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Two Takeaways for an Autonomous Future 🔮
1) Car-sharing will pivot or become irrelevant. Today, it is a struggling industry, as evident by the recent GoMore-Getaround merger, rumours of Miles exploring autonomous ride-hailing, and the closure earlier this year of Zipcar London and Zity. High interest rates, volatile residual values, EV depreciation, rising insurance costs and the expensive transition to electric fleets are all putting heavy pressure on the sector.
In an autonomous future, the line between ride-hailing and car-sharing blurs, with car-sharing operators becoming direct competitors to the likes of Uber and Bolt. The question is whether they have the capital and operational capability to make that shift. Time will tell.
2) It’s the control over the vehicle asset that matters. What started with Flexdrive by Lyft, Uber’s investment in Moove, and financing partnerships from inDrive, DiDi and other ride-hailing platforms, just got another major push with the Uber-Santander deal to support up to £1 billion in vehicle assets for Uber partner fleets. Not necessarily ownership - but control.
In an autonomous future, control over the vehicle asset becomes even more important as a way to guarantee supply, utilisation and uptime. That is why Uber is backing deals for tens of thousands of autonomous-ready vehicles and why ride-hailing platforms are increasingly partnering with AV technology companies and OEMs.
Ironically, car-sharing companies are already built around owning and operating fleets. In an autonomous world, that may become an advantage.
At least until privately owned AVs eventually enter shared mobility networks at scale.
#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business - a consultancy focused on Innovation, Growth and Autonomy in the Mobility industry.
Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi 🚙🚕
Uber partners with Santander to deliver a €1 billion finance package designed for Uber’s partner fleets. Uber benefits from committed fleets, which are bound to providing dedicated capacity to the Uber platform; Santander takes less risk, because it has a ‘greenlight’ from Uber that the fleet gets a minimal volume of work from the platform; and the fleets get better loan rates, providing they stay committed to Uber. Uber intends to deploy this capital in places where professional fleets enjoy regulatory safeguarding, such as Spain, Germany and Italy. Bottom line: in a non-gig economy market, assets are key.
Verne in Zagreb - operating 10 robotaxis for a flat fee of €1.99 a ride. The ODD is roughly 90 sq. km in the city and airport, with 300 people having access to the Verne app. There are also accidents - the last known one was on March 23, 2026, when a Arcfox Alpha T5 robotaxi from Pony AI and operated by Verne was rear-ended by an Opel Combo, with likely cause being phantom braking.
Avride is under investigation for self-driving crashes. The NHTSA has opened the investigation after 16 crashes and one minor injury. In all cases, a safety driver was in the vehicle, and for some reason, was unable to stop the crashes. Uber recently started a commercial deployment with Avride (safety driver included) in Dallas, where many of the crashes happened.
Waymo begins fully autonomous operations with Ojai vehicles in Phoenix. Waymo is stuck in a puddle (video).
The Dutch regulators approved Tesla’s FSD (unsupervised) and are now waiting for the EU to approve, with the vote expected July the earliest. If approved, FSD could spread quickly across Europe.
Indonesia cuts ride-hailing maximum commission taken from drivers to 8% (from 20%) and focus companies to offer accident and health insurance. When the regulation will go into effect is unclear. Possible outcomes: the creation new platform fees or could change the market to a subscription-based one. In any case, it deters new entrants.
Bolt and the Dubai Taxi Company (DTC) launch Bolt School - allowing pre-booked rides starting/ending in schools at relevant times with enhanced safety procedures, and a 20% launch discount.
Careem scales back across multiple Middle East and Gulf States markets, including scaling back Saudi operations, closing the Berlin tech office and laying off hundreds of employees in a global restructuring. .
Uber’s Q1/26 results - key takeaways: more trips, more money, lower take rate, better profitability
Trips grew 20% YoY to 3.6 billion
Monthly Active Platform Consumer (MAPCs) grew 17% to 199 million; Monthly trips per MAPC grew 3%
Gross bookings grew 25% to $53.7 billion
Revenue grew 14% to $13.2 billion
Take rate (revenue/gross bookings) is 24.6% - down from 27% in Q1/25.
