Gatik commercialises, Rapido $2.3bn, Uber back to drone

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Top Story: Gatik and Loblaw initiate commercial autonomous freight.

Gatik and Loblaw, Canada’s largest retailer, sign a 5 year deal to deploy Gatik’s autonomous freight solution in the Greater Toronto area. The deal will see 20 autonomous trucks deployed by the end of 2025, with additional 30 trucks deployed by the end of 2026. As part of the deal, Loblaw made a strategic investment in Gatik. This is the world’s largest AV trucking roll-out, and the first large-scale AV truck commercial deployment. 

Top story: Swiggy sells Rapido stake, Rapido’s valuation doubles. 

Rapido doubles valuation to $2.3 billion, following Swiggy stake sale. The secondary share sale comes after Rapido recently began piloting food deliveries, entering Swiggy’s main business line. Swiggy sold the 12% it had in Rapido for $270M in two separate deals - 10% to Prosus (largest stakeholder in Swiggy with ±25% and recent buyer of JET) and the rest to WestBridge Capital. 

Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi 🚙🚕

Waymo and Lyft partner to launch in Nashville. Bookings will be enabled via both Waymo and Lyft, in what is essentially a way to allow more demand on the Waymo asset. A similar Waymo dual-booking use case exists in Phoenix, with Uber. The Nashville fleet will be managed by Lyft’s subsidiary, flexdrive. Asset management is a core competency in the future of autonomous vehicles, so keep flexdrive in mind. 

Waymo launches ‘Waymo for Business’, focusing on daily commute, business travel and courtesy & events, targeting employees, universities and event organisers. Similar to other ride-hailing business travel offers, Waymo’s differentiation is mostly in the innovative image it allows its customers. 

Waymo approved to start testing autonomous vehicles at the San Francisco International Airport. This is the 1st of 3 stages. The 1st stage sees Waymo testing in the airport with a safety driver; the 2nd will see a trial passenger service, using Waymo employees and airport staff; the 3rd is commercial operations. When Waymo achieves 3rd phase, it will not yet be given access to the ride-hailing / taxi area, but instead will operate from a different area, the “kiss n’ fly” area, which today requires a AirTrain ride to the terminals. 

Pony.ai partners with Mowasalat, Qatar’s largest transportation service provider, to deploy robotaxis on public roads in Doha, Qatar. Currently testing with safety drivers. 

User reports indicate that Tesla's 'self-driving' software fails at train crossings. 

Spreadsheet of Autonomous Vehicle deployments across the world by Tym Syrytczyk. It has a decent account of deployments in China, something that is harder to come by. 

Autonomous Vehicle Safety Dashboard, by people at UC Berkeley. Data covers 839 crashes in California. You can also track the number of active testing vehicles and miles traveled per month - for each OEM / operator. Unfortunately, data goes only up to November 2024. 

Ride-hailing regulation in Israel might be changing soon. Local newspapers were busy reporting that the Ministry of Transportation (MoT) will finally allow Uber to operate in the country by Q1/26; taxi drivers protested; and Uber denied it had any talks with the MoT. Remember, Uber had two attempts to enter the country, in 2014 and again in 2023, both failed due to local regulation protecting licensed taxis. So, what is really going on? 

Israel has a ‘black economy’ of tens of thousands of illegal drivers, operating via telegram and Whatsapp groups. Existing regulation forbids any professional drivers, other than licensed taxi drivers, so the government is under pressure to find some kind of solution. The solution, i.e. allowing those illegal drivers to operate legally, would also see the likes of Uber entering the country. This is all very political, as taxi unions heavily oppose it. To be continued. 

Dubai presents - working together. Dubai Taxi Company (DTC) with a fleet of 6,200 and Bolt as tech partner, signed a cooperation agreement with Kabi by Al Ghurair, with a fleet of 3,680 taxis, and Zed, the UAE’s homegrown ride-hailing app. The agreement will see both fleets integrated into both ride-hailing platforms. 

Barcelona is introducing a new transport law that will end ride-hailing (Uber, Bolt, Cabify) presence in the city by the end of 2026. The new rule doesn’t rule out ride-hailing presence completely, but by ending airport and short inner-city rides, and keeping only the option of intercity rides, it effectively eliminates any economic feasibility for ride-hailing players. 

