Lilium in deep trouble, Pony.ai to IPO and Uber to buy Expedia?

I launched my new website, focused on driving growth 🚀 in the mobility sector!

I founded Mobility Business 1.5 years ago to support mobility companies in achieving success. Over time, I honed that mission and realised that my real expertise lies in growth: strategic partnerships, go-to-market plans, market & competitor analysis and M&A services are a few to mention. Check it out!

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Uber explored/ing takeover bid for Expedia. Remember that Dara, Uber’s CEO, served as Expedia’s CEO for 12 years up to 2017 and is still a non-executive director. Commentary: Uber is keen that “anywhere you want to go in your city and anything that you want to get, we want to empower you to do so”, so an acquisition of a travel aggregator such as Expedia would make sense in order to achieve super-app status. With a market cap of circa $173 billion vs. Expedia’s $20 billion, Uber also has the ability to complete the acquisition. On the other hand, synergies for Uber’s ride and delivery business lines could also be achieved via a strategic partnership, and would not alienate other travel players. Uber also still has room to grow, for example in freight and mastering autonomy. These talks are at a very early stage. 

Bolt partnered with the Dubai Taxi Company (DTC) to have 6,000 vehicles - almost half of Dubai's total fleet - to be available via Bolt. This is Bolt’s first entry into the UAE, and the company will be joining Careem, Uber and Hala, who also work with the DTC. 

In Togo, the government suspended Yango’s operations, claiming that the company launched in June without authorisation and in violation of the country's procedures, and citing safety concerns. Local competition in Togo includes Gozem and BKG Speed.

FlixBus to grow operations in India by expanding into the Rajasthan state and by partnering with a bus body manufacturer. Moove expands to Mexico. CitySwift signs with Go-Ahead. Driver-owned ride-hailing platform Fare Co-op launches in California. Wayla getting ready to launch in Milan. 

Lyft partners with Cash App to allow riders to pay from their Cash App balance / debit. Hala launches a monthly subscription scheme which allows discounted to/from Dubai Metro stations rides; the subscription can be purchased on the Careem app. Grab Philippines partners with 2GO, allowing booking of Grab services via the 2GO app. Kakao introduces a feature that highlights “trendy” (popular) places, based on the rider's home location. The Routing Company (TRC) launches Pingo Sandbox, a transit simulator. BluSmart will match riders’ tips to drivers, as part of a campaign run by the company. This is an interesting way to increase driver revenue and strengthen supply. 

In Laos, Loca, a local ride-hailing player, expands its EV fleet. Uber launches Green in Belgium. Grab Thailand expanding EV fleet. Toyota and Revel to partner on EV charging for Toyota and Lexus vehicles. 

Grab to open 2 new R&D centres with 800 developers. SWVL opens regional headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi; this follows recent growth of SWVL in the country. 

A now deleted SWVL LinkedIn post announced that the company is shutting down its B2C business to focus on enterprise customers. And the company deleted B2C services from its website. SWVL’s CEO denies a strategic shift. Commentary: pure B2C rarely makes money; the likes of Zeelo, BusUp, Treepz and others have understood this. This is because private commuting services are competing vs everything - from the private car to subsidised public transport - and the target audience is usually very narrow, along the route’s corridor. So why is it not a strategic shift? Because at the end of the day - it is a valid solution in SWVL’s line of solutions, and might come to life again in the future. 

In California, Proposition L will go to ballot in November. Advocates want to instate a 4.5% tax on ride-hailing (Uber, Lyft, Waymo etc.) gross receipts to raise an estimated $25M annually for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Hmm… let’s do the maths: 4.5%=$25M… so 100%=$555M, or $0.55 billion. Let’s assume Uber is 75% of that, i.e. circa $420M. And in 2023, Uber’s mobility division made roughly $69 billion worldwide in gross bookings. So is California 0.6% of Uber’s total gross bookings? Does that sound right? I would have thought more. 

SWITCH is a new AI-enabled fleet management and planning solution. SWITCH supports fleet managers to predict demand, optimise vehicle distribution, manage real-time vehicle allocations (and more…) with both a simulation and real-time fleet management tools, to ensure efficient operations and better profitability. If you’re working in fleets, why not request a demo or explore SWITCH’s AI-CoPilot by yourself. 

