Toyota 💰500M Joby, Tier becomes Dott, Waymo 🤝Hyundai

all Yesterday marked 1 year since the October 7th Massacre by the terrorist organisation Hamas. During the attack, 1,191 people lost their lives, of them over 800 civilians, in what is the bloodiest day for Jews since the holocaust. Over 4,834 people were wounded, and 251 were taken hostage. As of now, 101 hostages are still in Gaza, of those 35 are confirmed dead, and I am hopefully waiting for the return of the remaining 66 hostages, amongst them the baby and child in the picture (wiki), who might still be alive, after a year in captivity. War is terrible, and I wish for nothing more than a peaceful Middle East, with Israel and all Arab states prospering, and for all hostages to return home. 

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Another Uber autonomous partnership - now with Avride (formerly known as Yandex, now the Nebius Group) - who specialise in autonomous vehicles and sidewalk delivery robots. The two companies plan to partner on a delivery service via UberEats in Austin in the next few weeks (a city in which Avride already operates), followed by a delivery service in Dallas and Jersey City by the end of 2024, followed by a robotaxi operation in Dallas next year. Great strategic and PR execution for Uber, and now we all wait for Tesla’s robotaxi show on the 10th. 

Robinhood, a delivery and ride-hailing service operating in Thailand, was acquired by an investor Group led by Yip In Tsoi, a 98-year-old company with interests that span agriculture, construction and technology. The seller, Siam Commercial Bank, set up Robinhood in 2020 to expand its financial reach into the SMB market, but has not been able to do so and has burnt through $160M in the last four years. The deal is for a total of circa $60M, of those ±$12M are paid upfront and the rest is performance based. In Thailand, competition in the ride-hailing market comes from Grab, Bolt and local company  Line Man (with Gojek recently leaving the market); competition in the delivery space sees Grab, Line Man, Shopee and Foodpanda. 

The Routing Company (TRC) signs a 5-years 132-vehicles agreement with Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA), New York (state, not city). The service, which is planned to start toward the end of 2024, is probably one of the largest DRT deployments world-wide. Also TRC to launch a 3-years up to 10-vehicle paratransit operations with the City of Vacaville, California, launch paratransit with South Carolina’s Pee Dee Regional Transportation and expand existing operations with Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Looking into Rapido:

• Claims to complete 2.5 million daily trips (vs. Uber’s 2.5 million and Ola’s ±1.4 million)

• Cab services, launched this year, constitute 25-30% of Gross Order Value (GOV)

• Annualised GOV of $1.2 billion. Bike taxis contribute $450M, followed by autorickshaw $400M and cabs $350M

• Bike trips account for 55% of total ride volume

• A long read on the company’s history and strategy

Lyft partners with Smartcar to reduce EV range anxiety. With this partnership, Lyft introduces the “Rides in Range” feature, sending ride requests only within the EV’s current battery range and recommending charging if the driver's battery is expected to fall below 20%. Smartcar has had an existing similar partnership with Uber since November 2023. Also Lyft renews commercial insurance partnership with Mobilitas and Lyft Media expands measurement and targeting capabilities. 

InDrive launches InDrive Money in Colombia, in partnership with R2, a Latin American SMB-focused fintech. InDrive and R2 will provide loans to drivers, based on driver performance, with payments deducted from commissions earned. The product has been live in Mexico since February 2024. 

InDrive expands ride-hailing to four new cities in Zimbabwe and launches a new courier service in the capital. 

Uber Safari launches in South africa. Back in May Uber introduced Uber Bubbles, which I thought was an interesting foray into tourism; Uber Safari is a new addition to Uber’s ‘Go Anywhere’ series of travel products. 

Uber partners with Shadowfax, Indian logistic service, enabling Shadowfax’s two-wheeler drivers the option to switch to bike-taxi during low logistic demand times. This allows Uber more supply, and creates an incentive for drivers to join Shadowfax’s fleet. Win-win. 

In Ethiopia, Yango partners with Awash Bank, integrating the bank payment platform into the Yango app, and with Amakari Doctors to offer drivers discounted medical care. 

