China’s gov transport app, Madrid chooses e-scooters, Navya files for administration, Toyota leadership change and UK AV testing.

China launches a state-backed transport app; Gett is EBITDA profitable; SWVL undoes the Volt Lines acquisition; Uber extends Hertz’s partnership to Europe and plans a purpose vehicle with unnamed OEMs; Madrid chooses Dott, Lime & Tier and Phoenix chooses Lime and Tier (Spin); Grubhub won’t sell; Navya files for administration; two new bus AV tests in the UK; Toyota leadership change; Glovo fined, again; and more with Grab, Lyft, Zeelo, Uride, Mirai Share, Onto, Finn, Halo.Car, Helbiz, Voi, Doordash, Just Eat Takeaway, Stagecoach, First Group, Keolis, Tesla, Lilium and more, #movingpeople, let’s start.  

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

The Chinese government 🇨🇳is launching a state-owned ride-hailing company. This new app, whose name literally translates into “The Strong Country’s Transportation”, will provide ride-hailing, cargo trucking, road transport, railway, ferry and flight services. It will integrate into WeChat and other popular services; will be the go-to travel supplier of government and state-backed enterprises (in China, there are a lot of those); and is expected to gain a market share of 90%. Well, so says the newspaper who announced its coming, which is what the Chinese government probably has in mind. An amazing timing coincidence, as Didi just got back to the app store this week. 

VNV Global, a Swedish investment company with stakes in Gett, SWVL, Voi and Blablacar. published its 2022 report. Gett is EBITDA profitable and valued at $258M. Voi was close to EBITDA profitability in Q3/22 and aims to get there in FY23. Blablacar is strong, with 6 million unique active drivers, 20 million unique active passengers and 65 million seats filled in 2022. SWVL… well, VNV “remains enthusiastic about its core business in emerging markets… working intensely to see if something can be salvaged out of the mess the SPAC listing has left them in”. 

And SWVL is pressing Ctrl+Z on its Volt Lines acquisition. The deal was cash to be followed by stocks, but now SWVL’s market cap (±$17M) is below the original deal size ($40M), so it seems both sides are happy with the cancellation. SWVL also conducted a reverse stock split (after receiving 2nd delisting warning from NASDAQ. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear more sad news from SWVL in the coming weeks. 

Cancun. Beaches, sun and angry taxi drivers mad at Uber. A couple of weeks ago a judge approved Uber’s activity in the city, and taxis are not happy, attacking Uber drivers and their riders and blocking the road to the airport, causing the US State Department to issue a tourist alert. 

Uride, ride-hailing Canada, expands to Vernon, British Columbia. Uber resumes full operation in Tanzania, following relaxed fare regulation reported last week. Grab is implementing a price change, charging higher fares in peak time traffic. The change is designed to improve pay for drivers, and will increase the per minute pay while reducing per-mile pay. Lyft adds wait-time fees (7 years after Uber did). Fees will be on a per-minute basis, starting after 2 minutes. 

Empower is a ride-hailing business in which drivers subscribe to and keep 100% of the fare, also allowing lower riders’ costs. It launched in DC two years ago, and has since supported over 2.5 million rides and 10,000 drivers. Today the company supplies circa 5,000 rides a day, and is growing to the suburbs in Virginia and Maryland. 

⚡️NYC wants all ride-hailing to be electric by 2030. There are an estimated 100,000 ride-hailing vehicles in the city. Uber drivers in Europe will now have access to Tesla, Polestar and other EVs through a partnership with Hertz. A similar partnership is already running in the US. London will be the first city to enjoy access to the program. Zeelo partners with Pelican and Zenobe to launch electric bus trials. An electric bus will be supplied to six different operators for a trial period, to ease the transition to EVs. 

Cab Guru acquired Cordic to create the CabFusion brand. This is a backward integration play, with a collection of UK minicab companies buying the dispatch software that serves them. 

DRT corner: The Routing Company 2022 summary: raised $15M; grew the team to 40; had over 200,000 rides with 40,000 unique app users (200/40=5); and launched 9 new services. Bus operator SamTrans partners with Transdev to launch microtransit operations in San Francisco. The service is designed for a minimum of three years, and follows a pilot done back in 2019. North Carolina has been awarded $10.4M by the U.S. Department of Transportation to increase mobility in rural areas, which will go toward a microtransit program. In Japan, a new DRT trial by Mirai Share will use unlicensed drivers, for the first time (ride-hailing is not allowed, only licensed taxi drivers). Transport for Wales expands its DRT service. Aberdeenshire cancels its DRT service. Launched in August 2021, a recent survey discovered that people prefer a fixed timetable service. So with high running costs and not enough demand, the service will shut down in April. Article: DRT doesn’t make financial sense. Deutsche Bahn plans to transport 200 million passengers per year with on-demand transportation by 2030, focusing on rural areas. 