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Zoomcar restructures debt and announces a reverse stock split in a 1-100 ratio to enter into effect Monday October 21st (today). As of now, Monday morning before markets opened, the stock is trading on Nasdaq at 10 cents. 

What is going on with Planet42? The company, operating car rental services for the underbanked in South Africa and Mexico, filed for restructuring back in August and now people are looking for jobs. Is it shutting down or just heavily downsizing? 

Poppy Mobility is leaving Liege Airport citing a high rate of vandalism and accidents.

Micromobility 🚲🛴

In Stockholm, Bolt is unsatisfied with the distribution of scooters in the city, calling the Country’s competition authority to step in, as Bolt has 2,800 and both Lime and Voi with 4,500 each. It goes back to a miscalculated tender by Bolt itself, but also has to do with rigid procurement processes. 

Egyptian-based Rabbit Mobility raises $1.3M to expand in North Africa, starting with Morocco. This brings the company’s total funding to $1.7M. Zypp Electric’s revenue up 34% in FY24, to ±$35M. Micromobility.com loses trial, pays €2.2M to creditor. Voi launches in Antwerpen.

I love meeting new people, learning about mobility innovation and exchanging opinions. Interested in discussing mobility?

Delivery 🍽🧺

Wolt acquires Tazz, a local Romanian delivery platform. The acquisition is waiting for final regulatory approval, after which the Wolt brand will be introduced in Romania. 

The Taiwanese Ministry of Labour notified the Fair Trade Commission that it is opposing delivery platform Uber Eats' proposed acquisition of rival service foodpanda. The deal was signed back in May, and interestingly, the commission explained that it has not been able to begin the regulatory review over the past few months as both foreign companies involved have yet to submit all the required documents. A graph to remind Taiwanese delivery market share, up to August 2023: 

JustEat reports Q3/24 missed expectations - GTV falls 3% YoY to €6.34 billion, below analysts expectations of €6.5 billion. US Grubhub GTV fell by 11%; without the US GTV grew by 2%. 

Starship expands to Estonia with Bolt. 

Fin raises $7M to expand to the US and in the UK. 

Glovo adds social features. Users can now connect to friends and create lists of favourite restaurants. Restaurants can now add videos. UberEats introduces lists, initially in NYC and Chicago. The feature allows you to share lists with your friend and also to follow top food influencers. 

DoorDash releases seven new features / products for drivers: allowing dashers more flexibility on choosing work; overhauled reward program; introduction of credit card; improved referral process;  and more support. 

Deliveroo partners with wilko for rapid delivery of home and garden products. Careem Jordan introduces medical lab delivery service.

Serve Robotics unveils 3rd-gen autonomous delivery robots. Faster, smarter, and with more stamina, range and space. And cheaper to produce. 

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Pony.ai to IPO in the US. 

• Valuation at $4 billion, down from an $8.5 billion validation in 2022

• Looking to raise $200M, down from $425M

• Operates a fleet of 190 “robotrucks” in Beijing and Guangzhou; and over 250 robotaxis in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai; can charge for robotaxi fares in the first three cities, and is fully driverless in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. 

• 33.5M km autonomous driving, of those 3.9M km fully driverless.

Vay raises €34M in debt from the EIB to fuel European expansion. Next up are expansions to Hamburg and Belgium. 

Waymo launches a new public transit credit program, offering $3 credit for San Francisco riders going to public transit stations. Credits will be given up to November 15th, eligible for use on the Waymo app to the end of the year. This scheme launches after Waymo data reveals that 36% of riders use the service to connect to public transit.   

NHTSA opens preliminary evaluation into Tesla FSD for four accidents, one leading to a pedestrian’s death. Re NHTSA: “A Tesla vehicle experienced a crash after entering an area of reduced roadway visibility conditions… In these crashes, the reduced roadway visibility arose from conditions such as sun glare, fog, or airborne dust.”

WeRide reveals new autonomous taxi, based on a van sold by Chinese brand Farizon, owned by Geely. No date on when the van goes live on-road. 

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🔍 Join CoMotion to experience live demos and workshops, network, learn from thought leaders, network (again), see explore start-ups. And - I have a link with 25% off, so enjoy CoMotion. 

