California approves 24/7 robotaxi in SF, Via in London, Wisk & Archer BFF
Lyft reports Q2, plans to kill surge and grows ads; Russia want Yandex (Yango) data and Yango Israel up for sale; Via awarded TfL contract; Bird reports Q2 and is running out of money; Delivery Hero adjusted EBITDA positive; Deliveroo good results; Serve Robotics to go public; California approves 24/7 robotaxi in San Francisco; Wisk & Archer end court battle in a surprising partnership & Archer announces a $215M raise; Proterra files for bankruptcy; and more with Tier, Veo, VanMoof, Grubhub, Doordash, foodpanda, Mira, BMW, Brightdrop; VinFast, ChargePoint, Blade and out-of-this-world Virgin Galactic tourists. Let’s start #movingpeople.
Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT 🚙🚐
More riders, less per-rider revenue. Number of active riders grew to 21.5 million, an 18% increase YoY. Lyft has been fighting Uber on price, consequently seeing revenue-per-driver decrease 5% (QoQ).
Revenue outlook is good. Q2 revenue - $1.02bn - up 3% YoY and matched analysts’ expectation. Lyft’s Q3 revenue outlook predicts 11-13% revenue growth, above analysts’ expectations.
Losses are decreasing. Net loss $114M, down from $377.2M YoY and down from $187.6M in Q1/23. Adjusted EBITDA is positive $41M.
The stock went up - and then down - then up again, as the markets simply don’t know what to do with Lyft.
And Lyft plans to ‘kill’ its surge pricing scheme. Traditional thinking would suggest surge is good for ride-hailing companies, but surge also has its downsides. Surge incentivises drivers to log-on the platform, but also concentrates supply to specific areas while creating shortages elsewhere; and acts as a demand suppressor and a reason for people to shy away from ride-hailing. Lyft says its driver supply is the highest it's been in three years and so surge doesn’t make as much sense as it did in the past. And Lyft to implement ads on its app and with in-car tablets, partnering with adtech companies. Lyft is mimicking Uber, whose own ad unit, launched in October 2022, has a revenue run rate of >$650.
New legislation in Russia means that the FSB (formerly known as the KGB) can now access Yandex and its ride-hailing service Yango data stored in Russia. Currently all of Yandex’s DBs are stored in Russia, meaning all international Yango riders data is now exposed. Finland and Norway regulators have moved to prevent this, and other countries, such as Israel, are worried and looking into the consequences of the legislation.
Is Yango Israel for sale? Financial newspapers are reporting acquisition talks with local Israeli businessmen. Yango Israel operates taxi, scooter (formerly Wind) and delivery businesses, and its taxi business is estimated at 200-250 million ILS (circa $60M). Yango denies.
In other related news, Arkady Volozh, Yandex co-founder, who has been living in Israel since 2014, issued a statement saying “Russia's invasion of Ukraine is barbaric, and I am categorically against it”. Volozh quit as Yandex's CEO in June 2022.
TfL awarded Via with a multi-year contract to operate Dial-a-Ride, its disabled and elderly residents service. Dial-a-Ride has 30,000 members, making it one of the largest demand-responsive networks in Europe. Via’s tech to be introduced in early 2024.
The Italian government wants to add more taxis to alleviate shortages. Taxis are effectively the only option, as Italy puts extremely strict limits on ride-hailing. Major cities will be allowed to increase taxi numbers by 20%, but experts say more steps are needed to solve the problem. Careem Pakistan expands its commute services under the “Careem for Business (C4B)” brand. InDrive continues to expand in Nigeria and Malaysia.
Micromobility 🚲🛴
Bird’s Q2 report, key takeaways:
Bird was able to improve its bottom line: the company’s withdrawal from unprofitable markets decreased revenue to $48.3M, down from $66.8M YoY, but helped adjusted EBITDA improve by $27.7M to -$1.2M and net loss is $9.3M, down from -$320.3 YoY.
Bird is in trouble. It had just $6.8m in cash & cash equivalents at the end of Q2 2023, while posting a Q2 net loss of $9.3M and operating expenses of $36.1M. Unless external money (most likely debt) comes in, Bird will probably declare bankruptcy in the next few months.
Also, Bird has a new (interim) CEO, effective immediately. Washinushi is the company’s CFO who joined in January 2023; he replaces Torchiana.
Tier partners with Flyby, a last-mile delivery technology company, “to explore the application of TIER's battery network in quick commerce and delivery outside of its core model of sustainable transportation”. Interesting move by Tier, who identified a core competency it developed and that can be monetized outside of its B2C scooter activities.
