100th edition of #movingpeople

Welcome to the 100th edition of #movingpeople!

I started this newsletter back in 2019, initially as an internal update for my (former, I miss you guys) colleagues at Zeelo, quickly turning it into a public LinkedIn weekly article (thanks Sam!). If you ever wrote a blog you know that it actually takes a lot of time (many hours each week) - but I love reading and writing - so here I am with the 100th weekly edition (or two weeks this time, after a short personal vacation last week). 

Thank you readers - every time you like, comment, share or reach out on LinkedIn - it warms my heart. We are, after it all, social creatures. The 100th edition is also a good time to remind you that this newsletter is also available on LinkedIn (if you prefer), that I can be found on Twitter, and that sharing (only this one time, I’m trying to cross the 2K subscribers milestone) is caring 😀

Ride-hailing, car sharing & DRT 🚙🚌

Uber. Agrees to pay $100M in back taxes to New Jersey, for past employee misclassification. Is providing Ukranians with a dedicated platform to help preserve their culture. Is partnering with National Express, so you can now book buses via the Uber app. Is fighting a new 18% fee cap by the Kenyan government; today Uber charges a 25% commission. Competitor Little, charging 15% commissions only, is welcoming the change. Bolt, the local ride-hailing player, charging 20%, is silent for now. 

The Spanish government calls on municipalities to regulate and restrict VTC (vehicles used for ride-hailing) before October 1st if they want to keep ride-hailing services running. 

Be Group, Vietnam ride-hailing, gets a $60M loan, with an option to increase to a total of $100M. The company will use the funds to expand its three businesses: motorbike & car-hailing, food delivery, and digital banking. Gogoro expands electric scooter ride-sharing in Taiwan. Savvy expands to Germany. Yandex launches food delivery service in Armenia and completes acquisition of food delivery service Delivery Club. Circuit raises $11M to expand EV shuttle business. Via launches 17th UK service, in partnership with Nottinghamshire, and launches at the University of Wyoming, US.

Via marks 2 years in Wilson, North Carolina, with 260,000 rides, and one year in Denton, Taxas, with 527,000 rides. Amadeus adds taxi rides to Cytric, business booking tool, via a partnership with Karhoo. FlixBus and Voi partner, offering discounted rides in the UK and Germany. Treepz hits 2 million trips, six months after crossing the one million mark. Bolt introduces driver score and driver trip sharing, designed to increase safety, in Nigeria and South Africa. FreeNow partners with Edison, Italian energy company, to offer charging solutions. Zeelo converts a school route to zero-emission. There are rumours that Lyft might sell to GM or merge with DoorDash. Wanshun, Chinese ride-hailing, to go public in the US via SPAC. I guess they never heard of Didi…

Rapido is India’s largest bike-hailing platform, with 1.5M driver partners and 25M customers in over 100 cities. While Uber and Ola focused on cars and higher income demographic, Rapido focused on bikes, which were widely available, positioning to gig-drivers as a ‘side-hustle’ for secondary income. In addition, the company used a regulatory loop-hole to launch bike-pooling operations, later advocating for and launching bike-taxi. 

How to blow $85 million in 11 months: The inside story of Airlift’s crash. Employees speak of operational chaos leading to massive losses due to inefficiencies in procurement and inventory management and a disconnected management. 

A New York Times long(ish) read on India’s EV push being fueled by mopeds and rickshaws, a blueprint which could be relevant for other emerging markets. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMicromobility 🚲🛴

Irish micromobility start-up Zeus Scooters has acquired UK-based Zwings. Zeus operates in six countries and 42 cities, has a fleet of over 5,000 vehicles and over 100 employees. Zwings has 80,000 customers and 15 employees. 

Roam (formerly Opibus) is providing thousands of e-motorcycles to riders in Kenya. The company, which recently had an investment from Uber, has a pay-as-you-go pricing structure which eases the transition. But it's not the only company trying to transition Kenyan bike riders to electric - Stima, eBee, Kiri EV and Jua Bikes are doing the same. Read more here. 

Bolt partnered with Swobbee to pilot battery swapping in Berlin. Boulder completed a one year pilot with Lime. The city is now gathering user feedback to help determine a future program. Birmingham e-scooter trial, by Voi, extended until May 2024. Vancouver adds 500 e-bikes and 50 stations to its bike program. In Richmond, Spin (Tier) and Veo are aiming to replace Bolt Mobility and Helbiz and join Bird and Lime. The city is looking to extend its micromobility program to serve more hours (end at 1am and not 9pm) and aimes to mandate that 20% of vehicles in disadvantaged communities. Lime launches pop-up micromobility community hub in London. Lime wants to introduce new e-bikes to Tampa. Lime deploys parking wardens in London near busy e-scooter bays. The wardens congratulate riders that park respectfully and issue notices to incentivise continued responsible parking. Cogo raised €800K to expand its Micromobility aggregator services. 

