31 countries covered: ride-hailing ❤️taxi, Israel ❌DRT, Deliveroo exits 🇦🇺, DoorDash 6% & SWVL 50% and Yandex to leave 🇷🇺

Back to #movingpeople journalist mode after 3 weeks being away - and mobility news are busy! 

🚙🚐 Taxi partnerships with Uber, Gojek and Helbiz; Uber licence status in Canada and Kenya; a look at the Brazilian and Ethiopian ride-hailing markets; Uber UK VAT wars; Beat exists LATAM and hands clients to Cabify; DRT pilots is Israel stopped on account of low demand; SWVL cuts 50% of employees; Revel focusing on charging hubs; Free Now is at full MaaS; Lyft’s strategy involves riders’ private cars; 🚗 Bolt launches P2P car sharing; Kyte and Miles add subscription services. 

🚲🛴 Bird overstated revenue and now says to ignore past two years’ financial reports; Tier wins Barcelona and gives up German e-mopeds; UK scooter pilots end and (some) extend. 

🍽🧺Deliveroo quits Australia; JOKR scales down in LATAM; DoorDash lays off 6% of workforce; tons of new industry partnerships with UberEats, DoorDash, Getir, JustEat, GoPuff, Zapp, Helbiz, Deliveroo and Glovo; Volta and Cake partner on middle and last mile logistics; Wing (drones) is now available on DoorDash. 

🚁Lilium raised $199M; Archer with new aircraft; Volocopter getting ready for the Paris olympics. 🤖 Tesla FSD available to the public; Yandex autonomous severing ties with Russia; Waymo driverless in SF; Nuro and Motional layoffs; Baidu self-driving cars average 15 rides a day, close to ‘normal’ numbers. 

🛺⚡️Arrival’s CEO quits; Tesla delivers 1st truck. 📰 No more Hyperloop. 

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Uber partners with Flywheel, a San Francisco ride-hailing app used by taxis, to offer services via its platform: Uber increases supply, taxi drivers increase demand. Rider revenue will be linked to Uber pricing, and not taxi metre pricing. This is an interesting pilot, linking Uber to supply sourced from aggregator mobile apps, and under Uber’s revenue and commision conditions, rather than working according to taxi regulated prices. 

Speaking of regulated, New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) voted to increase pay for Uber & Lyft drivers and for yellow & green cabs. For ride-hailing companies, per-minute rates are going up by 7.4% and per-mile rates by 24%. Cab fares will increase by 23%. The increase is linked to inflation and gas prices. 

Gojek and ComfortDelGro announce ride-hailing partnership. The 10,000 vehicles Comfortdelgro fleet will now be available on Gojek’s app. This is a joint effort vs. Grab, the leading player in Singapore.

Helbiz launches taxi service in four Italian cities, partnering with WeTaxi. In 2020, WeTaxi supplied 23% of Italian taxi demand. 

Bolt launches intercity ride-hailing in Nigeria. New player BusCaro B2C commute in Pakistan. Uride (ride-hailing, Canada) is expanding to Vernon, B.C. MoveInSync, SaaS employee commute solution, expands to the Philippines and Ghana, adding to existing operations in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Jamaica and South Africa. Little (Kenya) is not little anymore. The company is active in 5 markets, with cab-hailing, delivery, e-bike rental, e-wallet, movie reservations and more. Careem marks one billion rides. 299M of those in Pakistan, 244M in Saudi, Egypt 230M. A long read about Uber’s x-operation in Pakistan. West Midlands, UK, is merging two door-to-door services, creating the largest DRT operation in the UK. Padam’s Gloucestershire DRT long read tryout. CleverShuttle in Odenthal, Germany. 

Kabu (ride-hailing, Canada) starts operating in Victoria Airport, Vancouver. The company joins Lucky To Go, which started operating the airport in May. Uber and Lyft are not licensed in Greater Victoria, a condition which Uber is trying to change with the latest acquisition of local ReRyde and its licence.  

Uber withdrew a petition to change Kenyan regulations, which limits commissions at 18% and require local licensing, joining Bolt, Little (Kenya based) and Yego (Rwanda based) who have all conformed with the new regulation. 

In Brazil, Uber is present in 131 cities, yet there are more than 5,500 urban areas with more than 10,000 people. That leaves room for hundreds of local ride-hailing companies, such as Ubiz Car and Chofer 46, that tender to local needs and strengthen driver-rider relationships. For example, up to 12 hours to cover the pay. For more. 

