Getir to acquire Gorillas, Uber goes autonomous (but not Amazon and FedEx), Cabify logistic arm & Delta invests in Joby

Getir to acquire Gorillas; Uber partners with Motional to launch robo-taxis; Delta invests in Joby aviation; Cabify opens new logistic arm; Uber leaves Pakistan and opens Uber Travel in the UK; Volvo to build a special bus for FlixBus; Zoomcar seeks SPAC; Marti to SPAC; Bird management departures; Cornershop launches rapid-delivery in Brazil; Meituan food-delivery in Hong-Kong; GrubHub expands robot delivery, Amazon & FedEx shut down own delivery robot projects; Autonomous cars, vans & shuttles with Keolis, Gatik, EasyMile, Navya, Pony.ai; Nissan out of Russia; Nikola’s founder guilty of investor fraud; Tesla will deliver trucks to PepsiCo; Sono partners with Scania; US Department of Labor closing down on the gig-economy, and UK sees more legal battles.

I’ve been travelling a lot lately, to MOVE Austin & Intl Mobility Copenhagen amongst other places, hence the irregular schedule of #movingpeople lately. This time on a Monday. Let’s start.  

Ride-Hailing, car-sharing, buses & DRT 🚙🚐

Uber Pakistan is leaving all cities but Lahore, with Careem staying on ground. Uber completed the acquisition of Careem back in Jan. 2020, but has kept the two brands in most if not all regions, including Pakistan. It makes sense, as this captures more market share, both drivers and riders, and also supports visitors coming into the country (with an existing Uber app). While no official reason for the sudden departure has been provided, we can safely assume that it is in order to cut costs.

Uber economics in Q2/22: $29bn in gross bookings, net revenue $8.1bn, net operating loss $713M, or ±8.8% of revenue. 

In Latam, motorcycle taxis by Uber and Picap are using grey regulatory areas to launch services. These services are popular because they are cheap, quick and safer for women. India’s southern state of Karnataka asked Uber, Ola and Rapido to stop three-wheeler services in Bengaluru, accusing them of overcharging and harassing customers. The companies are not halting operations, but preparing to re-apply for a licence. Yandex is under investigation in Kazakhstan for establishing high prices. 

New player in the UK commute market - WeCommute, a WeDRT brand. Commutifi and Liftango partner to help Colorado based companies to maximise tax credits by submitting commuter program plans. Uber Travel UK partners with National Express, National rail and Megabus to offer rides via the Uber app, enabling access to low cost tickets. For now Uber will rebate 10% of booking as credits. FlixBus and Volvo partner, with Volvo offering a standardised coach to FlixBus’s network. Treepz Nigeria to deploy CNG buses in Lagos. 

India's Zoomcar, Turo-style car-sharing, seeks US listing through a $456 million SPAC deal in H1/23. Zoomcar has >3M active users and operates in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt, with >25,000 vehicles registered on its platform. Tribecar, Singapore’s largest car-sharing platform, partners with Charge+ to switch >1,300 vehicles to electric. Eloop, Austrian Tesla carsharing, receives investment from Lucky Car, operator of contract-free workshops. Kinto (Toyota) launches in Valenciennes, France. 

Bolt drivers in South Africa create self defence groups. Robbers are targeting and killing Bolt drivers, and the SOS button Bolt provides is just not enough. Drivers are using whatsapp for getting recommendations on potentially dangerous areas, sharing locations and asking for support.  

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

Marti, a Turkish micromobility player eyeing a SPAC in Q4/22, runs a fleet of more than 46,000 e-scooters, mopeds and bikes, with 5.6M app downloads. Marti is the leading Turkish player, followed by Hop and BinBin.  

Bird and Lime integrate to RATP’s (French public transport operator) MaaS trip-planning. Human Forest and Free Now partner. Helbiz and Moovit expand partnership in Italy and the US to display geo-location ads. 

Oxford (UK) extends Voi e-scooter trial hours to 24/7. In Birmingham (UK), Voi is facing criticism as riders park irresponsibly. Provo (US) launches Bird e-scooter and bikes program. In Denver, the city’s e-bike voucher scheme ran out of money, after demand exceeded all expectations. The scheme was supposed to run to 2024, with the city now asked to add more to the budget.  

An Oversharing long-read on Bird’s management team changes amid the company's financial and utilisation woes. Spoiler: many left. 

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

Getir to acquire Gorillas. Getir, founded in Turkey and active across Europe and selected US cities, raised $1.8bn so far. Gorillas, founded in Germany, and also mostly present in Europe, raised $1.3bn, and has seen significant cash burn from its operations. There is some overlap between regions the two companies operate, so this deal will allow Getir both entrance into new markets and efficiencies of scale in existing markets. The deal is not done yet. In other news, Getir might be on its way to Azerbaijan. Gorillas opens more distribution centres in New York. 

Cabify to invest $20M in its new logistic arm, Cabify Logistics. The new arm will focus on urban last mile in Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Chile. 

