Renault buys Zity from Ferrovial; Zoomcar starts trading; Dott & Bolt in Brussels; and the EU stuck on gig-workers

Coming back from Christmas break to another news-full edition of #movingpeople: 

Kakao -> Freenow acquisition stuck; SWVL H1/23 positive results; VAT wars in the UK; Uber win Cancun; Ferrovial sells Zity to Renault; Zoomcar completes SPAC and starts trading on Nasdaq; Bird shutdown and where is the industry heading?; Dott & Bolt the big winners in Brussels; DropX shuts down; Zipline in the UK; May Mobility autonomous microtransit; 42dot launches first autonomous night bus; Tesla’s recall not enough; EHang starts flights; Ola Electric to IPO; EU can’t agree on gig-workers; France ride-hailing minimum wage rises; Hyperloop One shuts down; and 1st cybertruck accident. 

Dear Substack subscribers, 

Recently Substack announced it will not stop hate speech - including nazi newsletters - from being published on its platform. With online media being so transformative in our lives, we’ve grown to expect content moderation from the likes of Facebook and Google, and should expect the same from Substack. For me, this means that I can no longer be a part of the platform. In the coming weeks I will be looking for a new home for #movingpeople. To be continued. 

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Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

It seems that Kakao's plan to acquire Freenow had reached its final stage - price negotiations - and that disagreements over price had found their way into the news - I would presume to exert pressure. 

A month ago it was reported that Kakao wants an 80% stake of Freenow for a valuation of circa $200M; now the valuation seems to be at roughly $350-400M, which is too high for Kakao. Kakao supposedly suggested buying “pieces” of Freenow, focusing on tourism hub countries in places such as the UK, France, Italy and Spain, an offer which was rejected by Freenow. To be continued. 

SWVL publishes its H1/23 results: gross profit of $1.8M -> operating profit of $13.4M -> net profit $2.1M. Note that without the $16.8M of “other income”, which is attributed to goodwill write-off, SWVL would still be in the red. Still, a major improvement from H1/22, when net loss was $161.6M.

🇬🇧Bolt wins tax case versus HMRC (the tax authority) in the UK. While HMRC insists that ride-hailing full fare is liable to 20% VAT (and won a similar case vs. Uber, which is in appeals), this time the court found that Bolt is liable for 20% VAT only on the margin (and not VAT on the full fare). The taxation question isn’t relevant to ride-hailing only, but affects the entire minicab industry, which is estimated to have 250,000 vehicles across the UK. To be continued in appeals. 

🇮🇳India: Yaary is a new ride-hailing app, by a group representing Hyderabad’s auto rickshaw and taxi drivers. Yaary recently joined the ONDC, a demand & supply aggregation network launched by the government. In Bengaluru, ride-hailing viaDOTS aims to onboard 50,000 drivers and a new ride-hailing by the name Nano Travels pops up. Lately there has been growing competition in India; one of the parameters contributing to increased competition is the ONDC network, which aggregates buyers, potentially lowering B2C marketing costs. 

🇬🇭In Ghana, the government introduces a new “Vehicle Income Tax” for ride hailing, mandating quarterly tax payment by drivers. The new directive will require platform companies (Uber, Bolt, Yango etc.) to report vehicle lists to the government. Would the taxation change have an effect on local commissions structure (20% for Uber & Bolt, 18% for Yango)? TBC. 

🇲🇽Cancun (Mexico) taxi drivers sign deal with Uber. Past years have seen taxi drivers fighting Uber drivers, but now the 2,000 taxis in the area will be incorporated into the Uber app, in what is clearly an Uber victory.  

🇯🇵Japan will partially lift its ban on ride-hailing services from April, due to taxi driver shortage. The use of ride-hailing, i.e. standard driving licence coupled with everyday vehicles, will be possible only in areas and times in which a taxi shortage exists, and will be under management of local taxi companies. Ride-hailing companies such as Uber etc. are not yet allowed to operate. 

🇭🇰Hong Kong to set up a penalty points system for taxi drivers, meant to combat over-charging and trip cancellations. 

