Robotaxis at a ¼ of taxi cost, hydrogen eVTOLs and a mapping battle in India

#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business  - a consultancy dedicated to "All Things Mobility".  

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

LULA acquires Zeelo’s South African operation. Both companies are in the employee commute space; now LULA expands its footprint in the country while Zeelo turns to focus on the US and UK&I. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Singapore's competition watchdog (CCCS) says Grab’s planned acquisition of taxi operator Trans-cab will significantly weaken its rivals, leading to less choice and higher prices for consumers. The acquisition kicked off in July 2023; now the companies have a few more days to answer concerns, before a final decision is made by the CCCS. 

The UK government is holding a public consultation on VAT charges for minicab operations. Currently minicabs do not charge 20% VAT, but following a legal case involving Uber, VAT now might be implemented on minicabs. Additional revenue of £1.5 billion is expected, which is also likely to hurt demand and elderly and disadvantaged populations. To be continued. 

Tada, Singapore ride-hailing platform, to enter Hong Kong in November and eyes South Korea next. In HK, The company will work with taxi fleets. The Hong Kong ride-hailing market is a tough one, with players such as Uber, Didi and Amap. Also in Hong Kong, the government will not ‘crack down’ on Uber whilst there are no premium cabs in the market. And in other news, Hong Kong is planning to permit five taxi fleet licences. Definitely busy in the Hong Kong taxi & ride-hailing industry. 

Namma Yatri raises $11M to expand operations and develop a multi-modal solution; investor list includes Google. Namma Yatri, a spin-off from payment company Juspay, works via the government’s ONDC network on a driver subscription scheme and has had over 46 million rides since its launch in 2022. 

Cubic switches to SkedGo to power Umo mobility app routing, replacing Moovit. Cubic is present in circa 75 transit agencies, which makes this a big deal. 

Uber for Teens has opened up a debate on fingerprinting drivers. The regulation in California can be interpreted in different ways, as the legal wording has it that companies whose business involves “primarily transporting minors” would need to enforce strict background checks for drivers, including fingerprinting. What is “primarily” in the Uber context? Competition is calling for Uber to be compliant. 

FREENOW integrates Alipay+, opening up new demand from China, Hong Kong and Malaysia tourists. FREENOW and Incognia partner on digital security (fraud). FREENOW partners with Club Norauto. 

FlixBus partners with Paytm, leading payments and financial services distribution company, to expand its distribution network in India. FlixBus tickets will be available directly through the Paytm app. Also in India the company is introducing pricing promos to increase demand. 

Bolt expands its electric fleet in Azerbaijan, to 300 vehicles. The company has plans to increase EV usage across Europe by co-financing Tesla vehicles in partnership with local fleet owners. 

Uber launches in Northampton, UK, and not as part of the Autocab’s Local Cab feature. Frenzi is a new ride hailing solution planning to launch in the UK. Focusing on drivers, the app only charges drivers 57p per ride. VNV publishes H1/24 report: The Gett deal is still awaiting approval from the Israeli competition authority. Following hurricane Beryl, inDrive waives commission fees in Kingston, Jamaica. Rome to increase its taxi fares and issue 1,000 new taxi licences. With the introduction of additional shifts, the city plans to increase the total available taxis from 7,700 to 9,200, a 19.5% increase in available taxis. MyPickup, an Indian subscription based electric auto-rickshaw service provider for the commute market, raises $180K. Yango launches public transport features in its Dubai app - showing route and schedule information and allowing journey planning. 

Uber's new feature: allowing access to fares and waiting times in the ±10,000 cities Uber operates, enabling people to plan ahead.  Uber’s data shows Indians are 2nd to Americans in travelling with Uber - over 1 million rides used the app while travelling to 1,000 cities in 68 countries. 

Seattle to launch flexible on-demand transit service. SFMTA in San Francisco and Trinity Metro in Texas chose Via; the City of Dowagiac in Michigan chose The Routing Company. 

Optibus and Volvo Buses partner to integrate Optibus’s software in Volvo’s buses. Umob wins the Living Lab Maas tender in the province of Utrecht. 

Rollee empowers lenders to underwrite better gig economy workers. From Auto to Consumer lending, companies addressing customers from Uber, Lyft, Fiverr, and many other platforms can easily share a simple link to collect their users' income information. For example, Rollee helps assess freelancers' income consistency to improve their chances of getting financial services. The company works with leading companies in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East and is now expanding to the US. 

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Friedel on the car and vehicle subscription market: growing market opportunity, still a largely fragmented market (70% estimate) with many players. More here. 

