Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT 🚙🚐
Uber published its Q3/24 report, key takeaways:
Gross booking up 16% YoY to $41 billion. Mobility brought in $21 billion (51.2% of total); delivery $18.7 billion (45.6%); Freight $1.3 billion.
Trips grew 17%. On average, there are roughly 31 million Uber trips per day.
Revenue grew 20% to $11.2 billion.
Revenue margins - mobility is 30.5%; delivery 18.6%.
Income from operations was $1.1 billion, up from $667 YoY.
Over 25M ‘Uber One’ members.
Revenue results exceeded analysts’ expectations, but the stock market is worried about future growth; shares dropped by >10% and then stabilised at roughly 8% under the price before the report's publication.
Much more can be found in the press release, 8-K and 10-Q.
Blacklane raises €60M. This brings total funding to $203M. Funds will be used to expand in the US and Middle East while maintaining European business.
BusUp closes a €13M round. Congrats Rui and the team! Funds will enable the company to expand further into Europe and LATAM.
VNV publishes its Q3/24 report. Key takeaways:
The Gett ‘exit’ is still awaiting (since May) the approval of the Israeli antitrust authority.
BlaBlaCar is down 17% in 2024 in net asset value.
The good: acquisition of Turkish Obilet is now complete; new products include Train in Spain and ‘Zen’, a D2D carpooling service for short to medium distances. Per VNV: “Europe is doing ok, even a bit soft whilst emerging markets are killing it”.
The bad: instability of France’s policies could jeopardise future ‘energy saving certificate’ revenues.
DoorDash and Lyft partner, allowing DoorDash DashPass members discounted Lyft riders. Lyft riders will get a free DashPass trial. For the occasion, the companies produced together the Nightlife report, a fun read:
Uber one-less-car results are in. 173 participants from 7 North American cities were given $1,000 in transport credits, providing they give up their car for a month. Key takeaways:
To substitute the private car, participants used public transport for work trips, walking for social and errands trips, car-pool (for ?) and ride-hailing for appointments.
Overall, participants made 15% fewer trips - mostly by consolidating travel and visiting more local shops.
76% planned to drive less and use alternative transportation more, with 12% of participants saying they are likely, and 9% very likely, to give up their cars.
Yango expands to Oman through a strategic partnership with local taxi company Otaxi, in collaboration with the local government. Yango is also expanding across Africa.
GoRide is a new ride-hailing app in Ghana, taking on Uber, Bolt and Yango, offering a 10% commission model rather than the average 20% by existing ride-hailing apps. GoRide is a public-private initiative.
Wayla launched in Milan. Wayla is a 7.30pm to 3am ioki-powered DRT service aimed to service night travellers, fitting in between public transport (when applicable) and taxi service. Good luck!
Fare Co-op, a cooperative ride-hailing company, is launching in cities across California. The company offers riders lower rates and no surge prices, and allows for both members (cooperative) and non-member drivers to onboard.
Megabus, a UK intercity bus operator, is discontinuing dozens of routes due to low demand. I wonder how much the competition from Flix has to do with this.
Ryde is now accessible to international travellers visiting Singapore. Ruter launches a DRT solution in Oslo. Kakao to create booking for the ‘digital vulnerable’ from convenience stores.
Car Sharing/renting 🚗
allride, by AMAG, is a Swiss car and bike sharing solution. The company partnered with Europcar to offer more supply and longer rental periods via its consumer app.
Avis published its Q3 results - the company missed expectations:
$3.48 billion in revenue, down 2.4% YoY
Higher costs also contributed to $329M in “income before taxes”, down from $757 YoY
The company also missed analyst’s expectations in a variety of metrics such as per unit fleet cost and revenue per day; but had increased vehicle utilisation.
For the 10-Q report.
Communauto doubles its fleet in Toronto, to reach 1,300 cars. 750 of those will be free-floating (flex) and 550 station-based.
Micromobility 🚲🛴
Veo partners with Captur, an AI-parking assist solution. The solution will be deployed in 50 markets across the US. Lime compromises with the borough of Brent, London - agrees to designated bays and 250 less bikes in the borough. Neuron Mobility to launch in Brisbane, replacing Beam. Vernon, Canada, looking for scooter operators. Spin in Colorado. RTA and Careem celebrate 7M bike rides in Dubai. VAOW Mobility is a scooter-sharing company I’ve first heard of (from Germany), and apparently they are nice people.
Delivery 🍽🧺
DoorDash reports 1st ever quarterly profit and beats analysts’ expectations.