Kakao Mobility fined $54.9M for alleged monopolistic business practices; demanding competing taxi franchise operators sign partnership deals and blocking their access to its taxi-hailing services in case of rejecting the offer.

Varo DRT soon in Jinju, South Korea. SWAT Mobility launches AI on-demand transportation in Kochi Prefecture, Japan. An article on BusCaro, a Pakistani commuter player, offering both B2B and B2C options. Abu Dhabi to install CCTV cameras in all taxis. 

I represent a company in the rental space that is looking for a partner to manage vehicle operations in London. If you are in the business of vehicle operations and want to learn more, message me or set up a short 15-minute call.  

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

A Volug white paper on achieving profitability, using Leo&Go, a subsidiary but fully independent entity of Vulog, as a case study. Leo&Go is a French operator who launched in Lyon in September 2021 with 300 vehicles. Today it operates 400 vehicles. The best practices are: 

1. Offer multiple mobility options: Leo&Go is a mix of free-floating and station based (travel-hubs) operations, offering B2C and B2B services, including monthly subscription for B2B users

2. Diversify vehicles: from vans to cars, using different OEMs

3. Market smart and lean: work with local community, maintain top-notch customer satisfaction and use advanced CRM

4. Optimise operations using automated fleet management systems

And a Volug piece on smoking in shared cars: it carries revenue loss from increased downtime and maintenance and cleaning costs, and creates a bad customer experience. The solution: smoke detectors. 

Carguru’s CEO on the OX Drive acquisition: 

• Background: Carguru is Latvia’s largest car-sharing operator. OX Drive (also Latvia) is an all-Tesla car-sharing solution. The Latvian market experience competition, which brought prices down and lowered service quality; rising interest and car prices have added financial challenges.

• “Users remain hesitant to charge electric cars, which means our team takes on much of this task. For instance, Teslas now account for 3 out of every 4 field tasks, despite making up less than half our fleet”.

• “100% electric car-sharing model isn’t profitable. The key is balance—a mix of vehicle models that play different roles”.

Finn, which raised €100M in January 2024, with funds going into fleet investments, has lost “€60M because of EVs”, due to the drop of residual value of these vehicles. Yet, the company is sticking to EVs. 

Carsan is a luxury car P2P platform with circa 300 vehicles in Los Angeles and Miami; the company just launched its web platform. 

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Tier becomes Dott. The two companies merged back in January 2024, and it was a matter of time before one brand prevailed over the other. The Dott app will replace Tier’s, and the fleet will be unified under the Dott brand, in a process that should be completed by Spring 2025. The two companies have 250,000 scooters across 427 cities in 21 counties. 

Dott increases prices in Bristol by 37.5%, from 16p to 22p per minute. Residents are furious. Dott is promoting its ‘Dott Pro Pass’, a subscription-based per-trip pricing method, in which users pay £9.99/month for unlimited rides at a fixed price = £1.5/ride. 

UK’s DfT published its “road casualties Great Britain: e-Scooter factsheet 2023” report. Key Takeaways: 

• 2023 saw slightly less accidents and injuries compared to 2022

• Across the whole of the UK, there were 1,292 collisions involving e-scooters, and 1,387 casualties, of those 416 seriously injured and 6 killed. 

• Of e-scooter casualties, 61% were private scooters, 9% rental/shared, and 30% unknown. 

Philip Ellis, Beryl’s CEO, on Lime’s bikes: “I think the bike itself is wrong, it’s too big, too heavy, too prone to fall over by virtue of its original design”. 

Lime, Spin (Bird) and Veo are the winners from Lyft’s decision to leave Washington D.C. 

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

Delivery 🍽🧺

HungryPanda, a London-based global food delivery platform targeting Asian communities, raised $55M, at a ±$500M valuation. This brings total funding to $275M. HungryPanda has 6.5 million customers, 100,000 merchants and 80,000 riders across 80 cities in 10 countries. Funds will be used to expand to groceries, make acquisitions and enhance tech. 