VNV publishes H1/24 report: BlaBlaCar signed, but not yet closed, the acquisition of Obilet, the leading bus marketplace in Turkey. BlaBlaCar was EBITDA profitable with €253M revenue in 2023, but saw VNV reduce its valuation by 14% (vs. end of Q1/24), due to industry peer valuations. 

Zoomcar’s Global President, Adarsh Menon, is leaving, after only six months in the job and a short while after the company’s founder/CEO has seen his position “terminated” by the board. Zoomcar presented a 2024 report (year ending March) with 12% increasing revenue - $9.9M vs. $8.8M YoY - but loss from operations is $31.6M, albeit a slight improvement YoY ($36.5M) but definitely not enough. Reason for Menon’s departure is unclear. 

Getaround receives $20M in additional funding from Mudrick Capital and hires a new interim CFO. 

Canada (which I visited last week and took a bus, a subway and a streetcar!) needs more investment in public transport - ​​Poparide is offering an intercity carpooling solution to  answer demand.  

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Micromobility.com (previously Helbiz) published its unaudited Q2/24 report - highlights comparing H1/24 to H1/23: revenue down from $7.4M to $1.35M; loss from operations greatly improved from minus $47.8M to “only” minus $6M. Both “Cost of Revenue” (X1.5 of revenue) and G&A (X3.7!) are in multiples of the revenue generated. 

VNV publishes H1/24 report: in the past twelve months ending in May 2024, Voi has reported revenue of over SEK 30M, or $2.8M, and posted positive adjusted EBITDA. Also, Voi saw its valuation decrease by 21% (vs. end of Q1/24). 

Czech bikesharing Rekola will deploy 200 bicycles in Tallinn, Estonian. Rikola was founded in 2013 as a non-profit, today is a private company with 3,000 bikes across eight cities in Czech and Slovakia. 

Vancouver selects Lime for its e-scooter system. The five-year contract is scheduled to begin late summer. Kelowna, Canada, extends Lime’s e-scooter and e-bike program for another two years. Lime launches seated e-scooter in Christchurch, New Zealand. Veo expands to Cleveland, Ohio. Neuron to fit its 1,250 e-scooters in Melbourne with AI-powered cameras, to enforce safe and compliant driving. Lime, Loud Mobility and London Cycling Campaign have launched a £100,000 community fund to increase cycling within underrepresented groups in London.

Delivery 🍽🧺

In Korea, the market is raising prices. Coupang will raise the monthly fees for existing members in August. Since April new joiners have already paid the full amount, 7,890 won ($5.7), up from the previous 4,990 won. The move is expected to affect 14 million users. And, Baemin (Delivery Hero) to increase restaurant commission fee from 6.8% to 9.8%; Coupang and Yogiyo take 12.5% and 9.8% respectively.

Price increases also in India - Swiggy and Zomato have implemented a 20% increase in their platform fee, initially to be rolled out in Bengaluru and Delhi. 

Delivery Hero warned the markets it could face €400M antitrust fine for “alleged anti-competitive agreement to share national markets, exchanges of commercially sensitive information and no-poach agreements” with its subsidiary Glovo - up from €186M the company set aside in its latest financial reports.  

Zomato launches 'Delete order history' feature. It all started with someone’s wife telling him off on his late night snacking habits, and is now a feature. 

Wing expands into Melbourne with DoorDash. UberEats officially launches in Luxemburg. Glovo expands partnership with Grupo MAS. 

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Four deployments: (1) Following a 11 month pilot, Seoul adds autonomous bus route to the city's public transportation network. Price equal to that of human driven buses. (2) WeRide launch self-driving bus service in Singapore. (3) May Mobility and SouthWest Transit partner to bring autonomous microtransit to Eden Prairie, Minnesota. For now with a safety driver. Spare is the microtransit partner. (4) Faction launches self-driving three-wheelers pilot in Houston to deliver food. Partners include Arcimoto (OEM) and TeleAssist (remote monitoring). 

Taxi drivers in Wuhan are opposing Baidu’s expanding network. The Apollo Go service is priced at a ¼ of the taxi price. 

Tesla delays robotaxi launch, pushing the date from August 8th to October, because of an “important design change to the front”. Commentary. 

A video of the Zoox vehicle - the company is currently testing its vehicles in SF, Vegas and Seattle, with plans to expand testing to Miami and Austin. As for commercialsion, Zoox will “start the journey at the end of the year or the beginning of next year”, according to the CEO. 