Cornershop, a Uber company, launches 15min delivery in Brazil with Carrefour. This follows similar partnerships the two companies have across Europe. Chinese Meituan to expand to food deliveries to Hong Kong, taking on Foodpanda (64%) and Deliveroo (36%). DoorDash expands partnership with Loblaw (Canada), to offer on-demand and same-day deliveries from 1,100 locations. 

Deliveroo partners with Klarna to offer ‘eat now, pay later’. The Move sees mostly negative press, as getting into debt to buy delivery food is perceived financially unwise. Gopuff raises delivery subscription monthly fee, for the first time since the program started in 2018, from $5.95 to $7.99. This has to do with chasing profitability in inflationary times. Gojek pleads with restaurants to make smaller meals, as inflation sends food prices up. 

Starship partners with Grubhub to expand college robot delivery to 170K more students. Both companies have existing competing partnerships in the US, Grubhub with Cartken and Starship with Sodexo. 

Amazon is shutting down ’Scout’, its autonomous delivery robot, quoted: “ we.worked to create a unique delivery experience, but learned through feedback that there were aspects of the program that weren’t meeting customers’ needs… we are ending our field tests and reorienting the program.” Money was also an issue, as Amazon, like any other company, is looking to cut costs. FedEx is doing the same - shutting down Roxo, robotic same-day delivery service. 

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

Uber signs a 10 year contract with Motional, the Aptiv-Hyundai joint venture, to offer robotaxi rides. First Uber robotaxis will debut this year, exact location is unknown. Motional already has a partnership with Uber on deliveries, and a similar ride-hailing partnership with Lyft and with Via. A read on Motional strategy: focusing on building autonomous technology, building partnership. 

Gatik and Loblaw partner on a fully driverless deployment in Canada. The companies completed a human-safety-driver pilot for middle-mile deliveries, and are now rolling-out Canada’s first such autonomous service. EasyMile wins deal for driverless shuttles at Terhills, Belgium. The Level-4 shuttle fleet will run 7 days a week, for up to 10 years, along a 2.5 km route. Keolis video of its autonomous test site in France; I’ll just mention that Autofleet plays a part in the operation. Navya deploys in Portugal, for a 10 day run during a tech week in Aveiro. ETIOCA reveals electric taxi prototype & ecosystem. The Italian company plans to start production in 2024. Pony.ai to test its autonomous vehicles in Tucson, in partnership with Pima Community College. Intel and Mobileye end NYC autonomous testing. Tesla’s autopilot software is under investigation by European regulators, fearing that Tesla vehicles are designed to perform differently in testing grounds. 

A step-by-step tale of an autonomous ride with Waymo. Ride began at 8:28am and ended an hour later, with one human intervention. 

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

Amazon will spend €1bn on electric vans and trucks in Europe, expanding its electric fleet from 3,000 to 10,000 vans by 2025. The first Tesla semi-trucks will be delivered to PepsiCo, starting December. Sono Motors, solar technology, partner with Scania to equip buses with ‘Solar Bus Kits’. Tests are currently on-going. Rivian recalls 12,212 vehicles, almost all vehicles ever produced, over steering and suspension hazards. Nissan takes $687M loss as it sells its Russian business for £1. The company has the right to buy back in 6 years time. 

Trevor Milton, founder of hydrogen truck company Nikola, was found guilty on investor fraud charges and will go to jail. Back in June 2020 the company was valued more than Ford, it turns out that Nikola never produced a single truck and had zero binding customer contracts. 

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

Delta is investing $60M in Joby Aviation, and will have an exclusive five-year partnership with Joby operating eVTOLs as part of the Delta network. This partnership follows the ones made by American Airlines and Vertical Aerospace and by United Airlines with Eve and with Archer. 

Italy’s first vertiport deployed at Fiumicino airport, together with Volocopter, completing the first crewed eVTOL test flights in Italian airspace. Commercial operations planned for 2024. Skyports and Joby partner to develop Living Lab vertiport, enabling the two companies to test a variety of technologies and procedures that will help define how passengers experience vertical flight in the future. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFleet Management 🚙💡

Fleet management Zeeba agrees to buy 5,450 Canoo electric vans, with Zeeba committed to 3,000 vans through 2024.  Revvo Technologies, AI-driven tire management solution for fleets, partnered with the Geotab Marketplace. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedVassal (gig) economy🚶‍♂️

The US Department of Labor announced proposed changes to how workers should be classified, making it easier for contractors to gain full employment status if they are “economically dependent” on a company, sending gig-economy stocks down. The proposed Labor Department rule will likely not take effect for months, and might even change before it becomes effective. Some unions are getting ready. 

Lyft is testing new payment algorithm, allowing drivers in 18 U.S. cities to see destination, time and pay details before accepting a request. A similar move has been made by Uber before. This is also attributed to strengthening the claim that drivers aren’t employees. 

In the UK, Bolt drivers take legal action over employment status to receive holiday pay and national living wage. A similar claim against Uber has been won in the past, with drivers recognised as ‘workers’ rather than ‘independent contractors’. Read an interview with the man who formed the union who beat Uber. 

A Glovo rider dies while delivering a package and is fired for not delivering it on time. Sebastian Galassia, 26 year-old, was involved in a car accident while making a delivery. A few hours later, an automated SMS fired him. 

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