Swiggy increases IPO size to $1.4 billion in a $13-$15 billion valuation; the public offering is expected next month. Meanwhile, the company launched a 10-minute meal delivery service, named Bolt, operating around a 2 km radius, working with restaurant partners. This move intensifies the quick-commerce competition in India. 

Serve Robotics and Wing to trial robot-to-drone delivery in Dallas, allowing a greater delivery radius. Food orders will be picked up by the ground robot, delivering it into a hub (“AutoLoader”), where it will be picked up by a drone, and flown as far as six miles away. Back in the 80s it was a kid on a bike. 

Libya’s Presto is now the second-largest delivery company in North Africa, after Glovo.It is also the largest tech startup in Libya, with over 1 million downloads, 2,000 merchants, 24,000 delivery drivers and 23,000 orders per day. The company plans to expand to Tunisia and Morocco next. The founder & company story, by Rest of World. 

Wolt run a pilot, together with GoCiklo, on battery-swapping for e-mopeds. DoorDash introduces Ads Manager for Enterprise Restaurants, 

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Waymo partners with Hyundai for its next robotaxi. Rumours about the deal were circulating during the last weeks, as the US administration is set to increase tariffs and set connected car limitations on Chinese OEMs, such as Zeekr, Waymo’s current OEM partner. On-road testing of the Hyundai IONIQ 5 is set to begin late 2025. 

Waymo begins offering robotaxi rides in Austin to members of the public, in a 37 mile area which up to now was trialled with own Waymo employees. Commercial robotaxi service (via Uber only) will begin early 2025. 

Bot Auto, a new autonomous company by Xiaodi Hou, the CTO founder of TuSimple, raises $20M to operate autonomous semis on highway routes. Hou was fired in late 2022 for alleged ties to Hydron, a Chinese company; TuSimple has since moved to China and is now working on AI video games and animation; obviously TuSimple is threatening to sue, citing competition clauses. Good luck to Bot Auto. 

May Mobility launches a new AV service in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. May partners with Toyota for the car, with Via for the booking app and with T-Mobile for the 5G network. The service is offered to the general public. 

Cruise fined $1.5M by the NHTSA for failing to fully report the Oct. 2nd robotaxi crash involving a pedestrian. This is peanut money for GM; Cruise probably can’t wait to put that incident behind it, seeing the speed Waymo has progressed since. 

A Waymo was stuck making a U-turn, halting Vice President Harris’ motorcade. The vehicle was manually moved by a cop (see video). Which raises the question - how easy is it to just get into an autonomous car and drive away and how easy is it to tamper with the vehicle? 

Elmo completes a 2,500 km remote drive between Croatia and Finland, using 4G+5G networks, with up to 100 milliseconds latency. Vay partners with Bayanat to expand remote driving to the Middle East. 

Dexory, a UK-based autonomous robots for warehouses, raises $80M Series B round as it looks to expand in the US. Fernride, German autonomous trucking, is eyeing defence applications. An analysis of the new Waymo safety dashboard. A long god read on the good and bad in the dashboard. Video of Zoox’s depot in San Francisco. It has cars in it. PAVE has a new website. 

Ohmio autonomous shuttles to connect Birmingham International rail station, the NEC, and Birmingham Business Park. Passenger service to start by end of year and continue up to March 2025. PRESTO autonomous shuttle provides rides for Rossmoor residents. Beep launches autonomous shuttle with Mississippi State University. 

California’s governor signs a bill (AB 1777) that would create guidelines for when an autonomous vehicle gets in a crash or encounters first responders. Vetoes two other bills: AB 2286 that would have banned autonomous trucks from operating on public roads, and AB 3061  that would set up new data reporting requirements for AV companies. Now autonomous cars can get traffic tickets. There are two certain things in life, one of them is taxes. 

AMCI, an automotive research company, set out to test Tesla’s FSD, and found that FSD can only travel 13 miles without a driver stepping in. The test was conducted over a 1,000 mile drive in California. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing Tesla of defrauding shareholders over the safety and effectiveness of the company’s driver-assist technology.