Elmo demonstrates automatic charging for teledriven car - video. Waymo wants robotaxi to serve San Francisco International Airport. The airport is reluctant. Waymo cameras capture footage of a person charged in alleged robotaxi 17 tire slashings back in June. A trial has started, the defendant pleads not guilty. TBC. Apollo Go by Baidu hits a pedestrian in Wuhan. It was minimal and the pedestrian was crossing a red light when the vehicle started moving. 

An MIT review on the “immense appetite to make autonomous cars a reality soon. And the Chinese government, on both the central and local levels, has been a major force pushing for it”. Meanwhile in the US, Chinese AVs have travelled 1.8 million miles (2.9 million km), which brings up the issue of spying. 

What’s pushing the industry forward? What are the elephants in the room? A #movingpeople deep-dive on AVs.

Flying cars 🚁

TNMT report on “top launch regions for advanced air mobility” - highlights: US and Germany lead readiness. Top cities are Charlotte, Los Angeles, Orlando and Chicago in the US, and Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin in Germany. 

Archer and Southwest Airlines sign MOU to develop an electric air taxi network. Archer will receive customer movement data to be able to work with Southwest Airlines in developing a future eVTOL network. 

Lilium signs a up to 100 vehicle order from the Saudia Group, which operates the largest airline carrier in Saudi Arabia, First deliveries expected in 2026. 

Joby is developing a Hydrogen + electric powered vehicle, and has completed a 523 miles (840 km) flight - video. Current electric models by the company have a 100 mile (161 km) range 

Volocopter is expected to fly during the Paris Olympics - without passengers. 

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Fisker has been given a green light by the court to sell more than 3,000 of its Ocean SUVs to a vehicle leasing company, overcoming objections. 

Solar car company Squad Mobility receives €1.35M grant, as part of a €12M tender won. 

Toyota Mirai owners file lawsuit over hydrogen issues, saying Toyota has “misled consumers about the realities of the hydrogen car’s ownership”. Many believe cars and hydrogen are not a good match, and the belief extends to ground transport as a whole. 

Gig economy 💰

New York: new pay rules are impacting workers, who have seen their pay rise by ±60%. The number of couriers decreased by 8% and so did the amount of time workers were on call, while time spent on working trips rose. Number of deliveries rose by 5%, which suggests low price sensitivity for consumers. For more data. 

Massachusetts: ballot question would give Uber and Lyft drivers the right to form a union. Just recently the state and ride-hailing giants reached an agreement on a minimum wage of $32.5 per (active) hour, ending a stand off between the companies and politicians. To be continued.  

Australia: Uber is lowering fares in order to get an advantage in upcoming pay negotiations, say drivers. 

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

In other news 📰

Yandex completed its restructuring, ending two years of negotiations - with a Russian consortium of investors buying the bulk of Yandex's businesses in a cash and shares deal worth around $5.4 billion. “Non-Russian” Yandex will retain four AI-focused businesses in cloud, data labelling, self-driving cars and education technology, with the group branded as Nebius Group and the self-driving unit branded as Avride. To the website. 

Ola vs. Google - battle for the maps. Ola recently transitioned away from Google Maps, with Ola founder Aggarwal being very vocal on the subject. Aggarwal, via AI-company Krutrim, offered developers free access for a year to transition away from Google Maps. Google responded by lowering prices - a move that saw Ola double down to offer two to three years of free subscription. Google’s mapping dominance is likely to take a hit in India - to be continued. 

Everfield completed the acquisition of German ParkHere, a corporate parking solution founded in 2015. This is Everfield’s 16th acquisition in two years. 

Gogoro expands to Singapore; begins sales of electric scooters. 

DigniFi secures $175M in new funding to expand auto repair financing solutions. Hayden AI, smart city intelligence mobile perception platform, raises $90M. Clutch, Toronto-based online vehicle marketplace, received a $10M strategic investment. The Lasso, NYC-based provider of an online car bidding platform, raised $9.8M. Phyron, Sweden-based AI-powered content creation platform for car dealers, completed its Series B investment round.

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Antoine Grivel is the new Head of B2B Marketing & Research @ RATP Dev. 

Derrick Kazimierski is the new Vice President of Business Development @ Academy Bus.

Mike Beevor is the new Head of Policy and Sector Design, Rail Reform @ the Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom.

Minh Ta Tran is the new COO @ FPT Automotive. 

Talmi Fridman is the new Senior Director Strategy @ Mobileye. 

Congrats and good luck!

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