Veo is moving into retail, selling its seated scooter. A limited number of 1,000 scooters will initially be marketed. Lime to triple the Boulder e-scooter fleet size to 900, following a successful pilot. Bird launches E-Bike fleet in Seattle. VanMoof’s administrators rejected micromobility.com’s bid, but others, including some big names, are still in the game.
An Oversharing read on Lyft and Citi Bike. Lyft is ready to sell; but who wants to buy?
Delivery 🍽🧺
Delivery Hero reported 1st positive adjusted EBITDA. Q2 revenues were €2.58bn, slightly above expectations. The company expects to achieve positive cash-flow during H2/23.
Deliveroo nearing profitability and considers a £250M dividend payout. Adjusted EBITDA was £39.4M, ahead of estimated £18.1M. Loss down to £83M, down 46% YoY.
Serve Robotics, autonomous sidewalk delivery robot spun out of Uber’s acquisition of Postmates, is going public. The company says delivery volumes have grown >30% month-over-month on average for the past 18 months, and funds will be used to grow the fleet, enter new markets in the US, and develop technology.
Grubhub and Sonesta partner on hotel delivery, beginning with 120 sites. DoorDash partners with Staples for same-day back-to-school deliveries. Foodpanda introduces 24/7 parcel delivery in Malaysia. A global snapshot of rapid-delivery.
Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡
California opened the door for self-driving cars, approving 24/7 commercial robotaxi service in San Francisco, in a major win for Waymo and Cruise.
The past months saw local SF officials heavily opposing the move. Not because of accidents, those are relatively few, but because these vehicles have a tendency to just stop when they shouldn't (say, in front of emergency vehicles) or drive when not supposed to (into unusual road obstacles, such as wires). The latest incident, involving circa 10 vehicles stopping for no reason, was just a couple of days ago (videos inside).
Cruise reported (Jan. 1st - July 18th) 177 incidents where a vehicle was stuck on the road and needed to be removed, of those 26 incidents had a passenger inside! Waymo (in H1) reported 58 incidents where a passenger was stuck in an unresponsive car.
For more: Washington Post. New York Times. ABC. TechCrunch.
Cruise begins testing in Atlanta. During the past year Cruise has expanded to Austin, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Nashville and Los Angeles. The company is also expanding in Phoenix. Mira launches a teleoperated shuttle pilot in Bonn.
Public data reveals the extent of autonomy in SF. In 2020 there were 551 cars driving 1.8 million miles; by 2022, 1,051 cars driving over 4/7 million miles. Waymo and Cruise have the most vehicles (571 together); followed by Amazon’s Zoox (±100) and Apple, with ±50 cars.
Flying cars 🚁
Wisk and Archer ended their legal battle by… entering into a financial and technological partnership. Wisk filed a trade secret lawsuit against Archer back in mid-2021. The agreement will see Boeing, Wisk’s owner, investing in Archer, and Archer would exclusively use Wisk’s self flying technology in its aircraft. And Archer announced a $215M raise from Stellantis, Boeing, United Airlines and others - of which Boeing’s share is unknown.
OEMs 🛺⚡️
Proterra, electric bus maker, files for bankruptcy. The company intends to restructure and continue operations. Proterra formed in 2004, in 2015 the company had three business lines: battery development, charging infrastructure, and its transit unit. In 2021 the company SPACed at a $1.6bn valuation. But complexities associated with bus manufacturing for government organisations and supply chain challenges brought the company down. For now.
US H1/23 EV sales. Tesla sold more than all other manufactures combined. Visual.
BMW is investing more money into EVs. GM’s BrightDrop to expand commercial EV business to Mexico. VinFast approved for Nasdaq SPAC listing,
Tesla’s CFO unexpectedly steps down, after 13 years with the company, past 4.5 as CFO. He will stay with the company until the end of the year, handing over to his replacement, the current Chief of Accounting at Tesla.
Gig economy 💰
In India, gig-workers celebrate a win, as the state of Rajasthan passes a law that provides social security by imposing a ‘welfare tax’ on app orders and sets up a central DB for drivers to track pay.
In other news 📰
ChargePoint is announcing a series of new initiatives to improve the reliability of its 245,000-strong network of chargers, to bring those to “network reliability of nearly 100%”. These include setting up an operations centre, allowing greater visibility on the app and enabling users’ reports of vandalism.
Blade Q2 results: revenue up 71% to $61M, fueled by organ transport, which accounted for $34.4M and saw a 99.4% increase YoY. Loss from operations is $12.2M. European business is slower than expected.
The Boring Company will dig a 68-mile 81-stations tunnel network under Las Vegas.
Virgin Galactic sends first space tourism mission.
Photo from: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/felipesmolka_for-legacy-automakers-the-path-to-electric-activity-7096190135548968960-kgno/
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