Local transport authority in Mumbai to allow bike taxi services for Ola, Uber, Rapido - under new rules. The application from Smart-Ride was rejected. Meanwhile in Karnataka, no policy has been put in place, and bike services are currently banned. 

Bolt enters Taiwan, working with three taxi fleets and offering reduced prices. Bolt is in talks to acquire VotreChauffeur.ma, a local Moroccan premium & chauffeur ride-hailing company, to increase its North African presence. Bolt launches Hydrogen fleet in Estonia, powered by a local fleet equipped with 30 Toyota Mirai vehicles. Hydrogen has yet to be a proven alternative for taxi / ride-hailing operations, with this being one of the 1st pilots in the industry. 

Uber is rolling out ‘prepaid passes’, a new feature to allow riders to buy rides in bulk, up to 20 rides in a bundle, while enjoying bulk purchases discounts. Uber is also extending its ‘price lock’ feature, a subscription based scheme to allow riders savings on frequently used routes. Both are designed to increase loyalty and provide discounts to high usage clients. 

InDrive launches ride-hailing in Riyadh, its second city in Saudi Arabia. 

SnapE Cabs raised $2.5M. The company has a fleet of 1,100 EVs, and plans to add another 1,000. 

With each local authority in the UK having its own minicab regulatory rules, cross border booking (i.e. accepting rides in regions unrelated to the licensed region) is prevalent. Addison Lee is suggesting a 20% cap on cross-border work and stricter enforcement. Uber requires a landline number to expand into North Lincolnshire, UK. TBC.  

Lyft to pay $19.4M to New Jersey over driver misclassifications. According to New Jersey, Lyft improperly classified more than 100,000 drivers as independent contractors, withholding contributions to state funds. 

Odysse is crowd funding. Odysse is a fully integrated electric fleet-as-a-service for ride-hailing. The company generated ~£1m revenue in 2024 and secured a 5-year contract with Bolt. Odysse’s edge: Intelligent Demand Response - AI/Machine Learning that detects demand clusters and operations that position vehicles where they’re needed, boosting utilisation and driver earnings. The raise (EIS eligible, ASA, £7m post-money cap) will fund AI, team, and operations growth. Odysse targets 100x growth to £100M revenue by 2030, built on the principle that maximising utilisation is the path to profitability in ride-hailing and critical as the industry moves toward autonomy. This is not an investment recommendation.

DRT, Bus-Based Mobility & AV shuttles 🚍🚌

Beep partners with ADASTEC to promote autonomous bus operations. Beep’s AutonomOS platform allows public transport operators the tools to manage autonomous mobility services, from vehicle and cabin supervision, through fleet orchestration, to integrated workflow management; ADASTEC is an AV tech-stack player specialising in bus autonomy. 

Singapore: Grab partners with WeRide and Comfortdelgro partners with Pony.ai to roll out autonomous services. Services will be open to the public starting Q2/26, with Grab operating two routes and Comfortdelgro one route. The Grab and WeRide fleet recently launched for testing, and includes 10 WeRide GXRs, 1 WeRide Robobus, and an a2Z autonomous shuttle. ComfortDelGro has an existing partnership with Pony.ai in Guangzhou, and will launch for testing in Singapore later this year.  

Waymo and Via partner to offer autonomous public transport in Chandler, Arizona. Building on an existing $2-a-ride subsidised existing (human-driven) services, the Waymo solution will be used to support public transport service, running Monday through Friday, 6am to 9pm. This is similar in concept to the Spare-Uber partnership in Dallas, where Spare, the microtransit operator in Dallas, is using Uber to expand capacity when needed. 

RideCo and Via have been busy with a patent lawsuit, which Via recently won. Via then issued a PR saying that the court “awarded the company a 10% running royalty on all future U.S. sales of RideCo, Inc.'s infringing products, in addition to an award for supplemental damages”; RideCo responded with a PR saying that it "looks forward to full review by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals”. To be continued. 

BusCaro, a Pakistani B2B-focused digital commute player, raised $2M. The company stepped into the vacuum SWVL left when exiting the county, and currently has $6M in recurring annual revenue. 