The story of Ethiopia's ride-hailing industry There are more than 30 ride-hailing platforms in Addis Ababa, which has led to fierce competition. For more. 

Uber UK is going to court over VAT; recently the company settled to pay £615M in VAT to the UK government, and now wants private hire (taxi) operators to pay VAT as well. If Uber wins, taxi prices will increase by 20%. 

Beat, founded in Greece and a Free Now company, exists LATAM to focus on European markets. The company was present in Mexico, Argentina and Peru, distinguishing itself using Tesla fleets and hiring driver employees. The Beat app is leading customers to Cabify. Cabify to invest $300M to strengthen LATAM presence. A LATAM mobility update by F&S.

The Israeli Ministry of Transportation (MoT) is ending DRT pilots in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem (Israel), on account of low ridership. The pilots are run by two different transport operators, using Via technology. Data shows that those services, in Tel Aviv & Jerusalem, experienced low ridership. Tel Aviv averaged onboarding of 3.9 riders an hour, and the load factor (how many people were on the vehicle at the same time) was 1.2 per hour. It was worse in Jerusalem, with 2.6 and 0.7, respectively. A similar pilot in Haifa, with a 0.7 load factor, will continue for now. 

SWVL slashes its workforce by 50%, six months after laying off 32%. We’re used to layoff headlines, but this is big. Doing the maths, SWVL is left with only a third of the workforce it had six months ago. SWVL exists Pakistan, its 2nd largest market, responsible for 25% of H1/22 revenue. The company’s stock, which entered NYSE at $10, is now (end of trade, Dec. 2nd) $0.37. Uber says it won’t cut jobs. 

Yassir, an African super app offering ride-hailing, food & grocery delivery and payments, raised $150M in series B. Yassir is active in 45 cities in Algeria (founded), Morocco, Algeria, Canada, France and South Africa, 

Revel raises $50M in debt financing. The company will use the funds to grow its network of public EV fast charging hubs. This follows a $126M Series B funding round back in February. Revel will receive $7M from NY city to develop a recharging zone in Red Hook*, Brooklyn. Revel is exiting its moped D.C. operations after three years, to focus on ride-hailing operations and public fast EV charging network.

Uber is partnering with OpenTable and Viator, enabling restaurant and experience reservations via the ‘Uber Explore’ feature; expanded ‘Uber Travel’, hotel, flight, and other travel-related reservations, to more than 10K cities; expanded ‘Uber Charter’ to more than 20 cities. 

Free Now becomes the first private mobility app to integrate public transport tickets; in Germany. A true MaaS player, which was the company’s strategy in the past years. A long(ish) read on Lyft’s strategy moving away from ‘killing cars’ to ‘helping maintain private cars’, with parking reservation, roadside assistance and service centres all in its subscription service.  

Car-sharing/renting 🚗

Bolt launches a P2P car sharing feature. Kyte is offering car subscriptions. The on-demand car rental company now offers three, six and 12 month subscriptions. The company has recently raised $60M. Miles Mobility launches a subscription service, from a minimum of one month. Kite Mobility, electric carshare, partnered with a multi residential building in Toronto. Residents can use electric cars and bikes allowing better asset utilisation. 

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

Bird overstated shared electric scooter revenue for two years, considering insufficient wallet balances as revenue. Now the company says that the 2020 and 2021 financial reports can not be relied upon. Bird is in a bad shape, cutting personnel by ±25%; exiting markets and cities; experiencing management changes; in May potentially delisting from the NYSE; and has now issued a ‘going concern’ warning. For more. 

Nextbike by TIER wins 2,600 e-bike tender in Barcelona. Tier to discontinue German e-moped sharing services; operating these vehicles wasn’t profitable. Oslo public transportation app Ruter will soon include Bolt scooters. Bird in Qatar. Donkey Republic expands to Germany. 

There are ±15,000 scooters in Paris, their licence to expire in March 2023. The city is considering banning scooters, on account sidewalk clogs and pedestrian safety, but with 1.2 million rides a year, this will be a tough decision. 