Marketplace Gross Order Value (GOV) grew 19% to $20 billion
Revenue rose 25% YoY to $2.71 billion (revenue is 13.5% of GOV)
Total orders increased 18% YoY to 643M (averages $4.21 revenue per order, and $31.1 GOV)
Positive GAAP net income of $162M
Avride introduces their new generation of delivery robots. The new robot has 4 wheels (down from 6) creating better energy efficiency; has better manoeuvring; and a modular cargo unit. More here.
Careem extends deliveries to the beaches of the UAE - using GPS-enabled umbrellas. Grubhub partners with PetSmart. JustEat partners with Majestic. JustEat offers in-app ordering.
Swiggy prepares for IPO on November 6th, targets $11.3 billion valuation, less than half Zomato’s worth of $26.2 billion market cap. Swiggy is looking to raise $1.35 billion.
Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡
Outrider, autonomous yard operations for logistics hubs, raises $62M. Funds will be used to drive commercial scaling.
QCraft, a Chinese autonomous player, raises “tens of millions of USD”. Funds will be used to support ADAS (L2+) and AV (level 4) R&D.
Waymo now completes 150,000 rides and 1 million miles travelled a week. Milestone of 50k rides was completed in May, 100k in August, and now 150k in October. Waymo is now valued at $45 billion, post (recent $5.6 billion raise) money. Waymo is training vehicle technicians for its autonomous vehicles.
Zoox is deploying “a couple dozen” vehicles in San Francisco and Las Vegas. Initially the rides will be offered for free to a closed community of vetted riders. Zoox has yet to receive all the exemptions required to operate without a steering wheel and pedals, and the company is contesting its requirement to do so.
Mobileye Q3/24 report: better than expected, shares went up.
Revenue $486M in Q3, down 8% YoY, but up 11% vs. previous Q.
“Our top ten customers represent more than 80% of our volume and approximately 50% of industry volume”
Operating loss was impacted by a $2.6 billion write-down of goodwill. “The results of the impairment analysis indicated that the carrying value of the Mobileye reporting unit was in excess of its fair value. Therefore, the Company has recorded a non-cash impairment loss of $2,695 million ($2,613 million, net of tax)”
Without the impairment, operating loss would have been $112M.
Torc Robotics, by Daimler, is testing level 4 trucks on US roads. Oxa reveals Ford E-Transit self driving van and minibus. Elmo teledrives in Amsterdam. Jesse Levinson, Zoox co-founder & CTO, on Tesla self-driving: ‘they don’t have technology that works’.
Flying cars 🚁
The wonderful TNMT series on AAMs: this edition dealing with technological readiness. We are seeing the likes of Lilium and Vertical Aerospace (???) struggling, but also certification and regulatory wins, new flights in new locations and - as this edition highlights - tech readiness has greatly advanced.
Beta Technologies raises $318M, led by Qatar Investment Authority. Valuation was not disclosed, but the company said it is higher than the $2.4 billion valuation achieved in 2022.
Eve secures additional $50M loan from Citibank, adding to a $88M credit from the Brazilian Development Bank received a few weeks ago.
Joby completes flight in Japan.
Lilium receives notice of delisting from Nasdaq, effective from November 6th.
Vertical Aerospace is in trouble - facing cash flow challenges. The Founder and main shareholder with 69% stake, Stephen Fitzpatrick, is apparently reluctant to continue funding the company. Would this be the 2nd collapse of an European eVTOL company in a matter of weeks? To be continued.
OEMs 🛺⚡️
Scout Motors, a VW spinoff, will use Rivian’s software and zonal architecture. Scout targets the US, and is developing (look surprised) a SUV and a pickup truck.
Donkey Republic raise €2M via private placement of new shares.
In other news 📰
Applied Intuition, a vehicle software supplier, acquires the IP of Ghost Autonomy, an AV driving software that shut down back in April.
BasiGo raises $42M to scale public transport electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa. That’s $24M in equity and $17.5M in debt.
WarrCloud, an automated warranty processing platform, raises $20M. Funds will be used to further develop the product.
Rivian’s chief software officer thinks cars should be controlled by voice, not buttons or screens.
People 🧑🤝🧑
Catherine Bowen is the new Head of Decarbonisation and Future Mobility @ BVRLA.
Changgi Lee is the new Director of Metropolitan Transportation Economics @ the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
Craig Coker is the new Head of Supply Chain @ First Mile.
David Adelman is the new Commercial Director @ Driven Worldwide.
James Delgado is the new COO @ Mobility Development (more here).
Robert Slade founded Falzon Talent, a Cleantech & Automotive recruitment company.
Samuel Laurinkari is the new VP, Head of International Public Policy & Sustainability @ Wolt and DoorDash.
Stefano Buzzanca is the new Senior Manager - Fleet Management @ Wolt.
Syed Ahsan Ali is the new Deputy Manager Marketing & Sales @ Master Motor.
Congrats and good luck!
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