Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT 🚙🚐
Pango, an Israeli parking app, is in talks to acquire Gett for a reported valuation of $200-250M according to one news article, and $150-160M according to another. In their end-of-2023-report, VNV, who owns 43.4% of Gett, valued the company at $222M. Just a few months ago an Israeli PE, Fortissimo, walked away from similar acquisition discussions.
Addison Lee shares snippet of FY23 (ending August) results: revenue £224.8M; Adjusted EBITDA of £27.4M, 41% YoY; over 7,500 drivers. To 2022 report; 2023 isn’t public yet.
Uber and Revel partner to offer Uber’s EV drivers access to Revel’s charging hubs at a discount of up to 25%.
Freenow wants to implement dynamic pricing in Barcelona - for taxis. The plan is to adjust fares within a 15% range. Freenow claims similar trials have been conducted in Berlin and Madrid. Obviously Barcelona’s taxis are opposed, now it goes to court.
Bolt launches in Cairo. To gain market share, Bolt is offering 50% ride discount and 0% driver commission. InDrive expands to Cancun. Freenow starts a new driver loyalty program in Greece. Roger French visits 3 DRT routes in the UK. Ryde debuts on Nasdaq.
Car Sharing/renting 🚗
Turo shares its 2023 financial report, as part of its planned IPO - highlights: >14,000 cities with ±360,000 active vehicles; the company is profitable, and has been operationally profitable for the past three years. In 2023, revenue was $879.6M, up 18% YoY; income from operations was $13.7M (1.5%). When the company plans to IPO is not yet clear.
ShareNow integrates with billiger-mietwagen.de, Germany’s largest price comparison portal for rental cars and a large European player. Zity reduces EV rates in Milan. Ithaca Carshare to resume operations in March after the introduction of a bill that allows non-profits to buy auto-insurance.
Micromobility 🚲🛴
Cooltra and Felyx merge. The combined company will have a fleet of 28,000 vehicles across 6 European countries and over 30 cities. For now both brand names are to be kept in their respective markets.
Delivery 🍽🧺
Baron Capital, an investor in Swiggy, raised its valuation to $12.1 billion, above the $10.7 billion (post-money) at the company’s 2022 raise. Just last year, Invesco, a different investor, valued the company at $5.5 billion; that valuation is now roughly $9.5 billion. Swiggy is preparing for (an unknown date) IPO. The Indian food-delivery market is growing and is controlled by two players - Zomato with ±55% market share and Swiggy with 45% - in both Baron Capital is invested
Also in India: Swiggy partners with IRCTC to provide pre-booked food delivery service on Indian Railways. Flipkart, e-commerce delivery, prepares to launch quick-commerce deliveries. Zepto Pass gets 1 million subscribers within a week of launch. Zepto is an e-commerce q-delivery player, a competitor to Flipkart.
New York City is testing public e-bike charging stations for delivery workers. E-bike fires have been getting attention in the city, and NYC is actively trying to get drivers to switch to safer e-bikes.
Glovo and Carrefour introduce 30-Minute grocery delivery in Italy. Careem Jordan sees 32% increase in driver registration. Gett Israel expands delivery service.
Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡
Waymo launches driverless rides for employees in Austin. This is a step toward public robotaxi services and comes just a few days after the company received an OK to expand in California.
Nissan eyes L4 autonomous operations in 2027 and is starting a trial in Yokohama soon. Mirai Share’s tech is a part of the pilot. Elmo teledrives a crash truck. Aurrigo in Sunderland, UK. WeRide in Beijing, China. Pony.ai signs an MOU with the government of Luxemburg. Mobileye powers Holon.
Flying cars 🚁
Alef Aeronautics says it has 2,850 pre-orders. With FAA approval, the company plans to have a working commercial model ready next year. Joby acquires a manufacturing facility in Ohio. Airbus reveals eVTOL prototype. Flights to commence later this year.
OEMs 🛺⚡️
Rivian launched the R2 SUV - getting over 68,000 reservations at a starting price of $45,000 for the vehicle (the reservation itself costs $100). Production is expected to start in the 2nd half of 2026. At the event Rivian also revealed additional models - the R3 crossover and R3X. The success of these models is key for Rivian, who like it's EV-only peers - Lucid, Polestar and Fisker - has been experiencing challenging economics.
On to Fisker - which is rumoured to be in advanced talks with Nissan for a $400M investment. This deal makes sense for both sides - allowing production capacity and access to markets for Fisker and EV knowledge for Nissan.
And if on the subject of deals - should Apple buy Rivian? Apple recently shut down its electric-autonomous project, named “Titan”, and some analysts are raising the idea. Apple has been in talks with several OEMs on potential collaboration before shutting the Titan project down. With an acquisition, Apple could “jump-start” its car plans while keeping everything in-house, the way the company likes it.
Gig economy 💰
Brazil’s president is supporting a bill that would give ride-hailing drivers labour rights, such as minimum pay, maximum daily allowed work time and social security rights. According to the bill, drivers would not be employees, but rather “autonomous with rights”. The move is welcomed by ride-hailing players (Uber. 99) and by driver industry organisations.
In the Netherlands, the court has ruled that online supermarkets must provide their workers the pay and conditions in the (unionised) supermarket industry.
In NYC, DoorDash is moving to a work model more resembling full-time employees, after changing pay structure - hiking customer fees and altering tipping structure. This is the company's answer to the minimum wage law recently introduced in NYC. Both in NYC and Seattle, which have introduced a similar bill, there are different data points about the effect (here, here, here and mostly here). To be continued.
In other news 📰
Moovit has a change of management - triggered by the expiration of the retention period for senior executives that was initiated by Intel four years ago. The CEO is stepping down, to be replaced by the current CTO. More exits are expected.
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