EBITDA margin on gross bookings increased from 4.4% to 4.6%. The higher EBITDA margin despite lower take rate reflects operating & scale efficiency.
Lyft’s Q1/26 results - key takeaways
Rides grew 8.5% to 236.9M
Gross bookings up 19% YoY to $4.9 billion
Revenue up 17% to $1.65 billion - 33.3% revenue margin
Net income of $14.2M compared to $2.6M in Q1'25
Grab Q1/26 results - key takeaways:
On-Demand GMV grew 24% YoY to $6.1 billion
Revenue grew 24% to $955 million - 15.6%revenue margin
Profit for the period of $120M, versus $10M in Q1/25
For the PR and investors deck.
Uber in the Autonomous Future. The 1st version of Uber saw rapid expansion that led to “regulatory battles and a corporate crisis that damaged trust for years”; this time - Uber is set on working with governments and cities to lead the robotaxi evolution, focusing on the challenges associated with safety, labour concerns and service accessibility & coverage. Read the introduction by Andrew Macdonald, Uber’s President and COO; the full report can be found here.
This is a forward thinking approach on behalf of Uber, touching on key points, such as:
Advocating for a Hybrid model - in which human drivers cover peak demand, bad weather, lower-density areas, accessibility needs, and edge cases such as areas with infrastructure changes or emergency situations. In addition, Uber acknowledges that not all cities will be economically or technically viable for AVs.
Openly admitting AVs will reduce driver work, giving the example that “In California, “one AV does the work of about four drivers”. Uber does not offer a solution, but states that other jobs in fleet management and remote driving will be available. Uber also warns of the possibility of increased mileage and congestion.
Bottom line: Uber is calling on governments and cities to take an active part in the autonomous future, while positioning itself as “the good guy”.
Autonomous Shuttles, DRT & Bus-Based Mobility 🚍🚌
MOIA starts public, on-road validation testing of its purpose-built, autonomous ID. Buzz, in Los Angeles. The testing fleet will scale to 100 vehicles before commercial rides commence with Uber, toward the end of 2026.
Also Beep and MOIA to deploy in Orlando, as part of the new strategic partnership between the companies to operate autonomous public transport. No deployment timeline given. For now, validation testing has started in Lake Nona, Florida, an existing Beep deployment with Navya vehicles. MOIA rides in Lake Nona expected later this year.
Routematic rolls out COCO Rides, a fixed-route, high-capacity commuting solution in the Pune IT hub. The service targets 125,000 employees, and will begin with 80 buses operating on 70 routes, with 500 boarding points.
Enjoy a 10% discount to Micromobility Europe 2026. This premier European micromobility event will feature C-level speakers from Voi, Dott, Ryde, Third Lane Mobility, Lyft, Cooltra, Bolt and government officials from London, Amsterdam, Paris - with many more speakers and attendees. 2-3 June, Berlin. For the 10% discount:
Car Sharing/renting 🚗
GoMore acquires Getaround Europe, P2P car sharing, for an undisclosed price. The GoMore Group will now have more than 70,000 vehicles in 11 European countries, operating more than 1.5 million rentals annually, with net revenues of over €50M.
GoMore operates in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Austria & Switzerland and in Spain via the Amovens brand (which it acquired back in 2015); it is the Amovens entity which is the direct acquirer. With this acquisition GoMore adds / enhances presence in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Norway & Austria.
Zity car-sharing service will stop operating in Madrid on May 21, the last city in which Zity operated. The closure of all of Zity services was announced back in December 2025. Greenwheels adds 11 vehicles in two towns South-West of Amsterdam.
Miles Mobility, German free-floating car-sharing, might be looking to expand to autonomous ride-hailing.
