Ford creates new autonomous unit, JET adjusted EBITDA profitable and Uber taking on instacart

Uber runs a ‘one less car’ social experiment; Careem leaves Qatar; FreeNow leaves Portugal; Bolt car-sharing in Lithuania; Bolt scooter ‘reckless rider score’; Tier looking to raise; Lime sues Hertz; Uber’cart’ grocery shopping; JET adjusted EBITDA profitable and losses €4.6bn on GrubHub; Jumia lays off 20% and exits 3 countries; Getir is getting ready for its own cuts; GoPuff leaves France; Ford creates new autonomous unit; Waymo in LA and brings total layoffs to 8%; UK first autonomous bus; May Mobility and Via partner; Tesla investor day meh; and more with Lug + Carrie, Evera, Mukunda Foods, Hello Fresh, Embark, Locomation, Roam, Ampersand, Basi-Go, Ox Delivers and SpaceX. Let’s start #MovingPeople. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedRide-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

‘One Less Car’ trial by Uber: 50 lucky Australians will give up their private car for a month and receive A$1,300 to use on ride-share, rental cars, e-bikes, scooters and public transport as part of a social experiment to understand switch implications. The trial is done together with Lug + Carrie (e-cargo bike) and Lime, plus behavioural scientists. Register for the trial here. 

Careem leaves Qatar. A surprising announcement, the move is linked to regulatory bodies in Qatar not yet granting the approval needed for the Uber-Careem acquisition in the country (reminder: Uber acquired Careem back in 2019). All these years, Careem has operated side-by-side with Uber, as an independent unit, rather than being formally acquired by Uber. Also, Careem Qatar was not able to offer deliveries or digital payments, the way it does in the region. Uber will continue to operate in the country. 

FreeNow exits Portugal, effective April 3rd. The company said that “a weak growth trajectory, strong competition and the lack of a core taxi service business” contributed to its decision. This leaves Uber, Bolt and local Albufeira based (South Portugal) Its My Ride to operate in the country. 

FlixBus completed implementation of its booking platform to Greyhound. And Flix considers going public on the Frankfurt exchange at a €4bn valuation. The company will probably wait for a better market, but has started talking to banks. 

Padam and WeDRT partner on WeCommute, WeDRT’s commute brand. WeDRT will create B2B partnerships and manage supply (vehicles), with Padam bringing its on-demand software. Tees Flex DRT pilot extended. The Stagecoach + Via service has been running since 2020, and will now run an additional 18 months. 

Evera, an all-electric cab company in India, raised $7M. Money will be used to develop the company’s tech stack and to increase fleet, which currently is circa 250 cabs, to over 2,000 cabs. Barcelona relaxes taxi restrictions for the ‘Mobile World Congress’ conference. Barcelona has been cracking down on ride-hailing for the past months, but a 80,000 people event had the city (temporarily) change its mind. 

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

Bolt launches car-sharing service in Lithuania. Initiating with 500 vehicles, the company wishes to have 1,500 vehicles by the end of the year. 

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

Bolt introduces reckless rider score. The system will look at indicators such as tandem riding, frequent abrupt braking, collisions and illegal parking and hand out a score every five rides. If the rider is at the bottom 2% of riders, Bolt will send educational materials, followed by limiting speed and eventually leading to a ban. The pilot is live in Germany and Portugal. 

Tier is looking to raise, working with Rothschild bank. The company is looking to raise €1bn in debt, equity and convertible notes. Last valuation, given in October 2021 (before the markets took a turn for the worse), was €2bn.

Lime is criticised for offering free rides before the Paris e-scooter referendum. The company is offering free 10-minute rides to users who register to vote in the April 2nd referendum on keeping or banning scooters from the city. 

Bird (Canada) extends contract with Windsor City for three more years. The company was also the only bidder, after completing a two year pilot with the city. Bound in Coachella, a new addition to a city that Bird is present in. Tier expands in Spain. Bolt expanding Irish e-bike fleet. Lyft suspends non-profit scooter bike share in Minneapolis after failing to find a new sponsor. Lime sues Hertz for poaching engineers. 

If you’re not familiar with LunchClub - a social platform that connects users with common interests and objectives - I recommend it. Last week I met Mark, a renewable energy consultant (and musician), and got to find out about African companies in the EV space: Roam, an electric vehicle manufacturer and refitter; Ampersand, a e-motorbike distributor and battery swapping company; Basi-Go, specialising in E-buses; and Ox Delivers, a electric truck on-demand logistic company. 

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

Uber updated its ‘Shop and Pay’ feature in the driver app so it is now easier for drivers to perform grocery shopping deliveries, entering deeper into Instacart’s space. The app includes an easy way to manage substitutes; launches pre-authorized cards with Google and Apple pay; and gives additional clarity of order volume, to let drivers know of heavy or fragile items in advance, before approving the job. Today there are over 600,000 people working for Instacart as shoppers and 200,000 Uber ‘shoppers’, and Uber hopes to see more of its 5.4 million drivers entering the space. 