Microtransit does not offer economies of scale. A critique of microtransit/DRT by David Zipper at City Lab Bloomberg, which points to fixed-route transit as the better solution. 

🇮🇳BluSmart raises $24M to develop large-scale EV charging hubs. This strategy is similar to the one deployed by Revel in NYC. 

🇸🇬Ryde, Singapore ride-hailing, will stop charging driver commission fees (commission was 10%, similar to Grab and Gojek) and will increase rider fees. Is this (1) a move designed to help drivers make more money or (2) a plan to reduce fare prices thus making Ryde more attractive? The answer is #2. 

Bolt expands in Southampton. New DRT scheme in Klang Valley, Malaysia. TRC commute service in the Netherlands. InDrive mulls rider insurance. CleverShuttle founder/CEO in a farewell post to the company - and signals he will stay in the on-demand industry. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedCar Sharing/renting 🚗

Ferrovial sells its 50% stake in Zity to the Renault Group, which now holds 100% of the company under the Mobilize brand. Today Zity has 1,440 electric vehicles for 700,000 registered users (1 car for ±500 users) in 4 major European cities, with a turnover of €12.4M last year. 

Zoomcar, P2P car sharing in India, Egypt and Indonesia, completes SPAC and will start trading on the Nasdaq. 

🇮🇳Delhi cancels Zoomcar’s licence for operating private vehicles for commercial purposes. Zoomcar is a P2P player, but according to regulation, which was intended for cabs, it must have 50 vehicles of its own. Regulation gone wrong. 

Louélec, electric cars subscription (leasing) for ride-hailing drivers, raises $3M. Funds will be used to expand the fleet. 

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

By now this is old news - Bird filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. This means Bird will now have the ability to restructure its finances without disrupting day-to-day operations. We’ll have to wait and see what kind of Bird, and what kind of industry we end up with eventually.  Some think that shared electric mobility is doing just fine, citing increasing demand, and arguing that the industry is merely correcting itself. Some think that industry players’ challenges are emblematic of problems within the shared micromobility industry. I think that if we look one year into the future - micromobility companies are going to look more like traditional public transport companies than tech startups.. 

Micromobility.com gets delisted from the Nasdaq. Bird was delisted 3 months before going into chapter 11; Is Micromobility.com next to go into chapter 11? 

🇧🇪Brussels published its micromobility tenders winners - Dott and Bolt the big winners with e-scooters and e-bikes; Voi also wins e-bikes; Tier and Pony win cargo-bikes; and felyx and Go sharing win mopeds. To a map of Brussels' shared mobility landscape. The tender sees 8,000 scooters being deployed in the next 3 years, down from 21,000 which are operating in the city today. 

Superpedestrain/Link is pulling out of everywhere - from NYC though Hartford to Nottingham. 

I love meeting new people, learning about new companies and exchanging opinions. Want to get-to-know and talk mobility? Let’s set up a half-hour coffee chat. 

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

🇳🇬DropX, Nigerian delivery startup, shuts down after 2 years of operation. Past year has also seen Bolt and Jumia leave the food delivery scene. Why shut down? In short, consumers' low willingness to pay vs. high driver costs; large user geographical spread out making operations complex and costly; and more reasons in this article which does a great job laying out all the reasons. 

Just Eat testing in-car apps for placing orders. The partnership, with an unknown OEM, is set to launch in H1/2024. 

🇬🇧Apian, UK healthcare logistics company, is partnering with Zipline, autonomous drones, to expand an NHS program delivering medical supplies in Northumbria (rural area). 

Delivery Hero to close tech hubs in Turkey and Taiwan, plans to cut 13% of jobs. Getir completes FreshDirect acquisition. 

BCP Council (UK) extends Beryl partnership; the long term contract, up to 2028, will see 800 pedal bikes, 750 e-bikes and 500 e-scooters deployed. Just Eat expands with Morrisons. Gett expands B2B delivery services across Israel.