Micromobility 🚲🛴
2025 Revenue increased by 29.1% to $886.7M. Geo breakdown: 32% US, 22% UK, France 10%, RoW 36%
Uber drove 14% of revenue; that contributes to marketing spend being only 2% of revenue
Net losses of $59.3M in 2025, versus from $33.9M in 2024
2025 Free cash flow was $104M
Debt: $1 billion in current liabilities, roughly $846M of that is due 12 months from now
Lime reported having $261M in cash on March 31, 2026. I.e. the proceeding from the IPO will go toward covering or restructuring those loans
To put in perspective. Voi 2025 revenue was €178M, with negative profit before tax of €11.5M. Interestingly, those losses are similar - roughly (minus) 6.5% of revenue
Donkey Republic Q1/26 report - key takeaways:
Revenue up 9.9% YoY to DKK 29.0M (±€3.9M)
EBITDA DKK -1.2M (€160,500)
23,381 Average active bikes and 1.3M trips indicate TVD of 0.62
Fluctuo’s European Share Mobility 2025 Review - key takeaways:
Total number of trips increased by 16% to 709 million while “End User Revenue” grew 10% to €1.45 billion.
Of the total 848,000 shared vehicles operating across Europe, 48% are bikes, 48% are scooters, and 4% are mopeds.
Public bike schemes have a fleet size of 238,000 and TVD of 2.7 (up from 2.5 YoY); Private bike schemes have a fleet size of 147,000 and TVD of 2.3 (up from 1.7 in 2024)
Scooters - less cities and smaller fleets, but more trips. With cities such as Paris and Madrid opting out of scooters, fleet numbers are down 22% from the 2023 peak. Yet total rides are growing - 312 million in 2025 - evident of increased utilisation and stickiness.
Delivery - bikes to cars, bots & drones 🍽🧺
Amazon delivers its first UK parcels by drone. The launch in Darlington covers an area of 7.5 mile (12km) radius, with drones carrying up to 2.2kg of products. Darlington is the only location outside of the US in which Amazon operates drone deliveries.
Deliveroo launches in-app restaurant bookings. First to be rolled out in London, this is enabled thanks to the DoorDash acquisition (& the SevenRooms acquisition).
AV Freight, Industrial & Logistics 🚛🚜
Kodiak raises $100M at a steep discount of $6.5 per share, well below the closing price of $9.1. Consequently, stock falls 37%, partially recovering by the times these lines are written. Funds will be used to scale on-road and off-road business. Current market cap is roughly $1.3 billion.
As part of the raise, Kodiak announced a commercial autonomous truck contract in Canada (safety driver included) and a new partnership on autonomous ground vehicles for defense applications.
Aurora signs with McLane, a distribution company, to commercially transport goods between Dallas and Houston. Texas. Safety driver is out - “human observer” in; this time Paccar is in agreement. The use case is expected: Aurora’s tech drive on the freeway, with local drivers taking over in terminals located off the highway near Dallas and Houston, and performing the ‘last mile(s)’ driving manually. ’
Einride co-leading development to fit this nameless vehicle in the picture with AV technology, de facto developing a SaaS version of their AV stack. The vehicle is designed to deliver food and medicine to rural locations in peacetime, and to support military logistics during wartime
I love meeting new people and learning about innovation in mobility. Let’s get-to-know / catch up.
In other news 📰
AI will soon enable anyone to open a restaurant - Wonder is building robotic kitchens that will function as AI-powered 'restaurant factories' - letting aspiring restaurateurs spin up entirely new food brands with simple text prompts.
Joby conducts first air taxi demonstration in New York City.
The Robinson R66 is considered the world's leading light single-turbine helicopter, with over 1,500 units in service and consistent sales since its 2010 launch. Now, the eR66, the electric version, is under development.
Ohmio, the AV Shuttle company, wins a tender to supply electronic signage solutions in California. I was not aware of this line of business; revenue diversification is important seeing the pace of adoption in the AV industry.
People 🧑🤝🧑
Michael Flaster is the General Manager, Israel R&D Center @ Via.
Yves Helven is the new General Manager Fleet Management APAC @ ORIX Fleet.
Congrats and good luck!
Thank you for reading #movingpeople. If you like what you're reading, please share it with your friends and colleagues so they can benefit from it too.
