Thank you for reading #movingpeople. If you like what you're reading, please share it with your friends and colleagues so they can benefit from it too.

Top Story: Uber & Prosus Battle Over Delivery Hero 

Mostly reserved for the financial section, this piece of news has long term implications for the delivery - and ride-hailing - markets: Uber’s takeover efforts of Delivery Hero. 

In the Western World, there are four major delivery conglomerates: 

Back in August 2025 Prosus completed the acquisition of JET, in the process committing to reducing its 27.4% stake in Delivery Hero (16.83% today), a mandatory requirement by the European commission to approve the JET takeover. Uber has since increased its stake in Delivery Hero to ±37% - with 24.99% voting rights, just under the 25% threshold that, according to German law, mandates a takeover bid. 

Uber did try to bid for Delivery Hero a couple weeks ago, offering to buy out at a €10 billion valuation - but that was rejected by existing players, with Prosus now fighting back, either to regain control, or to get a better deal from Uber. 

The implications for the delivery market are obvious - but it doesn’t stop there. The synergies between delivery and ride-hailing are large - both in terms of cross-subsidising and in running operations - an Uber takeover will create a ripple effect through global markets. 

This is a developing story; to be continued. 

Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi 🚙🚕

Uber, Autobrains, and NVIDIA announced an autonomous vehicle partnership, with the first launch planned for Munich sometime in the future. This story has special meaning for two reasons, pointing to the (1) growing commoditisation of AV tech and the (2) potential strengthening of the OEMs (within the autonomy ecosystem): 

Now connect the Autobrains news to this 👇 re commoditisation: 

In London, Tym Syrytczyk sent me this picture of an autonomous Mercedes using what looks like DeepMap mapping technology, and connected the dots: 

A similar one was spotted by Harry Campbell in San Francisco (picture). 

BYD is offering a one year full damage coverage guarantee for crashes occurring while using the Urban Navigation on Autopilot (NOA) function of its God’s Eye version 5.0, BYD’s L2+ ADAS system. This is the first time an OEM is committing to the potential negative results of using ADAS systems. BYD said that a similar move, parking guarantee given in the past, lifted usage from 21% to 93%, and the company hopes it would do the same for ADAS usage. 

Uber overall investment Nuro has reached close to $500M. We don’t know how much stake Uber now has in Nuro, but based on past funding rounds, it is likely somewhere between 5% and 10%. Also Uber to roll out 500 fully-sensor-loaded Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles, as part of the AV Lab division aim to collect data for Uber and partners. 

Uber increased its stake in Careem, acquiring an additional 12.5% of the company for $100M from e&, reducing e&’s stake from 50.03% to 37.53%. Ride-hailing has been fully controlled by Uber since the 2020 Carrem acquisition; in 2023 e& acquired a majority stake in Careem’s super app business (food delivery, grocery delivery, payments, and other digital offerings) for $400M, as part of its strategy to expand digital consumer services. This new deal reflects a leadership and focus change at e&. 

Waymo welcomes Ojai (pronounced oh-hi) - the new purpose-built and co-designed electric minivan Zeekr vehicle. Up to now the vehicle has been in employee closed group testing, and is now opening to the public, first in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco. 

WeRide and Uber to launch robotaxi in Madrid. The companies work together in the UAE; this is a European first. AVOMO will be the fleet operator. Service (testing) to begin later this year. This is the 4th city from the total 15 cities set in the May 2025 strategic partnership between the two companies, which aims to launch autonomous services in 15 global cities by 2030. 

This video shows a Dallas officer trying to move a Waymo, which is obstructing a road needed for emergency services. What I find interesting about this video is: (1) the lack of pre-planned coordination between the Waymo remote assistance team and the emergency forces; (2) the unwillingness of the officer to identify by name, perhaps as a result of no clear protocols; and (3) the helplessness of the Waymo remote assistance team. The vehicle was manually moved by the officer. 

Uklon partners with Elmo to pilot remote driving technology at the Boryspil International Airport, near Kyiv. For now in trial mode only, the airport plans to use this technology once air space reopens and flights resume. 

In Texas, Tesla self-certified its robotaxis as Level 4 autonomous. You can do that in Texas. Tesla’s fleet in the state is relatively small - 42 registered and less active (via Robotaxi Tracker). Texas also mandates registration of autonomous vehicles, so we know the numbers: Waymo 577, Avride 317, Nuro 47, MOIA 12. 

CaoCao expanded its robotaxi fleet in Binjiang, Hangzhou, to 100 vehicles. CaoCao partners with Shanghai International Automotive City to deploy commercial robotaxis in the city. Momenta is granted permit for autonomous road testing in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China (near Shanghai). Kazakhstan prepares to launch driverless taxi service in 2026, led by both Yandex and InDrive. 

A major play in the UK minicab (private-hire / taxi) ecosystem: Veezu makes a strategic investment in Cab9. Why is this meaningful: Veezu is the largest traditional private-hire/taxi group in the UK, growing via acquisitions, with >16,000 driver partners across over 50 cities, serving 25+ million passenger journeys annually, and up to now using iCabbi for its entire fleet. Cab9 is the 3rd largest taxi dispatch company, behind iCabbi (Renault) and Autocab (Uber), and has been a rising player over the past years. This means that Veezu will both transition to Cab9 (bad news for iCabbi) and enjoy the connection to existing Cab9 customers, which it normally acquires to maintain growth. 

Vinfast enters India’s ride-hailing market - expands its Green SM electric taxi service to the Delhi-NCR region. Ola Consumer (ride-hailing Ola) valuation has dropped from a $7.3 billion peak to $70M today. The company has lost India to Uber and Rapido. 

Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts form the first US ride-share union after collecting signatures from 25% active drivers; it represents nearly 70,000 ride-share drivers. Back in 2024, when the law allowing unionization took place, Uber and Lyft approved of it, as long as the independent contractor status would not change. It didn’t, and the companies did not stand in the way of the union. Spoiler to drivers afraid of autonomy: you are going to lose to robot drivers exactly the same way taxis lost to you, i.e. to gig-economy drivers.  

A study looking at Waymo data of 86 million total vehicle miles traveled over approximately 14 million Waymo robotaxi trips finds that Waymo travels with passengers 54% of miles traveled. This is on par with existing ride-hailing deadheading stats, which raises the question: is Uber's (or any other large TNC, for that matter) system already efficient in terms of vehicle positioning to an extent in which autonomous is only a slight improvement? 

The Self-Driving Industry Awards 2026 (or SDIA26 in short) is an annual event organised by Cars of The Future, celebrating autonomy. This year there are 12 categories, from aftermarket to fleet operations via legal to software. You can take a look at the event here, apply to the award here (by 5pm on Friday 11 September 2026) or just visit the website to learn more: 

#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business - a consultancy focused on Innovation, Growth and Autonomy in the Mobility industry.

Autonomous Shuttles, DRT & Bus-Based Mobility 🚍🚌

Atlanta launches first autonomous public transit service pilot. Tech by ADASTEC, bus by Karsan, operations by Beep. 

Finland to begin operating a commercial driverless public transport robot bus, without a  safety driver. Vehicle & Tech by Ohmio, operations by Remoted. 

WeRide Robobus service returns to Roland-Garros, The Robobus will operate along a 2.8-kilometre route with a journey time of 12 minutes, connecting three stops, running from 24 May to 7 June, operating daily from 10.30am to 5pm, 6pm to 8pm, and 10pm to midnight.

Accidents happen. An ADASTEC / Karsan bus operating in Gothenburg, Sweden, has been involved in an accident with a tram on its first day in passenger service (May 25th). The tram approached the bus from behind and crashed into it; reasons for the incident are not yet clear. At the time the service was carrying paying passengers, as part of a year-long autonomous public transport trial in Gothenburg. 

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Uklon acquires E-WINGS for roughly $2.2M, in Uklon’s 1st M&A deal. E-WINGS, founded in Ukraine, is live in 11 Ukrainian cities with a fleet of circa 3,000 e-scooters. Uklon just added micromobility to its portfolio. Congrats. 

Goldman Sachs invests in Ryde in a majority stake deal (partial exit). Ryde:

Dott reports Q1/26 numbers: 

Voi and Bolt win Stockholm e-scooter license; Lime to exit. Bolt won a licence to operate 3,500 e-scooters in Frankfurt. Voi UK: new in Aberdeen, successful in Glasgow and plans to expand in Southampton. Lime removed speed restrictions for delivery drivers and might be rolling back on that after the public noticed. Beam exits Tasmania. 

Delivery - bikes to cars, bots & drones 🍽🧺

CargoX, autonomous delivery platform based in the UAE, raised $250M. CargoX deploys driverless delivery vehicles across last-mile, middle-mile and long-haul routes; funds will be used to expand in the UAE and internationally. 

Matternet, drone deliveries, raises $33M in a private placement offering (selling shares directly to investors) and completed a reverse merger (became public but is not trading). Funds will be used to “launch its next-generation drone delivery platform and expand commercial operations across food, retail, and healthcare”. 

iFood launches food delivery in São Paulo with Speedbird Aero; and is suing Meituan-backed Keeta over alleged espionage. Walmart celebrates 1 million drone deliveries. In Ireland, Manna is too close to a church. Neolix and QuikBot partner in Singapore. 

I love meeting new people and learning about innovation in mobility. Let’s get-to-know / catch up.

In other news 📰

Blablacar expands to eight new LATAM markets. Developing markets, such as LATAM and India, have shown the greatest growth. 

FORT Robotics, trust layer for physical AI, acquires Mapless AI, US-founded vehicle teleoperation and autonomy supervision. 

Revel and Volterra merge under the Volterra brand, combining Voltera’s development and infrastructure capabilities with Revel’s urban charging footprint and operating experience. 

Vianova launches new “street level” intelligence platform - designed to help cities make sense of the vast amount of data they hold. 

Waymo gives batteries a second life - partnering with B2U Storage Solutions to repurpose old EV batteries from the Waymo fleet. Circular economy at its best. 

london riders report - the map shows all the Transport for London (tube) system's trips taken on a typical weekday.

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Adrien Ravet is the new Head of M&A and Corporate Development - Europe @ Modaxo. 

Amit Summer-Galai is the new Director OEM Programs @ Electreon. 

Giles Kinnersley is the new Founder & CEO @ Electronas X. 

Ivan Chornohor is the new Vice President of Supply & Driver Operations @ Uklon. 

Jonathan Padmore is the new Senior Partnership Manager @ Tactran. 

Mark Collins is the new Head of Product @ West Midlands Combined Authority. 

Mike Wilkes is the new National Key Account Manager @ Veezu. 

Ofer Segal is the new Sales And Marketing Specialist @ SafeFields Technologies. 

Paul Drummond is the new Settlement & Specialist Services Director, Transport & Mobility @ Magellan. 

Philip Gerhardt is the new Commercial Director - Arriva London @ Arriva UK Bus. 

Ram Karia is the new Charter Lead (Private Hire) UK&I @ Zeelo. 

Robin Arts is the new GTM Operations Specialist @ Cargoplot. 

Stewart Lightbody is the new Fleet Manager @ Fortem Solutions.

Congrats and good luck!

Thank you for reading #movingpeople. If you like what you're reading, please share it with your friends and colleagues so they can benefit from it too.