There have been approximately 30 million journeys since the UK’s shared e-scooter trials began in summer of 2020; today there are currently 24,000 shared e-scooters divided into 45 fleets. Trails are ending now, and local authorities need to decide if they want to extend trials to May 2024. Voi stays in Portsmouth. Voi extends to South Bristol. Voi offers free e-scooter rides for new users as Bristol Clean Air Zone launches Voi e-scooter trial temporarily suspended outside Cambridge city after extension made 'in error'. Lime launches a responsible driving campaign in London; launches e-bike rental scheme in Nottingham; extends trial in Salford (UK) to 2024. Tier trials wheelchair-accessible e-scooter, plans to launch in the UK.

Research: scooters cut car travel and emissions more than previously thought. Mobility consultancy Brightside says Voi rental e-scooters have a lifespan of 5 years - vs. 8 months for the first model the company released in 2018. Scooter alcohol and drug intoxication preventive AI technology.

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

Deliveroo quit Australia with short notice. Competition from Uber Eats and Menulog and the intention of the government to improve gig-economy working conditions contributed to the move. For more. Voly, rapid grocery delivery, Australia, shuts down. JOKR closes Santiago (Chile) and Medellin (Colombian) operations. Food delivery in Bangladesh is struggling. Local apps are scaling down, Foodpanda (owned by Delivery Hero) now controls 65% of the market. For more. 

DoorDash lays off 1,250 employees, 6% of its workforce, in an effort to control costs. In Q3, the company lost $308 from operations. 

Getir is closer to acquiring Gorillas. Getir already operates in all the markets Gorillas does, so why pay a reportedly $590M (in cash and stocks) for a losing company? For the customer base, obviously, but also for the dark store infrastructure. With countries such as the Netherlands and France cracking down on new dark stores, adding dark stores could give Getir a long term advantage. 

UberEats partners with Grocery Outlet, adding the 386 locations to its app; also partners with SpartanNash, with its 100 locations; and is rolling out deliveries for NYC bodegas that see the ordering party pay the commision, rather than the establishment. DoorDash and WeWork partner in North America for WeWork’s community events. Sephora, personal care and beauty products with 500 branches in the US, partners with  DoorDash.  

Getir and Just Eat partner - Getir’s catalogue will now show on Just Eat’s app, deliveries done by Getir via their dark stores. The rollout will start in Germany, and soon additional European markets. UberEats and Gopuff partner in the UK in a similar partnership - with GoPuff’s catalogue now available on UberEats. Zapp is now available on Uber Eats. Uber Eat’s users can now have access to Zapp’s catalogue. Helbiz Kitchen partners with Deliveroo and Glovo to make its restaurants available via the apps. 

DoorDash new security features: will allow couriers to block customers without penalty, if faced with abusive or rude language over the app chat; will monitor if deliveries take too long for the courier’s safety; send notification to customers to leave light outside for couriers; makes it easier to report safety incidents via the app for both courier and client; and is partnering with Samdesk, a global crisis detection platform, to roll out real-time safety alerts

Amazon launches additional micromobility hubs in London and Manchester. In London, the new hubs triple Amazon’s e-cargo bike fleet. Gopuff partnered with logistics company Wincanton to launch a new distribution centre in London, to be used as dark stores.

Volta trucks and Cake partner, with Cake’s electric motorcycles serving as a last mile delivery onboard the trucks. The service is set to test run in Paris with the Swedish fast fashion label H&M Group in Q1 2023.

Wing (drones by Alphabet) partners with DoorDash to deliver orders in Australia. This is the first time Wing's service has been integrated into a third-party app.Users will select a delivery drop off point on the app. See video. 

Delivery apps revenue per user per year study claims that Grubhub leads with $384, with JustEat closing at $51. I wonder how close that is to the truth. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFlying cars 🚁

A TNMT analysis: Air taxis continue to fascinate investors; in 2022, 33% of VC money in new air travel found its way to eVTOLs. Space travel 2nd with 25%. For more. 

Post-IPO, Lilium closes a $119 million round via existing and new investors. The money will go to fuel existing targets. 

Archer debuts a production version of its 4 seater eVTOL aircraft, “Midnight” The company is focusing on the dense urban, 10 to 50 miles, use case. First test flights expected in H1/23. Volocopter flew air traffic in Paris. The company hopes to be commercially ready for the 2024 Olympics, preferably without a pilot. Volocopter selected for Tokyo’s Sustainable City project. Volocopter completes a set of flight tests of VoloDrone, its cargo drone. EHang and HAECO Group (engineering and maintenance) sign MOU for advanced air mobility. Boeing urges air taxi safety standards be as strict as for commercial jets. 