The Brussels municipality of Uccle wants to ban electric scooters from its streets owing to security reasons and parking problems. Poppy, a subsidiary of Belgian automotive group D’Ieteren, to launch 1,500 e-scooters in Brussels.  Fluctuo Q2/22 shared mobility index. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedDelivery 🍽🧺

Uber Eats and Nuro sign a 10-year deal to do robot food delivery in California and Texas. Nuro has been successful in getting operating permits for its vehicles and recently received permit to charge customers in California. The company plan is to roll out deliveries on a larger commercial scale, and the Uber partnership will enable both companies to understand what the best use cases are for autonomous deliveries. 

France clamps down on delivery depot 'dark stores'. The government will classify those as warehouses rather than shops, which will give local mayors more power to act to control the spread of dark stores. In the Netherlands, Getir transforms ‘dark stores’ into art stores, as part of a larger move to try and ease regulators. 

Foodpanda lays off 5% of staff in Singapore, home to its regional HQ, and 20% in the Philippines. Foodpanda is a part of the Delivery Hero group. DoorDash and Starbucks launch delivery partnership, to be extended nationally in 2023. GoPuff hires an ex-Amazon to VP of Grocery. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAutonomous 🤖

Cruise will launch robotaxi services in Phoenix and Austin by the end of the year. The company has experience in Phoenix, but nothing on the ground in Austin. The plan is to go from “zero footprints — no map, no infrastructure on the ground — to our first revenue-generating driverless rides in about 90 days”. The company is also aiming for a $1bn revenue in 2025, up from a $25M today. 

You can now drive partially ‘hands-free’ in France. The government authorised use of Level 3 autonomous driving, under certain conditions such as road infrastructure and speed limit. At Level 3, responsibility and liability sit with the manufacturer, not the human driver. Currently only the Mercedes S-Class has been approved for Level 3 in France.

Bill targeting Tesla’s ‘self-driving’ claims passes California Legislature. Legislators are not happy with Tesla’s false advertising and with the DMV’s slow response, and this bill is supposed to speed up the process of dealing with Tesla.

Argo AI, the autonomous company backed by Ford and WV, revealed an ecosystem of products and services designed to support commercial delivery and robotaxi operations. Einride expands to Germany.  Volkswagen ‘ID. Buzz AD’ completes first public autonomous test drive in Munich. Baidu’s Apollo Go service reached the 1 million autonomous ride milestone in China. Gatik and Cummins partner on autonomous abilities for medium-duty trucks. China to build a 430-kilometre logistics road for autonomous trucks. The road, planned to be completed in 2025, will start commercial operation with 600 fully driverless hydrogen energy heavy trucks. Navya sells 8 self-driving shuttles in the US to autonomous mobility provider Beep. Waymo partners with Arizona food bank to transport bread. 

A Verge long read on why there should be autonomous driving tests in the US. Should the US adopt European regulation practices? 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedManufacturers 🛺⚡️

Rivian and Mercedes-Benz partner up for electric vans. The companies will jointly invest in a manufacturing plant in Europe. With this deal. Rivian expands into Europe and leverages Mexcedes’s manufacturing expertise. Mercedes gains access to electric vehicles. 

Lightyear raises €81m to get its solar cars onto the road. The first solar car is expected to cost €250K, with the money to develop manufacturing capabilities to bring prices down to mass-market prices. The company estimates that 40% of Lightyear drivers would never have to charge their cars.

VinFast to start marketing EVs in the US. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFleet Management 🚙💡

Ford Pro launches new fleet management suite for small businesses. Runyourfleet passes the 30,000-vehicle fleet management milestone. Geotab becomes the first dedicated telematics company to receive SBTi validation for its emissions reduction targets. Fleet365 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is now available on the Geotab Marketplace.

Arval expands presence in Netherlands & Belgium by acquiring Terberg Business Lease Group B.V. Death of the small van. What elephants can teach fleet managers. The joy in trucking. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIn other news 📰

Simcity couldn’t deal with the size of US parking lots. Cazoo exits EU to focus on the UK and will lay off 750 people, bringing the total recent layoffs  to 1,500 people, 30% of the company. Hackers caused a massive traffic jam in Moscow using Yandex, ordering dozens of taxis to the same location. Uber has also been hacked. Bedouin teens develops Moovit-like app for school kids in Negev villages. Skarper’s Clip-On Motor turns a regular bike Into an E-bike. Opinion: we don’t need a 300 mile EV range. We don’t travel those distance, and the costs associated with larger batteries are unnecessarily high. 

Her Majesty The Queen's Lying-in-State | Queue Tracker. God save the King.