Splend $100M, Canoo shuts down, Italian scooters down 30%

#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business  - a consultancy focused on growth in mobility.

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Splend, gig-driver car-rental company, received a ±$100M equity investment for 49% stake in the company. Splend operates roughly 7,000 vehicles in Australia and the UK, and focus now is on accelerating the switch to EVs. 

FREENOW ends work with gig-economy in Berlin, focusing on taxi only. The relationship between gig-drivers and taxis in Berlin is tense. Moreover, post a government inspection, hundreds of gig-economy related vehicles were recently taken off road because of lack of licensing (and ride-hailing platform oversight). And, the Berlin senate is also looking into minimum ride prices for gig-drivers. TBC. 

Grab and BYD partner to bring up to 50,000 EVs to Southeast Asia - in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. BYD has a similar partnership with Uber, focused on Europe and Latin America.   

Treepz published its “State of Corporate Mobility in Africa” report. Treepz operates in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya (and Canada) offering employee shuttles and car rentals. 

BusForFun raises €4M to fuel its international expansion into Switzerland and Spain.

Flixbus introduces LNG powered buses in Italy. Gojek (GoTo) isn’t worried about Xanh SM (Vinfast) entry to Indonesia. In Japan, 82 taxi companies went bankrupt in 2024, mainly due to shortage of drivers and rising fuel costs.   

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Volvo On Demand is closing, being replaced by Kinto Share and Hyre. Cachet, platform economy insurance, partners with Bolt Drive. Turo partners with FlightHub. 

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Italy’s new highway code, mandating helmets and license plates for scooters (and more), recently came into effect - and rental scooter usage is 30% down. 

Donkey Republic secures ±€8.2M debt funding to 60% facilitate 2025 planned expansion and 40% go towards refinancing. 

Malaga bans electric scooters.

Delivery 🍽🧺

Middle East online food & grocery report by Measurable.ai: 

• Looking at Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt and Kuwait

• All these markets experienced CAGR of over 30% during 2020-2024

• Delivery Hero is the #1 player in the region, but competition is growing

Deliveroo Q4/24 results: 

• FY24 GTV up 6% YoY to £1.96 billion; orders are up 3%, and GTV per order also up 3%, to £25.4

• Revenue up 4% YoY to £545M

• Revenue is 27.7% of GTV

• Free cash flow positive for the full year

For the full report. 

Zomato charged a "veg mode enablement fee" - got called out - and the CEO apologised and ended the fee. Avride’s bot can drive in the snow (video). Getir’s founder and Mubadala clash over control.

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Aurora is taking the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a federal safety organisation, to court over physical warning triangles. Remember when you last had a broken car and needed to take those out and place them X meters from your car? Those triangles. Why: because autonomous trucks don’t have humans to place those warning triangles, and it therefore delays commercial operations. TBC. 

Overland AI raises $32M in Series A to advance ground autonomy for U.S. defense forces. 

Oxa in Sunderland (UK). The government-funded autonomous bus project in Sunderland will run in Q1/25, together with Stagecoach and local universities. 

Pony.ai receives approval for autonomous truck platooning tests in China, the first company to be approved for such a program. 

Autonomous yard operations startups, by Wojciech Siwik: 

Waymo completed 4 million trips in 2024, now doing 150k trips weekly (which, at just this pace, comes out to 7.8 million rides annually). Waymo passengers in California: 

How a Tesla FSD sees a train (as most Americans do). 

What happens when you lose your phone on a Waymo: “their support team is polite, but the (lost and found) process is cumbersome”. Can you get out NOW from a moving robotaxi? 

Flying cars 🚁

EHang completes pilotless EH216-S first demo flight and delivers the vehicle to its operator.  

Sarla Aviation, an Indian eVTOL, raises $10M in Seed A. Sarla prioritises payload (six passengers) on the expense of range (160 km/100 miles). Commercial operations are focused on air taxi and emergency services (same as all others) and are planned to start in 2028.

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Canoo files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and ceases operations. The writing was on the wall, as past weeks saw the company furlough all employees and shutting down its factory. Furthermore, most if not all EV SPAC companies (Arrival, Fisker and others, except Rivian) share the same faith, one of bankruptcies. 

2024 Cox Automotive car buyer journey study. 

• New vehicle buyer satisfaction is at all time high (despite of high prices)

• 5% of NEW car sales are 100% online, despite a higher shopping intent

• EV buyers have more fun

The Biden administration finalised a rule blocking the “sale or import” of connected vehicle software from “countries of concern”, aka China. The ruling applies to both software (implemented from 2027) and hardware (2030). Now we wait for Trump, which is expected… well, only he knows what his plans are, but we’re going to find out. Waymo reaffirms their commitment to Zeekr. Either this is just PR or they know something about Trump’s plans.

Harbinger, a startup/OEM focused on electrifying commercial trucking, raises $100M. Lyteflo, enabling dealers to sell EVs, raises $3M. Hyzon, Hydrogen garbage truck maker, shuts down. Chrysler paused its electric crossover development program; the vehicle, originally planned for 2026, was to be the 1st electric model by Chrysler. Tesla launches new Model-Y in China. Microlino aims for the US. GM banned from selling driving data for five years - after the company sold data without proper consent. 

Gig economy 💰

Uber sues Colorado over law mandating pay disclosure for drivers, claiming it violates its free speech and free association rights. The law mandates disclosure of the total amount a passenger paid for a trip, the share paid to the driver, and the amount of any tips.

In other news 📰

eBay to acquire Caramel, an online car market, “changing the way people buy and sell cars from one another”. The site is used by both private individuals and dealers. This acquisition reinforced eBay’s presence in the auto market. Also Meta to allow eBay listing on its marketplace. 

Google launches traffic light optimisation in Santiago, Chile, making it its 15th city operating the Green Light product - using google maps data to optimise traffic. 

Blue Origin successfully sent a rocket to orbit (after years of delay). Blue Origin, a Bezos-owned company, competes (and for now trails) with Musk’s SpaceX. 

Netradyne, smart dashcams for commercial fleets, raises $90M; funds will be used to fuel continued international expansion. SureCam, connected dash camera, raises $36M in equity and debt. Funds will be used to accelerate its expansion into the SMB and mid-market fleet space 

Moonrider, Electric tractor technology, raises $2.2M. 

Washminute, water-saving car washing solutions, raises $600k. 

A deep dive into the Boring Company and the regulation-free ways of building underground tunnels. 

How a Manna Drones operator controls flights. 

DJI will no longer enforce “No-Fly Zones,” instead only offering a dismissible warning. 

Not many know this (now many do…), but my #1 most-loved nostalgic vehicle is not a BMW, not a Porsche, not a bus, but a: 

I love meeting new people, learning about innovation in mobility innovation and exchanging opinions. Let’s get-to-know / catch-up.

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Katharina Roecker is the new Head of Strategic Business Development @ High Mobility. 

Kim Jaehyun is the new Head of Group Strategy Support Team / CA Council @ Kakao Corp. 

Mathijs van der Goot is a new Independent Consultant @ Eneco eMobility Nederland. 

Paul Drummond is the new Business Strategy Director and Chief Product Officer, Transport & Mobility @ Worldline. 

Soledad Roybal is the new Senior Policy Manager @ Shipt.

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