Tesla 1st full robotaxi, Zipline $600M, Eve $150M, Third Lane $20M

#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business  - a consultancy focused on Innovation, Growth and Autonomy in the Mobility industry.

Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi 🚙🚕

Tesla now offers Austin robotaxi service without human safety drivers. But not all vehicles are dropping safety drivers, rather a few vehicles would be fully driverless, and with time more and more. Still, a first. 

Waymo starts offering public robotaxi rides in Miami, its sixth market. 

Tesla discontinues Autopilot, its basic driver-assistance system, as part of its efforts to encourage FSD subscription and after a Californian judge declared the Autopilot branding a “deceptive marketing” tactic, making it impossible to continue marketing the name in California, Tesla’s largest market.

Grab acquisition of GoTo (Gojek) is facing a hurdle, in the form of Telkomsel, a telecomm company holding 2% of GoTo, which is unhappy with the valuation. For me this signals that the acquisition is close, if they are at the final negotiations stage. 

Rapido’s 2025 financials: 

• Revenue up 44% to '934 cr (€86.7M) 

• Operating loss down to ₹104 crore (€9.6M) from ₹409 crore (€38M) in 2024

• Net loss down by 30% to ₹258 crore (€24M)

Uber investing $7M in Carrum, an Indian fleet-management startup, to scale up premium-vehicle supply. In Kiev, Uklon and Bolt will operate 24/7, despite curfew laws. In total, Uklon will work 24/7 in 19 cities across Ukraine. Gwangju, a city in the South of South Korea, has been chosen to deploy 200 autonomous vehicles, to demonstrate first wide scale autonomous driving. InDrive switches to new maps in Pakistan. Waymo confirms it is in talks with Australian authorities regarding launch. Chinese autonomous vehicles are winning the Gulf states race (over US counterparts). Freenow (by Lyft) partners with Checkout.com for payments. Lemonade, insurance, is offering a personal “Autonomous Car Insurance”, starting with an offering for Tesla's FSD, at extremely low rates. 

Interview with Bolt’s President, Jevgeni Kabanov, on safety, EU regulation, scaling hybrid robotaxi-driver service over the next years and differentiation through rider experience. 

DRT, Bus-Based Mobility & AV shuttles 🚍🚌

I’ve previously covered the UK DfT’s analysis of its Rural Mobility Fund and the DRT best practice guidance it published; my conclusion was that expectations were higher than reality and that at the end of day, these schemes are relevant in mostly rural areas and only as a supplement to fixed-route public transport. Now Roger French published his analysis, and time to look again at some numbers: 

• Schemes range from 3.9 passenger per vehicle hour to 0.9

• The “empty running ratio” for each scheme ranges from 0.45 to 1.09 with a mean value of 0.77 - indicating 77 miles are driven empty for every 100 miles with a passenger on board

How a Zoox ride feels, by Josie-Dee (Seagren) Li, who took 15 rides over the course of a week. The article touches on the purpose design which makes it easier (and futuristic) to experience the ride, from the moment you step in; and on the in-cabin social experience. Cons: slow (in general) and awkward pickups / dropoffs. Read more here. 

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Third Lane Mobility (parent of Bird & Spin) raises $20M from existing investors; funds will be used to deploy up to 35,000 new vehicles in existing cities such as Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, Baltimore, San Francisco, Seattle, Tel Aviv and Rome. 

Lime: selected by the West Midlands (UK) to operate over 2,000 new e-bikes and e-scooters scheme, launch expected in April; troubled in Islington, London and might be out by March. 

Donkey Republic 2026 guidance: 

• Revenue DKK179M-194M (circa €25M), up from expected DKK165M-185M in 2025

• EBIT expected to be DKK 1M-9M (DKK 7.5M = €1M)

New Jersey introduces new e-bike regulation: all e-bikes require insurance; riders have to be over 15 years of age; and e-bikes cannot exceed 28 mph (45 km/h). While this makes NJ one of the most strict states in the US, at least for me it all actually makes sense.

Joco partnered with Walter, a Brooklyn-based social enterprise hiring young adults to manage recycling across its warehouse and fleet facilities.

Delivery - from bikes & cars to bots & drones 🍽🧺

Zipline receives $600M in new investment; valuation at $7.6 billion. Funds will be used for US expansion. Last week I reported on Wing and Walmart expanding to an additional 150 sites - this raise is part of a larger play in the US, which sees delivery drones being fully certified soon to become a daily part of life. Europe? Not even close.

The Indian government is asking e-commerce companies to stop 10-minute deliveries, following the government’s attempt to bring gig-workers under national labour laws and massive workers’ demonstrations over lack of safety and general working conditions and pay. Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy have all committed to change the language and delivery times regarding 10-minute deliveries. 

Foodpanda Singapore launches XL stores - more inventory, wider selection.

In other news 📰

Eve Air Mobility secured a $150M financing round to accelerate R&D. 

Wonder acquires Claim, a restaurant rewards app, and plans to integrate that with Grubhub. 

ABZ Innovation, industrial and agricultural drones, raises $8.2M. 

Serve Robotics is acquiring Diligent Robotics, a hospital assistant robot company, giving Diligent a $29M valuation (Diligent raised $75M). This is a first venture outside of food deliveries for Serve, which is interested in additional acquisitions. 

I love meeting new people and learning about mobility & delivery innovation. Let’s get-to-know.

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Darian Heim is a new Member of UITP On-Demand Mobility Committee @ UITP. 

Patrick Lutnig is the new Marketing & Content Manager @ MAN Truck & Bus. 

Yannick Ntibansiga is the new Transportation Analyst and Modeller @ TransLink.

Congrats and good luck!

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