Zoox is applying to federal regulators for exemption to launch a commercial robotaxi service. Reason is that Zoox custom-built robotaxis lack traditional controls like pedals and a steering wheel. Current exemption, used in Las Vegas, only applies to research and demonstrations on Nevada’s public roads. 

Ohmio in Belval, Luxemburg: running a free autonomous shuttle test service, serving five stops on a 4.2 km route between 9am and 2pm. The service, using two vehicles with safety drivers onboard, has a maximum speed of 25 km/h (15 mph). 

WeRide enters Belgium, its 4th European county, through a partnership with De Lijn, Flemish public transportation company, for robobus operations. 

Asia Mobiliti to launch Oman’s first Demand-Responsive Transit (DRT) service, in Muscat. Nemi’s new service, in Girona, Spain, is its first ‘door-to-door’. 

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Hyre enters the airport car rental market. The company, the largest car share company in the Nordics, won a tender to operate at three major Norwegian airports, winning against Europcar. Hyre will use the same digital tools - online booking, digital ID verification, keyless operations - that it uses for its car share operations. In 2024 Hyre had €34M in revenue and was profitable. 

Rio de Janeiro: back in July Wali launched the first public digital car rental service; this is the first time a Brazilian city authorises car-share in public parking spots. The testing period, currently ongoing, will test public adoption, integration with other modes and support the creation of a future regulatory framework. 45 days from launch, with 3 cars: 

• 33 trips completed (hourly to weekly plans)

• 17 unique users (14 residents of Rio and 3 tourists)

ATOM is holding the ‘ATOM Connect 2025’ event in Riga, in partnership with INVERS. Scheduled for October 30th, registration is free. 

Car Rental Gateway posted about “sources we track to stay sharp on car rental & mobility tech”. There are 22 sources, me included (thanks) - worth going through and updating your feed.  

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Dott and Pony win Bordeaux micromobility tender. Both operators will be permitted to deploy 1,000 e-bikes and 1,000 e-scooters each. In addition, YEGO and eDOG were selected to operate 350 rental mopeds each.

Latvia-based Ride Mobility completed acquisition of e-scooter rental company Tuul Mobility. Tuul has seen decreased revenues and widening losses in 2024. Ride Mobility is now present in 15 cities across 3 countries, Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia.

Belfast adds Beryl e-bikes to its bikeshare fleet. In Leeds, a train company is the new sponsor for the Beryl-powered city bike scheme. 

The Indian micromobility industry went from an e-scooter B2C model (which failed) to a gig-economy (B2B) EV rental model.  This is how it happened: Summary. Long Read. 

Vapaus is facing a threat - end of the employer-provided tax exemption on bikes, allowing employers annual saving of up to €1,200 a unit. The scheme, introduced in Finland in 2021, has over 100,000 people registered. Read an interview with the CEO. 

UrbanShield unveils smart helmet prototype for shared mobility. It has an antimicrobial insert system to address hygiene issues and introduces a connected approach to helmets: operators will be able to add crash detection, impact sensors, helmet–vehicle pairing and data analytics modules, to increase safety and reduce thefts.

Micromobility Landscape:

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

Uber is back to drone delivery. The company partnered with Flytrex, in which it also invested an undisclosed “tens of millions of dollars” amount. Flytrex is one of only four FAA-authorized providers for Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations; it also works with DoorDash. 

Neolix and partner AutoGo receive license for autonomous delivery vehicles. Norway’s first robot delivery service is live in Fornebu. Tech by Cartken, demand by foodora, facilitated by Holo. DISCO is live! DISCO as a last-mile modular electric vehicle, engineered as a mobile and dynamic parcel locker hub. You can spot this Horizon-funded project in Padua. 

Keeta launches in Kuwait, its 3rd Middle Eastern country, after Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Next up in the region: UAE. 

Swiggy launches Toing app designed for affordable food ordering, in Pune. Swiggy’s Toing will list restaurants that have offerings in the ₹100-150 range. This is similar to the ₹99 Store on the main app, but is a stand-alone app. It is likely that Toing will directly compete with Rapido's recently launched delivery app, Ownly. 

Uber is launching “Fresh Days”, a feature allowing customers discounts of up to 50% on local fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy. The feature, designed to help customers with increasing prices, will be initially rolled out in the US, Canada, the UK, South Africa, France, Japan, Taiwan, and Spain. 