Flying cars 🚁

Lilium is in trouble. The company was seeking a £100M loan from the German government, of which €50M were already approved by the Bavarian State and the other €50M were to be matched by the German federal government. On Thursday (17th) the government’s budget committee decided against the loan, which now puts Lilium in a very tight spot. The company responded with an open letter to the federal government signed by “over 650 founders and investors” calling to expand support to the company. 

Lilium’s options: 

1. Increase / accept loan only from the Bavarian government - if this is at all on the table without central government backing.  

2. Move to France. In the past couple of months the company has been issuing PRs suggesting the French government is willing to loan the money in exchange for Lilium moving its business to France. How indeed willing the French government is remains an open question.

3. Raise from private investors / via stock market. Lilium is traded on the NYSE. Based on the graph below, investors don’t seem to have too much faith in the company. 

Read here and here why some people are against the deal, seeing that Lilium raised €1.5 billion to date, with very little to show for. 

Brazil’s national development bank funds Eve Air Mobility's eVTOL aircraft factory, extending an additional $88M loan. Eve targets production of 120 units annually, eventually reaching production of 480 annually. The company has letters of intent for 2,900 eVTOLs from 30 customers. 

Wisk Aero partners with Airservices Australia, Australia’s national air traffic management provider, to study how air taxis and other autonomous aircraft can be integrated into the country's airspace. Wisk plans to launch in Australia before the Brisbane 2032 (!!!) Olympic and Paralympic Games. So, in roughly 6 years from now. 

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Rivian and Bosch are going to court, suing each other over a failed manufacturing agreement. Fisker owners get help with recall repairs and data transfer to new vehicle buyer solved as court approves liquidation plan. Cybertruck facing pedestrian safety concerns in Europe, potentially resulting in the vehicle getting a poor safety rating. 

Pure Electric raises £2.27M via crowdfunding. This brings total funding to £70M, of those £60M invested directly by the founder. Funds will be used to expand to… both Germany and Japan in the next 3 months. Good luck. Fairway Bikes raises $1.25M for electric bike used on golf courses. Optima Cycles acquires Dolly; strengthens its position in the electric cargo bike market. Bo expands to Ireland. 

Energica, an electric motorcycle maker, files for bankruptcy. Juiced Bikes goes bankrupt and sells to a mystery buyer for $1.2M. FUELL enters chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings. Babboe will no longer be a criminal investigated by Dutch authorities in allegation the e-cargo bike manufacturer withheld details about issues with its frames, but a class action suit is still looming. 

Gig economy 💰

DoorDash releases data to show that Seattle’s gig workers are worse off with the new rules implemented in January 2024. The company says Seattleites have placed 900,000 fewer orders than they would have under the earlier status quo, leading to longer waits for workers and lower take home wages. Where is the Y-axis?

Rideshare drivers vs. companies - a story on how drivers set up Activate Respect, a national campaign against driver deactivations and on local drivers campaigns. Stronger together. In New York, drivers demand an End to Uber & Lyft’s “Locking Out” policy. 

In other news 📰

Last week Enel Group announced the closure of its North American EV charging subsidiary and this week we learned that ENGIE will shut down its EVBox subsidiary. There is a partial takeover offer on EVBox. 

Shiftmove, a German-Swiss platform for fleet management software, acquires Optimum Automotive, a French competitor. 

INSHUR, digital rideshare insurance, raises another $19M, bringing total to $78.5M. 

The woman who filmed Waymo’s honking robotaxis got an apology promo — then spent all day using it. 

Silicon Valley is debating if AI weapons should be allowed to decide to kill. This is a very important article and there should be more like this, because the answer is YES. This isn’t me taking a moral stance, this is just how life works. It is obvious that there will be a military establishment wanting this, if only to defend from what could be similar advancements with enemies, and there will always be people willing to build such tools. So the debate should be focused on the rules and guidelines, and how we keep ourselves safe, rather than on the yes/no.

I love meeting new people, learning about mobility innovation and exchanging opinions. Interested in discussing mobility?

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Darragh Kelly is the new Regional Director (UK&IE) Amazon Logistics @ Amazon. 

Mario Ferrett is the new Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer @ Wayla Italia. 

Noora Jyvälä is the new Senior Director, Revenue Operations & Growth @ Gett. 

Saed Ishnina is the new Senior Transport Planning Manager @ RATP Dev Middle East & North Africa. 

Vladimir Mitev is the new Software Development Manager @ COAST Autonomous. 

Congrats and good luck!Congrats and good luck!

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