In Juneau County, Wisconsin, Uber and Lyft are subsidised, with drivers getting extra pay, to allow access to health related mobility needs for the county. Adding to current transportation solutions is an on-going process and a clear target, as this Uber-generated article shows. 

An Overharing long read on Uber’s surge pricing. The average London taxi tip is 10%, or £3.1. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedSharing/renting 🚗🛴

Onto, electric car subscription, raises a credit line of £100M. Halo.Car, teleoperated car technology, trials in Vegas. Finn expands its B2B car subscriptions to the US. Greater Asheville Regional Airport Authority is suing Turo, claiming the company isn’t abiding by airport commercial vehicle policies. Airports don’t like P2P, as these services don’t pay the airports, unlike taxis for example. And a Friedel update on the car subscription services in Europe and the US. 

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

Madrid selects Dott, Lime and Tier. The three operators won a three-year operational licence with the city, with each operator to roll-out 2,000 scooters across the city. And Phoenix chooses Lime and Spin (Tier) for its shared micromobility program. Each operator can operate up to 1,500 vehicles, from those at least 20% pedal & e-bikes, and 30% of the fleet has to be within ‘equity zones’. 

Tier is exiting some (more) unprofitable cities and shutting down side projects such as its vehicle design program and the ‘Tier Energy Network’. In the process, the company is laying off 100 employees (7% of workforce), circa 80 from Nextbike and 20 from Spin (US). Helbiz pulls back from ‘non-profitable markets’, citing (the usual reasons of) lack of robust regulatory frameworks, high levels of competition and an oversupply of vehicles. 

Barcelona bans onboarding of e-scooters to public transport (buses, rails) for 6 months, to create a regulatory framework. This is after a 3-scooter exploded on a railway car. Istanbul takes action to ensure pedestrian safety, regulating against e-scooters pavement parking. Bristol's is moving scooter parking away from pavements onto marked areas on roads. Amsterdam to reduce e-bike speed limits to 30 km/h, from a previous 50 km/h. In Japan, scooter riders will no longer need a driver licence (from July). Minor under 16 are banned from use of scooters, which in the country drive only on roads.  

Dubai records 2.8 million trips made on Careem bicycles, from February 2020 to December 2022. Tier completes one million rides in Dubai, operating since October 26, 2020. Dott survey finds out that people are using micromobility solutions more because of the energy crisis. Lime extended in Washington DC. Lime launches its Gen4 e-bikes and e-scooters in Doha. In New Orleans, the local community picked up the scooter service using a non-profit model, after the city cancelled its contract with Lime. 

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

Just Eat Takeaway: higher prices and increase in delivery costs helped Europe’s biggest food delivery group to generate €16M in adjusted earnings in 2022, compared with a €350mn loss in 2021. The company is continuing to explore the sale of GrubHub, but “there’s just not a lot of people with money anymore. Maybe that sounds a bit dramatic but that’s the fact”, the CEO said. 

DoorDash expands Starbucks partnership with plans to reach all US states by March. This adds to a current partnership with UberEats. Sainsbury’s signs deal with Just Eat. It includes outlets in London, Edinburgh and Bristol offering a choice of 3,000 items delivered in less than 30 minutes. This adds to current partnerships with Deliveroo and UberEats. 

Merqueo, delivery in Brazil and Columbia, prepares to IPO in the US. JOKR shuts down operations in Colombia 2 months after leaving Chile. The company will remain in Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. Yummy, the first delivery startup in Venezuela, to expand in the country. The company has also recently acquired Yaigo, the Bolivian superapp. Kenyans are ordering more food, Glovo says. Up 160% from 2021. 

Uber Freight laying off 150 employees, ±3% of the workforce. 

Meituan’s (China) delivery drones completed over 100K orders in 2022, with an average time of 12 minutes to delivery. In the US, FAA regulation limits delivery drones, with the administration saying that safety is their ‘North Star’. 

“This Week in Food Delivery & Quick Commerce” is a new newsletter I stumbled upon and you are welcomed to subscribe. 