Talabat declares $202M interim dividend, on track for $400M payout in 2025. Uber increases delivery expectations by 25%: now guidance is $12.5 billion annual run rate in gross bookings by the end of 2025. 

Booker-owned delivery app Scoot partners with Just Eat. Booker’s network of independent retailers will now be able to offer rapid delivery via Just Eat. Booking will be done through the Scoot app, which is now API-integrated into Just Eat. 

In Morocco, Delivery Hero completes the acquisition of the local Glovo entity. A formality only, as the acquisition took place back in 2022. This comes after Glovo reached a settlement in an ongoing antitrust case, in which the company agreed to end restaurant exclusivity clauses, cap commissions at 30% and improve courier conditions. 

Mubadala explores selling all Getir stakes in Turkey, including its financing and car rental businesses. Talabat Qatar resumes operations after one-week closure over misleading information. 

Meituan creates Joint Marketing - the ability for brands and stores to co-advertise. Meituan reports more than 20% higher revenue per ad impression and higher ROI compared to regular ads. 

Just Eat to lay off around 450 employees. Cuts are attributed to automation / AI tools. Deliveroo founder/CEO to step down, following DoorDash takeover, which is expected to finalise in the next week. 

AV Freight & Logistics 🚛🚜

Bot Auto completes driver-less truck hub-to-hub validation run. A 55 minutes drive, compressed to 5 minutes uncut video, driving in an ODD of both highway and urban environments, during day and night. This is a big achievement for the start-up which was founded only two years ago, and so far “with only $41 million spent”. 

Einride performs the world's first autonomous border crossing, from Sweden to Norway. Einride completes an autonomous truck test on public road in Belgium, at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges. 

Electreon, wireless charging, partners with ATLoS, AV OEM, to integrate wireless charging technology on ATLoS production line. The companies are targeting industrial and logistics environments.

Autonomous trucking startups. Slower than expected, but we’ll get there. 

COAST Autonomous, robotics &autonomous technology, and Aerosweep, airfield sweeping system, partner to design, test, and commercialize future autonomous Foreign Object Debris (FOD) sweeping solutions. Oxa introduces a new autonomous Bradshaw T800 tow tractor. 

In other news 📰

Amazon to shut down its grocery stores in the UK. Of the 19 stores to be closed, 5 will remain open and converted to Whole Foods stores. Amazon continues to focus on its online delivery services in the groceries sector, including with its partners Morrisons, Co-op, Iceland, and Gopuff.

DB goes multimodal. A new tab within the app allows nationwide journey planning, ticket offering for local and long distance public transport and integrations to Dott and Call a Bike. 

Standard Fleet, connected vehicle fleet management platform, raises $13M. Funds will be used to expand product and offering. 

Wayve begins testing self-driving tech in Nissan cars on Tokyo’s streets, ahead of a 2027 launch to consumers. Also Nvidia to tentatively invest $500M in Wayve. 

Elon Musk buys $1 billion of Tesla stock, stock goes up 8%. Tesla’s market cap is roughly $1.4 trillion (or 1,400 billion). Tesla is looking to redesign its door handles following trapped-passenger reports. This is a real safety danger issue. Tesla partners with Uber Freight to offer Tesla Semi electric trucks at discounts. 

JLR is still down, almost a month after being a target of a cyber attack. Production has been halted for weeks, in what is a major financial and morale blow to the company. 

Where can you remote-drive? 

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

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Blayne Robinson is the new Senior Account Executive @ Wheely. 

Clinton Thorogood is the new Head of Property Safety & Fleet @ Ario. 

Graeme Dickson is the new Head of Business Development & Partnerships @ Snapper Services Limited. 

Jonas Gustafsson is the new Principal Innovation Lead @ Scania Group. 

Michael Gaenzler is a new shareholder and Advisory Board Member @ RideGuide. 

Nathan Ashley is the new Public Policy Manager, UK (xWF) @ Waymo. 

Priya Chakravarthy is the new Head of Experience & Training @ Snabbit.

Congrats and good luck!

#movingpeople is a weekly mobility & delivery newsletter - from Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi through Remote-Driving & Delivery Drones to e-bikes and Autonomous Freight & Logistics.

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