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

Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ (FSD) Beta is now available across North America, at a subscription fee of $199 a month. There has been much criticism and government investigations into FSD, for now FSD keeps collecting miles, an important ingredient in autonomous success. 

Yandex board is “reviewing options to restructure the group’s ownership and governance”, i.e. trying to take certain divisions of the company out of Russia, to the Netherlands. The move includes the self-driving unit, but probably not the mobility and delivery division. 

Stellantis acquires AiMotive, an autonomous driving software startup. Nio and Tencent partner to work on self-driving tech. Uber Freight and Aurora expand Texas self-driving pilot with packing solutions distributor Veritiv. Waymo is using its self-driving taxis to create real-time weather maps. The car can detect fog, rain and other weather conditions using its sensors. Aurora and Ryder to pilot on-site fleet maintenance for autonomous trucking. 

Mercedes-Benz is focusing on level 3 autonomous - i.e. allowing people not to pay attention on highways. ADAS update by Friedel. 

Waymo received approval to operate driverless (without a safety driver) for delivery services in San Francisco, and will also be able to charge for these services. In 30 days the company can apply for a driverless ride-hailing licence. In downtown Phoenix, Waymo has now opened up its fully driverless ride-hail service, which up to now was under a “trusted tester” program. 

ioki runs autonomous shuttles public transportation in Switzerland and Luxembourg as part of the EU-funded AVENUE project. First self-driving car hits the streets of Luxembourg; it is a Kia car. Cruise expands driving area and hours in San Francisco. Motional and Lyft will launch a robotaxi service in Los Angeles, the 2nd such market after Las Vegas. Padam is a part of ULTIMO, a EU funded autonomous shuttle program. 

A detailed read on May Mobility and Via’s autonomous operations in rural Minnesota. The service launched in September with 5 vehicles and will run for a period of 18 months, facing tough weather conditions. In France, a consortium has been given the task of providing rural transport with autonomous shuttles. Virginia (US) opens a highway strip for autonomous vehicles. Japan regulated the operation of Level 4 autonomous vehicles on public roads. With a safety driver on board. 

Nuro, autonomous delivery startup, lays off 20% of its workforce, ±300 people. Last year the company raised $600M and things were bright. Soon after the company executed expansion plans, only to be hit by the 2022 market downturns. Now comes the ‘correction’. Motional, the Aptiv-Hyundai joint venture, cut workforce by an (yet) unknown number. Amazon considered buying/saving Argo AI - but didn’t. TuSimple fired its CEO over improper ties to China (tech transfer) and brought back its previous CEO to. 

During Q3, Baidu’s self-driving taxis completed an average of more than 15 rides a day in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The CEO commented that “this number is quite close to the average daily rides for traditional ride-hailing services”. I wonder what unit economics looks like. 

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

Sverdlov, Arrival’s founder-CEO, quits. He will remain the major shareholder and become the chair of the board, replacing the current chair who is going to be… the CEO. The company is worth $215M, down from a high of $15 billion. The company delayed revenues to 2024. Also, Arrival got a warning from NASDAQ that it is trading too low and can be delisted if that doesn’t change.  

Tesla delivers its first electric Semi truck, to PepsiCo. The company says that the Semi can travel 500 miles on a single charge while fully loaded.

Lucid lost $670M in Q3, but is on track to hit production targets and has a full pipeline of orders, including 100,000 from the Saudi government. The company intends to raise an additional $1.5bn. Lucid sues State of Texas over the right to open a direct-to-consumer store in the state (rather than work via a dealership). Lucid opens 1st retail location in Switzerland. 

Rivian on track to hit 2022 production targets. Amazon already has 1,000 of those EDVs (electric delivery vans). Rivian posted $1.7bn losses in Q3, but has enough cash to 2025. 

Ola to shut down in-car infotainment business. Mercedes locks faster acceleration behind a $1,200 annual paywall. 

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

Moovit users can now track transit vehicles on map in real time. The feature is available in more than 220 cities across 38 countries , for any GPS carrying vehicle. A long(ish) read of the death of Hyperloop. ZEM cleans the atmosphere while driving. Uber’s longest journey was 438 km (272 miles), from Heathrow (London airport) to Scotland, back in 2018. 

Admin note: #movingpeople is moving to Monday mornings (away from Fridays), this way allowing you more conversation openers at work (and me time to work on it).