Zomato, in a regulatory filing, denies claims that it has offered to acquire Shiprocket, logistics platform, for $2bn. Zomato holds 8% in the company. Also Shiprocket in the midst of raising a $100M round. 

Hope you enjoy reading #movingpeople. If you do, please consider sharing it with others so that they may benefit from it too. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAutonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

🇺🇸May Mobility is launching an autonomous microtransit (by Via) service in a retirement community in Arizona. Vehicles are remotely monitored - but not remotely operated. May Mobility's strategy is to move forward carefully, focusing on closed, “easy” environments, working together with local government and businesses. 

🇰🇷Seoul and 42dot launch the world’s first autonomous night bus. The bus will operate on public streets from 11:30am to 5:10pm via a 9.8km bus lane. Perrone Robotics launches an autonomous shuttle in Pennsylvania. 

Waymo analysed 7.1 million driverless miles (11.4 million km) to conclude that its autonomous operations are safer than human drivers - 85% less likely to be involved in a crash and 57% less likely to be in a police-reported crash. 

Tesla’s software recall / update fix is insufficient, according to experts. Drivers can still “fool” the system to be able to use autonomy without proper oversight. 

BYD starts testing L3 autonomous driving on highways in China. Mercedes-Benz testing Turquoise tail lights for autonomous driving. 

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

🇨🇳EHang getting ready to start operating tourist flights in Guangzhou, after gaining the relevant certifications. EHang expands operations in the UAE, joining a local industry cluster and partnering with Wings Logistics Hub for up to 100 eVTOLs. Yet, EHang is still under scrutiny, and lawsuits, for allegedly inflating order numbers and hiding material information concerning licensing. AAM reality index - updated for December - puts EHang at #2. 

Joby and NASA simulate busy airspace, looking to understand how eVTOLs can integrate with today’s air activity. 

Overair completes assembly of its first full-scale “Butterfly” eVTOL prototype; will begin flight testing. 

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

Ola Electric to IPO, aims to raise $662M. In September, the company raised $140M at a valuation of $5.4bn, and will probably IPO at a valuation of $6.5-8bn. Ola Electric holds a 1/3 of the market share in the electric two-wheeler segment.  

BYD to build a passenger car factory in Hungary - which will give BYD access to the tariff-free 27 EU member state market and to European subsidies in France and potentially Italy. 

Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi to adopt Tesla’s charging standard. 

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

🇪🇺Close, but no. The EU directive on gig economy rights failed to receive a majority, as member countries, led by France, believed (the deal) had too far gone from the Council’s version of the directive. The bill will now go back to the legislative body, to find a new compromise.  

🇫🇷Uber, Bolt, Freenow to raise minimum wage for drivers in France, reaching an agreement with local representation. Minimum income per trip will go up 17.7%, from €7.65 to €9, and drivers will have guaranteed income of €30 per hour and €1 per kilometre.

🇧🇪Belgian court rules Deliveroo couriers should be classed as employees - that is - 28 bicycle couriers who approached the court back in 2018. While this ruling could potentially inspire future rulings, the gig employment work model has changed much since 2018, and new lawsuits will have a different employment reality to deal with. 

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

Hyperloop One (formerly Virgin Hyperloop) is shutting down. Since 2014 the company raised $450M, but the dream to passenger people through tubes at 760 mph (1,200 kmh) was never close to materialising. 

The German regulator is going against Google for bundling automotive services and blocking competition. 

Terminal, telematics integration solutions for trucks, raises $3.1M, to allow companies that build insurance products, fleet software and other financial services the vehicle and locations data they need.

GM sues San Francisco for $121M which it claims the city unfairly imposed in taxes on Cruise over the past seven years. 

Nikola founder Trevor Milton sentenced to four years in prison in EV truck fraud case. 

A Tesla Cybertruck has been involved in its first accident, going against a Toyota Corolla. The Toyota looks beaten up, the Cybertruck less so, but the only injury reported is a minor one on the Cybertruck side.  

Bus and Train top 100 events in 2023 - video. Note: this is very niche UK. 

Car Bloat - what is it good for? 

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