“Why StreetDrone Joined Oxa: The Case for a Profitable Autonomous Product!” by StreetDrone’s founder and CEO. In short - the case for autonomous industrial logistics. LOXO, autonomous technology, is deploying their Digital Driver on an ID Buzz, to automate middle-mile logistics. 

An unidentified autonomous Chevrolet  was spotted in Mountain View. It had Texan plates. 

Also in a podcast version. Mobility in 2030, EVs, AVs and eVTOLS - François Hoehlinger invited me as a guest to his podcast and this is the discussion we had:

Flying cars 🚁

Toyota invests an additional $500M in Joby Aviation; this brings Toyota’s total investment in Joby, which started in 2017, to $894 million, with now circa 22% ownership. Funds will support the certification and commercial production of Joby's electric air taxi; the companies have already been working together on manufacturing processes since 2019. 

OEM investments in eVTOL companies is not new - Hyundai & Supernal, Stellantis & Archer and Geely & Volocopter are a few examples that come to mind - as OEMs want to make sure they are a part of the manufacturing and supply chain of these new “flying cars”. 

Beta Technologies unveils first passenger carrying electric aircraft; so far the company focused on defence, cargo delivery, and medical logistics use cases. Beta estimates that it is roughly 14 months away from FAA certification. 

Lilium puts pressure on the German government as it waits for its €100M loan approval, saying that it “requires additional capital immediately to continue to fund its ongoing operations” and that Lilium’s ability to continue as a going concern is “highly dependent” on its ability to obtain the government convertible loan.

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Fisker is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which on Friday also filed an objection to Fisker’s liquidation plan. Also the Department of Justice says Fisker’s plan to make owners pay for labour costs related to multiple recalls is illegal. Fisker filed for bankruptcy back in June and its abandoned HQ is a mess. 

Grounded is a modular electric RV startup which raised a $3.5M pre-seed funding round to build custom vans.

Rivian will make fewer electric vehicles this year than it did in 2023, resulting from a parts shortage. The company plans on making roughly 48,000 vehicles,down from 57,000. 

Tesla’s Q3/24 production, deliveries & deployments numbers were disappointing. Tesla’s Cybertruck racks up fifth (over-the-air) recall in under a year, this time for the rearview camera. 

Canoo hit with two supplier lawsuits as last remaining co-founder leaves. 

Einride faces financial difficulties, leading to staff cuts and cost-cutting measures. 

Gig economy 💰

Uber and Lyft drivers use Teslas as makeshift robotaxis, raising safety concerns. To work longer hours and make more money, drivers make use of the FSD features, resting while driving. 

DoorDash piloting a W2 delivery model. 

In other news 📰

Something is deeply wrong with the US court system. A month back Disney claimed that a man cannot sue for his wife’s death because of the terms and conditions he signed up to in a free trial of Disney+ had a mandatory arbitration clause, but after backlash allowed the lawsuit to go forward. Now, Uber has successfully blocked a couple from suing over personal injury because they approved the Uber app updated T&Cs, which have a similar arbitration clause. That’s just crazy. 

Swiggy’s CEO on work-life balance: “Why are you burning midnight oil? Go home to your dog, wife, girlfriend, kids. You don’t need to give everything up. You’ll die one day so what’s the point?”.  

Nebius Group hires Goldman Sachs ahead of Nasdaq relisting. Ovoko, e-commerce of used car parts, raises €20M. AmpUp, EV charging platform, raises $15M. GenLogs, network of roadside sensors collecting data on truck movements, raises over $6M. Cariqa raises €1M to launch an EV charging marketplace. 

Hydrogen corner: Ayrton Energy stores hydrogen safely; BMW says we need both battery and hydrogen EVs for a zero-emissions future; and Verne unveils world-first cryo-compressed hydrogen heavy-duty truck. 

Study shows that EV charging stations boost spending at nearby businesses.

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

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Annie Reddaway is the new Head of Stakeholder Engagement, International and Briefing @ the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles at Department for Transport (DfT). 

Noa Pery is the new HR Business Partner @ Mobileye. 

Sean McDonagh is now in charge of Strategic Projects @ DG Group. 

Steve Bulley is the new Smart Ticketing Lead @ Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

Congrats and good luck!

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