Just Eat Takeaway (JET) 2022 results: Revenue €5.56bn, adjusted EBITDA €19M compared to a €350 in previous year, net loss €5.67bn, which also includes impairments of €4.6bn on GrubHub and €275M on Brazilian’s iFood sale. 

DoorDash launches co-branded credit card with Chase, providing cash back, free year of DashPass and additional benefits. HelloFresh is trialling its own delivery fleet in the UK. Walgreens, DoorDash and Uber partner to offer HIV medication same day deliveries. 

Jumia fires over 900 workers, 20% of the workforce, and has also discontinued food delivery operations in Egypt, Ghana and Senegal, in an attempt to cut costs. Getir is reportedly cutting around 200-300 jobs, as part of the merger. GoPuff quietly leaves France after a year of operations. Food robotics startup Mukunda Foods, backed by Zomato, shuts all of its cloud kitchen operations. This comes after Zomato closed its 10-min delivery operations. Deliveroo withdraws 'dark kitchens' from Swiss Cottage (London). 

Glovo launches Impact Fund to solve socio-environmental issues. The fund, linked to Glovo’s revenues, is expected to generate €5M in 2023. The fund will focus on helping low income families, supporting climate action, digitising local small businesses, promoting women in tech, contributing to courier education programs and Ukraine aid. 

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

An autonomous leaderboard puts Mobileye, Waymo, Cruise and Baidu as industry leaders, ranking strategy and execution. Tesla is last.

Ford creates an automated driving subsidiary from Argo AI’s remains. Argo AI, a joint Ford and VW backed company, was shut down back in November 2022. The new company is called Latitude AI, has hundreds of previous Argo AI employees and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, as Argo AI was. Latitude AI will focus on developing a ‘hands-free, eyes-off’ driver-assistance system.  

Waymo tests driverless rides with employees in Los Angeles, on path to commercialising robotaxi services in the city. For now, Waymo can charge for rides only if there is a human driver behind the wheel, and the company is working toward relaxing that regulation and offering driverless robotaxi operations. Waymo recently reached 1 million miles; throughout its operation, the vehicles were involved in two crashes and 18 ‘contact events’. Both two accidents were people looking at their phone and rear ending Waymo at a red light. Also Waymo had its 2nd round of layoffs, bringing total cuts to 209 employees, or 8% of the workforce. 

UK’s first zero-emission autonomous bus launched in Oxfordshire. A Roger French very detailed account of the service. 

May Mobility and Via partner to deploy autonomous vehicles for public transit. The companies have been working together since 2021, but are now creating a focused effort on public transit over the next three years. 

Embark Trucks lays off 70% of its workforce, 230 employees, and explores liquidation of self-driving truck assets, with the remaining 30% winding down operations. The company went public in 2021 via SPAC at a $5.2bn valuation; today market value is $90M. Locomation, an autonomous trucking company employing roughly 75 people, is shutting down. No formal comments yet, it has been rumoured that investments dried up.

Remote (tele) driving from overseas faces a ban in England and Wales; the regulator is recommending the government implement a special licence and to hold remote drivers as responsible as ‘regular’ drivers. 

A study of the impacts autonomous vehicles will have on deployment of parking and development. The study found that in order to reduce parking space, autonomous vehicles will have to be (1) shared owned, (2) pool rides, (3) have widespread geo distribution (covering large areas) and (4) need to complement high-capacity transit. Which sounds more than anything like a last mile solution to public transportation. Is this where autonomous vehicles are going? Probably not. 

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

Tesla’s annual investor day focused on cost reductions, vertical integration and operational efficiency - but no new product / next-gen announcement, which left stakeholders a bit disappointed and saw the stock fall by just over 5% in after-hours trading. Also eagerly awaited but not addressed on investor day: Master Plan 3. Tesla had other news this week: the company introduced its ‘Model 2’ at a $26,000 price point; has prototype CyberTrucks driving on California’s roads; and is opening a new plant in Mexico. 

Sono Motors published a list (here) of ±170 employees it let go after closing Sion, its solar vehicle program. Readers in Germany are welcomed to take a look. The company is also looking to sell its industrialization rights and assets for Sion. 

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

Rideshare strike at LaGuardia Airport, with drivers criticising Uber for suing to block pay raises approved by the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission.

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

“Gen Z’s Turn Against Driving Is a Mirage”. A long(ish) read claiming that the declining car ownership numbers by the young generation is attributed not to preference change, but to (temporary) unaffordability. Past numbers support this claim, which has equity implications.  

SpaceX launches US, Russian and UAE astronauts to the international space station. 

Thank you for reading Moving People. This post is public so feel free to share it.