Lyft looking to sell bikes,Waymo stops trucks, Getir pulls out of Italy & Portugal and JET results
Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT đđ
Uber won a major case in the UK. Bottom line: all private-hire operators will be responsible for VAT, which will cause an inevitable increase in journey cost of 20% (the VAT rate) throughout England.
Background: back in 2021 Uber lost a legal case in London, in which it was determined that Uber, not the drivers, is the one contracting with the clients (rides). In legal terms it meant Uber was the âprincipalâ, causing the company to pay HMRC ÂŁ615M in VAT debt and classifying drivers as âworkersâ, rather than independent contractors. But this was only relevant to London, which has its own regulatory transport body, not the entire country. Uber's claim was that this should be implemented across the country, which is the legal case it just won, so now every minicab (dispatch) company has the same VAT and worker responsibilities as Uber. And because the VAT threshold starts at ÂŁ85,000 annual revenue, which drivers donât usually go over, but minicab companies do because they aggregate a number of drivers, VAT now will be implemented.
US ride-share market share: Uber 74% - Lyft 26%. Average monthly sales per customer: Uber $94 - Lyft $87.
Back in January a judge in Cancun allowed Uber to enter the city, leading to physical clashes between taxi drivers and Uber drivers. Now the local taxi industry is using DiDi for a competitive digital solution.
GreenCell Mobility, an inter & intra cities electric buses solution in India, raised Rs 3,000 crore / ±$365 million in debt. Funds will be used to buy 3,000 more e-buses.
Kakao introduces tipping in South Korea. Careem Dubai enables booking movie tickets via the app, in an extended partnership with Tikety. InDrive extends partnership with Unlimit for global payments. The two companies work together in Central-South America, but will now expand to Africa. Hum is a ride-share solution founded in Phoenix, charging drivers subscription fees rather than per-ride- commissions. Liftango launches DRT in Nelson, New Zealand. Roger French negative experience using (or more so, trying to) the Herts Lynx DRT service. How much does an airport taxi cost?
Sharing/renting đđŽ
Turbi, Brazilian carshare, raised $16.4M. Funds will be used to add 1,000 more vehicles to the 4,000 vehicle fleet. Carvolution, Swiss carshare, raised âŹ25M to expand its fleet.
Zoom EV is a P2P EV car-share launching in Manchester. TrydaNi, a new community EV car-share (club) started in Kilgetty.
SHARE NOW CEO departs after seven years. Today, the company is present in 17 cities across 8 countries.
Micromobility đČđŽ
Lyft is looking to sell its bike & scooter business. This comes as Lyft is cutting costs and focusing on getting market share back from Uber. The company says it had âreceived strong inbound interest in our bikes and scooters businessâ and any move will probably see the bikes and scooters still available on the Lyft app. As the PR reads: âAs a leading bikeshare provider, supplying solutions to over 53 markets across 15 countries, itâs only logical for Lyft to listen to credible proposals and explore strategic partners and options in several forms to serve more riders in more cities. We expect this part of the business to continue to be a meaningful part of Lyftâs offering now and into the future.â
Scooters UK: rental scooters are available in 23 cities and towns across the UK in various pilots, and it is illegal to use private e-scooters. So far 2.3 million riders made over 34 million rides, but regulators are unwilling to decide on scooters future regulatory status. Now 50 organisations, headed by CoMoUK and including (list) operators & local councils, are calling on the Prime Minister to set a date for e-scooter legislation.
In Italy, the government implemented new regulation, to enter effect in September 2023, that mandates licence plates, 3rd party insurance and helmets for everyone. This adds to 2022 regulation limiting scooter power, banning seats and providing turn signals. Operators believe this new regulation will negatively affect the market.
Krakow, Poland, is introducing tougher scooter regulation. Operators in the city today are Bolt, Lime, Tier and Traficar. Scooter quotas are going to be set and the operators will pay the city for parking space.
Bikeshare is growing in the US. In six major US cities, usage in 2022 is 27% higher than pre-pandemic levels, with a total of 45 million trips. NYC, Boston, Chicago and Jersey City are up from pre-pandemic; Washington and San Francisco to get there in 2023.
Beam launches seated e-scooter solution in Brisbane, Australia. The seated scooters enable people who find it hard to stand or need to travel long distances with a better solution. 200 such scooters will be deployed in the city. Also Lime tests scooters with seats in Chicago.
Gleam, Austria-founded e-cargo bike manufacturer, is looking for funds to be able to bring the company to break-even. The co-founder CEO estimates Gleam will need a âŹ3M raise in order to bring the company to break-even.
In Vienna, Link implements a âŹ5 fine for illegal parking.
