Malaysia 🇲🇾. In Singapore 🇸🇬, supply is growing more than demand, and drivers see reduced earnings. London’s 🇬🇧 black cab numbers are at a 40 year low; ride-hailing competition, asset costs and the very tough TfL knowledge test all contribute to the dwindling demand for new licences. Tesla integrates Uber’s navigation and ride-sharing directly into the vehicle.
Wayla 🇮🇹 receives REN certificate - plan to launch their evening travel solution in October in Milan. WeMove operates many DRT schemes in the UK 🇬🇧 - the company analysed data to find over-reliance on 16-seater vehicles, and recommends a mix of 16, 9-seater vehicles and local taxis.
Car Sharing/renting 🚗
Zoomcar partners with Mappls MapmyIndia 🇮🇳, a navigation app similar to Google Maps or Moovit, to integrate Zommcar’s services into the Mappls MaaS app.
Malta-based Rentout is launching a car sharing platform in the West Balkans. George Webb, former RAC director, joins Hiyacar 🇬🇧 as executive chair. Greenwheels in Nijverdal, Netherlands 🇳🇱.
Micromobility 🚲🛴
In the Paris 🇫🇷 Olympics, Tier-Dott’s 15K e-bikes achieved 1,000,000 rides in the period between 26 July – 8 September. That adds up to 1.5 rides per day per bike. There were 3.3 million travel kilometres, a 90% increase compared with the same period in 2023. Interestingly, only 10% of the 500,000 users were new users. To facilitate the massive increase in demand, Segway increased the presence of ground teams to take care of battery swapping and malfunctions.
As part of the restructuring announced last week, Lyft is ending dockless scooters and bikes in Denver 🇺🇸. Lyft is one of two micromobility operators in the city, together with Lime, and the city is figuring out contingency plans for the over 20,000 micromobility trips a day that residents and tourists take.
Ryde Technology is one of the largest micromobility players in Scandinavia, operating over 40,000 scooters in 39 cities 🇳🇴🇸🇪🇫🇮. In 2023 the company reported positive EBITDA of €11.4M, from revenue of €27.7M. Lime launches in Vancouver 🇨🇦. Lime working with Brent (a London 🇬🇧 borough) to keep operations. Cooltra completed the integration with felyx 🇳🇱🇧🇪.
Delivery 🍽🧺
Uber Freight and Uber Direct, Uber's on-demand delivery as a service, integrate to increase efficiencies and service quality.
KeeTa, by Meituan, officially launches in Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦. KeeTa will compete against the likes of HungerStation by Delivery Hero and local Jahez.
In South Korea 🇰🇷, Yogiyo launches South Korea’s first autonomous delivery robots operation, in partnership with Neubility. Robots travel 1.2 km from restaurant, at a top speed of 5.76 km/h. And Kakao partners with Hoban, a construction company, and with Bear Robotics, to introduce robot services in apartment buildings and resorts.
Zomato 🇮🇳 now delivers food to train passengers at 100 train stations. This is an expansion of a pilot beginning in 2023.
Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡
Nuro pivots from running its own operations to licensing self-driving tech to carmakers and mobility companies. Nuro now has 2 go-to-market strategies: (1) offering L4 autonomous software & AV hardware to goods delivery and passenger mobility services, but would not build the robots; and (2) working with OEMs and Tier players to build autonomous vehicles, from L2 to L4.
Is this the Tesla robotaxi? This picture was taken nearby to the location in which Musk will reveal its new robotaxi solution on October 10th.
Mobileye to end Lidar development. Are Lidars critical to autonomous systems (Musk says no) - remains an open question. Mobileye did note that it intends to procure Lidars from suppliers, yet the market is unsure of the long term necessity of Lidars.
Self-driving wheelchairs in Schiphol 🇳🇱 airport, built by WHILL. A 10-vehicle pilot will run for a year, free for Travellers. Aurrigo completes autonomous trial in Scotland 🏴. TuSimple tries to pivot from self-driving trucks to AI gaming… the company is trying to move all assets to China, investors are (very) not happy, leading to lawsuits over roughly $450M in cash that is still in the US.
A unique court case - a woman is trialled for allegedly killing two men while recklessly driving a Ford while DUI and in BlueCruise mode - i.e. hands off. Defence is blaming BlueCruise. Super interesting case, which could have major consequences on partial-autonomy use cases. TBD.
Tesla FSD miles - compared to those of Waymo and others.
Flying cars 🚁
Joby applies for certificate to operate commercial air transport in the UAE 🇦🇪. Starting in February 2024, Joby signed a series of agreements and MOUs with government agencies in Dubai, to launch air taxi services in the country.
Lilium to receive a €50M loan guarantee from Bavaria 🇩🇪, providing the central government matches funds. There seems to be an OK from the central government, and now Lilium won’t have to relocate to France.
OEMs 🛺⚡️
Ather, an electric scooter manufacturer and a competitor of Ola Electric, seeks to raise $530M in India IPO, according to draft prospectus. The company has 19% market share 🇮🇳 in the electric two-wheeler category.
Volvo pushes back EV commitment. Lucid to integrate Tesla’s NACS. Toyota and BMW to jointly develop Hydrogen car and... why? Faraday Future delivered 13 vehicles and is giving millions in bonuses to the C-suite. Pure Electric, UK-based e-scooter manufacturer, looking to raise via crowdfunding.
Gig economy 💰
In the UK 🇬🇧, drivers are taking Bolt to court, with the goal of receiving “worker” status. The UK law has a “worker” category of employment, which is somewhere between “contractor” and “employee”. Uber drivers are workers, after the company losing a similar lawsuit, but not Bolt’s. Also in the UK, Deliveroo accused of paying drivers below agreed minimum of £12 an hour.
In New Zealand 🇳🇿, a court ruled that four Uber drivers are employees. To be continued in appeals, lobbying etc.
In Vietnam 🇻🇳, extreme hot weather and flooding is making delivery workers’ lives challenging.
In South Korea 🇰🇷, Coupang to answer government labour inspection, following a series of worker deaths.
Limited Ubers in Brussels 🇧🇪 as drivers continue strike action over working conditions and the introduction of TripRadar, a new system which they claim creates unnecessary competition by assigning multiple drivers to a single job.
In other news 📰
D’leteren publishes 2024 survey it conducts to keep tabs on the Belgium 🇧🇪 mobility industry. Key takeaways:
No significant change in public attitudes - car is still central; EV is still deemed costly and uncomfortable; only 18% of Belgians experience shared-mobility; and robotaxis are not yet relevant.
Fleet managers: more willingness to deploy “mobility budget” solutions; 17% of corporate cars are EV, up from 10% in 2023
Forterra raises $75M to accelerate self-driving technology for defence and industry. DC Connected raises €2.1M for AI-driven vehicle diagnostics platform. Specter, powerful electric bike manufacturer, raises €2M.
People 🧑🤝🧑
Conrad Richardson is the new Team Leader @ SMMR - Sustainable Mobility in Metropolitan Regions in ASEAN.
Cosimo Leipold is the new Head of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships @ American Battery Technology Company.
Jessica Barnea is the new Senior Operations Manager, Network and Marketplace @ Uber.
Mark Ballam is the new National Account Manager @ Alexander Dennis.
Congrats and good luck!
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