Flix acquires Flibco, CMAC acquires minicabit, Bolt new e-bike

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

Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi 🚙🚕

Gett is in talks to sell its UK operations for an estimated $50M. Gett was acquired for $188M circa six months ago, and operates in the UK and in Israel, where it is a market leader with >80% market share. The identity of the buyer is unknown; it could be anyone from Uber to ComfortDelGro to Bolt. To be continued. 

And still in the UK, CMAC (a ComforDelGro subsidiary) acquires minicabit, a website to compare and book cheap minicabs (taxis). 

InDrive diversifies by adding grocery deliveries and ads - following the steps of other ride-hailers. Advertising is being rolled out across markets including Nigeria, Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Egypt, and Morocco. Grocery is being introduced in Pakistan. 

Yelo is a “Uber for Gen Z” that recently launched in the US, offering a pay less, never FOMO and ride friendly. The company is targeting launch in 19 cities over the next month. 

Angkas partners with Igloo to provide insurance for 20,000 rides. Through this partnership, personal accident insurance can be activated for a minimum premium of 52 cents per ride. 

Namma Yatri enters the corporate market via a partnership with OneBanc, corporate payroll & expense platform, 

Gig-economy regulation in Israel is moving forward. On Sunday the new bill passed the first (of quite many) steps, and will now travel through parliament. Best case scenario, assuming the bill doesn’t fall, expect ride-hailing to start in Q3. 

In Canada, Uber is fighting the Halifax region from imposing new licensing requirements. A new regulation will require ride-hailing drivers to submit their background checks and training to the municipality - and not to the ride-hailing company - which is the same way other taxi drivers are getting licensed today. How much more would it cost drivers? $135 in onboarding fees and additional $100 every two years. Not much really. 

Motional (Hyundai-backed) targets commercial robotaxi service in Las Vegas by the end of 2026. For now Motional runs an autonomous vehicle in the city, with a safety driver, for employees only, which acts like a robotaxi. The company uses IONIQ 5 vehicles. 

WeRide is live on WeChat. Apollo Go and AutoGo launched a robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, available to the public through the AutoGo app. Waymo plans to launch in Australia this year. New York Governor plans to introduce legislation that would legalise robotaxis in the state - but for now not in NYC. 

Tesla removes the option to get FSD via a one-time payment. Moving forward, only a monthly subscription will be possible; the price currently stands at $99. Reaching “10 million active FSD subscriptions” is also one of the milestones in Musk’s $1 trillion package. 

Can autonomous vehicles be taken to a car-wash? An excellent question by Lukas Neckermann - with no clear answer. The question has to do with maintenance costs and utilisation; but it reminds us that the switch to autonomous won’t be operationally easy. 

In San Francisco, Zoox robotaxi strikes a parked car, injuring a person in the process. Per Zoox: “a robotaxi was traveling straight on 15th Street when the driver of a parked vehicle suddenly opened their door into the path of the robotaxi. The robotaxi identified the opening door and tried to avoid it but contact was unavoidable”. 

Waymo gets stuck on the light rail and a passenger gets off the car. The car eventually moved on (still driving on a light rail track) but only after the light rail had to stop and let the Waymo ‘wake up’. See here: 

A Phil Koopman deep-dive into Waymo’s school bus problem. In short: Waymo vehicles have been violating traffic rules next to US school buses; have since been taken for a software recall; and still the problem continues. 

DRT, Bus-Based Mobility & AV shuttles 🚍🚌

Flix acquires Flibco, a European digital airport-transfer platform, operating in seven European countries. Flibco will continue to operate as a separate unit, with backend integrations expected soon. 

A L4 self-driving bus runs on public roads in greater Tokyo for the first time; it has been running at L2 since 2019. The entire route is 2.6km - the L4 ODD is 700 meters of that route. 

A ComfortDelGro + Pony.ai autonomous vehicle crashes into a road divider. Bumper slightly damaged. The company says this happened while transitioning to a human driver. 

Read an interview with Eran Ofir, Imagry’s CEO, on the company’s vision-based, no HD maps, no Lidar, autonomous tech (similar to Tesla and Wayve).

89 events and counting - a comprehensive list of mobility and electrification events:

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

GreenMobility’s 2025 preliminary numbers & guidance for 2026; starting with 2025 realised non-audited numbers:

• Revenue up 20% to €20.6M (DKK 154M)

• EBITDA up 55% to €7.1M (DKK 53M)

• Cash at bank and in hand grew to €2.28M (grew by DKK 10M, to DKK 17M)

And 2026 guidance: 

• Revenue growth of 8-12%

•  EBITDA growth of 12-16%

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Bolt has a new - fully in-house designed - bike. The bike, to be first introduced in Barcelona, has solar panels to power the connected systems while the bike is idle; and a forward-facing AI camera that can detect unsafe behaviour, recognise parking racks and assess proximity to pedestrians. 

The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map is looking for a sponsor. Currently Lyft sponsors the map - who here wants to replace them? 

Micromobility crime. From theft to joyrides, some estimate that up to 10% of a bike-sharing fleet can be stolen or destroyed annually. Crime is more common in transport hubs (+35%), student zones (+31%) and nightlife districts (+27%). MineCrime collects crime data, creating geospatial analytics and risk modeling, to help micromobility operators combat crime. 

Ireland considers making e-scooter helmets compulsory. 

Luna Systems, AI-powered camera systems, raises €1.5M to bring Advanced Rider Assistance Systems (ARAS) to cyclists and motorcyclists. 

Delivery - from bikes & cars to bots & drones 🍽🧺

NYC vs. delivery apps:

• $550M. A new report by the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection finds that delivery workers have lost as much as $550M in tips since Uber and DoorDash changed their apps so that the tip option appears only after customers place their orders. 

• 76¢ per delivery. The average tip on UberEats and DoorDash - compared to $2.17 on apps that offer the option to tip before checkout.

• $5,800 - the annual loss in tips per worker.

• January 26th. A new law, requiring to offer the option to tip at or before checkout, is due to come into effect. 

DoorDash and Uber are suing the city over the introduction of the new bill. This whole bizarre affair feels more like Moscow than New York. 

In India, the Labour Ministry recently held meetings with senior leaders of Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy and Zomato to discuss delivery timelines and the pressure faced by gig workers - leading Blinkit to drop the ‘10-minute delivery’ messaging. Others are expected to follow. 

Amazon is testing delivery drones in Darlington, UK. Commercial services are expected later this year. 

In Miami, a malfunctioned UberEats delivery bot was wrecked after being hit by a commuter train. 

A funny video of delivery bots in China plowing through tough conditions. 

AV Freight & Logistics 🚛🚜

2 million tonnes of limestone in 8 months. Pronto’s autonomous tech is powering Heidelberg Materials’ fleet of haul trucks

McLeod, transportation management systems (TMS) for trucking, integrates with Aurora, allowing trucking businesses to book and manage autonomous truck capacity using their existing TMS.

In other news 📰

What if shared mobility didn’t feel shared? introducing Pliyt. 

I love meeting new people and learning about mobility & delivery innovation. Let’s get-to-know.

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Luc Hall is the new Head of Business Development @ Bikmo.

Lukas Teschner is the new Strategy & Operations Principal @ Via UK. 

Shengyu Jin is the new Autonomous Vehicle System Technical Leader @ ORI AI LTD

Congrats and good luck!

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