Delivery đœđ§ș
Getir exits Italy and Portugal, weeks after leaving Spain and France. Stays (for now) in the Netherlands and the UK, both rumoured to be exited. Also, we should expect to hear of a raise soon. I am betting that we will hear of withdrawals from the UK and Netherlands right after the company raises. Amsterdam has strict dark-store regulations which make the model difficult; the UK operation struggles as-is, and cost-of-living putting a stain on British people. Getir has three other markets: Germany, the US and Turkey.
Just Eat Takeaway H1/2023 results: positive Adjusted EBITDA of âŹ143M, up from a minus âŹ134 YoY; getting closer to free-cash-flow target, expected now in Q3/2024; growing ad revenue; âŹ258M loss. For the analyst presentation.
Efforts to sell GrubHub are still ongoing but proving difficult. GrubHubâs acquisition was completed in June 2021 for $7bn; already in April 2022 the company was looking for buyers and wrote off $3bn in late 2022. Grubhub has ±10% market share (graph) in the US, 3rd player after DoorDash and UberEats, with other players all holding <1% market share.
inDrive launches 'Name Your Price' freight service in South Africa. The same-day inner-city service targets small businesses and individuals, and allows for small parcels up to large shipments, utilising trucks when needed. To freight website.
UberEats to operate a vehicle marketplace for couriers in Sweden. GrubHub adding new rewards to GrubHub+, its loyalty subscription program. New rewards include lowered service fees and 5% rebate in pickup orders. JET partners with Lush to deliver fresh handmade cosmetics to consumers, starting in Germany to be followed by additional markets. Swiggy launches credit card. The card allows 10% cashback on Swiggy purchases and other benefits. Swiggy integrates morning delivery service InsanelyGood with the main app. DoorDash is implementing Apple CarPlay support for its app.
Zomato liquidates its Portuguese subsidiary, which was never active, as were an additional 20+ subsidies that are being liquidated to save on costs. Outside India, Zomato had active business in the US, New Zealand and Lebanon, and today is present (outside India) only in the UAE.
Autonomous & remote-driving đ€âĄ
Waymo pauses / kills its trucking division, Waymo Via. The company will now focus on robotaxi operations. Some trucking activities, including an active partnership with Daimler Trucks will continue, at a much slower pace, and most employees will be absorbed into the company. Back in January, when Waymo had layoffs, there were rumours about Waymo Via shutting down. As it turns out - those rumours were true.
Cruise is heading to Nashville. Recently Cruise started mapping Miami, and now announced it will head into Nashville in a few months, making it its 7th city.
Flying cars đ
Lilium Q2 investor newsletter: raised $192M; working with the FAA and EASA on regulatory approvals, entered China via preliminary agreement, targeting first flight toward the end of 2024.
OEMs đșâĄïž
Leading automakers partner to create massive North America EV charging network. The automakers - BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis - want to set up 30,000 charging stations with a combined NACS/CCS functionality. This partnership will create an independent solution, removing dependency on Teslaâs supercharger network.
Tesla inflated range figures. As the detailed Reuters report tells us - Tesla boosted the algorithms to show better-than reality range and had a special secret team whose goal was to cancel expensive $1,000 in Tesla cost service appointments, as there was nothing really to be done, the batteries were fine. It is not clear by how much Tesla exaggerated its range, but the number ranges from 3% to 26%.
Sources say Ola Electricâs 2022/23 loss is $136M on a $335M revenue. While Ola Electric is preparing for an IPO, it only needs to submit reports in September. Keep in mind that Ola is India's e-scooter market leader with a 32% share, and was targeting $1bn in revenue. Ola refused to comment on the numbers.
In other news đ°
Sad news, WhereIsMyTransport seems to have shut down. The company set out to improve transportation in emerging markets by mapping informal transportation and providing data. No formal announcement yet, so we donât know exactly what happened, but it probably had to do with the macroeconomic conditions, as governments and international development organisations were often the end client.
Remember Rafaela Vasquez? She was the safety driver in the 2018 autonomous Uber crash that registered the industryâs 1st fatal (and last, excluding Teslaâs autopilot) casualty. Video showed her looking down at her phone at the time. This week she pleaded guilty to âendangermentâ and was sentenced to three years of supervised probation. The charge was reduced from ânegligent homicideâ, as there were other contributing factors to the accident, such as Uber's and the Stateâs inadequate safety procedures and oversight and Herzberg's, the victim, decision to cross the street outside of a crosswalk.
Marti, Turkeyâs leading mobility app, SPACed on July 11th, saw its stock price fall by over 80% since.
Photo from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-17/bikeshare-participation-is-growing-fast-in-nyc-boston
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