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

Navya approached the court to grant it protection while the company tries to escape insolvency. The company shares were suspended, and now the court needs to decide if to grant protection and potentially allow Navya time to look for additional funding, sell the company, or god knows what. 

UK’s first full-size autonomous bus carries passengers for the first time; the passengers were from the ‘Co-Design Panel’, a group of local bus users. The CAVForth project is managed by Stagecoach and funded by the UK government. In Oxford, First Group launched an autonomous 16-seater operation, with passengers expected in February. 

Waymo (seemingly minor) layoffs, with reports of a few dozens out of ±2,000 employees. Remember Alphabet (aka Google) just axed 12,000 employees. There are also refuted reports of the company closing Waymo Via, its trucking division. 

Keolis and EasyMile launched service at France’s National Sports Shooting Centre. Waymo car gets lost and confused in a construction site. Self driving sweepers in China. 

A video from 2016 showing Tesla full driving capabilities was ‘fake’, as the car drove via a pre-mapped predetermined route, and not dynamically driving as suggested. It also shows the vehicle stopping on traffic, an ability nonexistent at the time. This comes up as Tesla is being sued for the death of one of its customers. 

A study looked at the impact of autonomous vehicles (on Southern California). Key findings: 52% are willing to use AVs for daily travel; accepted commute time could grow by 12 minutes; total number of trips could increase by 9%; congestion isn’t expected to change much. 

Map of autonomous public self-driving vehicles and a video explanation. ComfortDelGro invests $4M in teleoperations company Ottopia. Self-driving truck startup Waabi brings on Volvo VC as a strategic investor. Outrider, autonomous electric yard trucks, raises $73M. More autonomous funding news by Friedel. 

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

RedBird Capital builds 5% stake in Blade Air Mobility, up from a 1% stake that it invested in 2021. Wisk names Boeing exec to be its new CEO. Lilium appoints new CFO and CCO. Both are airline veterans. 

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

Toyota is changing leadership. Akio Toyoda, CEO/President has resigned (and now be chairman of the board), after leading the company since 2009, in order to make way for a new generation. He will be replaced by Koji Sato, Chief Branding Officer and head of the Toyota Lexus division. The company has been slow in moving to electric vehicles, which will probably be one of the key action items for Sato. 

Uber car. The company is working with undisclosed automakers to produce a purpose built, cheaper electric car. Uber tried this with Arrival, but Arrival had to refocus due to financial constraints. The car should be fit for both people and packages, could sacrifice acceleration and top speeds, and not necessarily require four wheels. 

Kate focuses on producing micro-cars. The company will produce vehicles for peri-urban environments, where people need cars for closeby errands and commutes. The car is expected to cost €15,000, reach top speed of 90 km/h (56 mph) and would have 200 km (124 miles) range.

Tesla’s market share is down from 70.5% in 2021 to 63.5% in 2022. A graph by Chartr shows that in Q3 and Q4 2022, Tesla produced more than the demand. A nice visual that (also) explains why Tesla dropped prices by 20% a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, the company recorded record revenue and beat earnings forecasts.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedGig economy 💰

Glovo (Delivery Hero) is fined, again, for breaching employment laws, this time for €57M, bringing the total fines to date to around €200M. The last fine was implemented back in September, only ±5 months ago, for €79M. Appeal has been filed. In my opinion, this is a great example of how corporations can be stronger than governments. 

A long read of the European and French gig-worker employment status, through the legal case of Stuart (which it recently won). In short: France is supportive of gig-work, both in the country and in the EU, where it is leading an attempt to approve the model in Europe. 

Meanwhile, a french court in Lyon ruled in favour of drivers, classifying them as employees and ordering Uber to €17M in damages, reimbursement for professional expenses like the purchase of a car, fuel and overtime. Uber to appeal. 

A long read on India’s gig economy drivers. In short: declining income, increasing variable expenses and lack of welfare schemes and social security. From the start of the pandemic earnings per food and grocery delivery are down by ±50%, with delivery radius increasing times 6, enabling fewer trips per day. Ride-hailing (Uber, Ola) commissions increased by 5% to 25%. Price of CNG, which fuels most cabs in the country, increased a whopping 86% since December 2020. Protests are more common now, and the government moves slowly. 

Uber Drivers Say They Are Struggling - a longish New York Times read. 

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

A 189 pages read on “Bus Operator Workforce Management: Practitioner’s Guide”. I spoil you, I know.