Waymo & Moove in Miami, Kia Drive with dealerships, Lilium’s obscure new client and Glovo has 15K new positions

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

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Waymo expands to Miami via a partnership with Moove. Waymo vehicles will hit the streets in 2025, and begin offering commercial ride-hailing in 2026. This is a big step for Moove - which will also take over fleet operations management in Phoenix, as the two companies build a strategic partnership designed to combine Waymo’s tech with Moove’s new operational capabilities. Why new? Because Moove so far focused on vehicle financing for the gig-economy, and with this step the company extends its focus to AV operations. Worth noting that in March this year Uber led a $100M investment round in Moove. 

Uber and WeRide launch commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, operating on two islands and to/from the international airport. Initially with safety drivers, which are expected to “retire” in 2025. This is the 1st large-scale commercial AV service outside of the US and China. 

Splend, a vehicle financing for gig-economy company (similar to Moove) secures a $300M financing facility. Funds will be used to expand EV fleet. 

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a ruling mandating Uber to complete fingerprint background checks for drivers working on ‘Uber Teens’. Uber launched Teens back in March and has been opposing such a step since. HopSkipDrive, also operating rides for children in California, are already onboard. 

DiDi reports Q3 net income of ±$128M (949M yuan) - up from a loss of 284M yuan YoY - indicating that DiDi has bounced back from the regulatory crackdown it experienced. 

Toronto mulling a cap on the number of ride-hailing drivers in the city. Today there are 80,429 private transportation company (PTC) licensed drivers. A report commissioned by the city found that there are 212,000 daily average trips originating/ending in the city, and that a PTC spends a third of his time cruising for passengers. “This means that for every 100 vehicles on the road downtown, 14 are PTCs, with 4 of these driving empty”. According to the full 48 pages report, “the objective of the cap is to mitigate the risk of worsening traffic congestion, increased emissions and impact to public transit use by ceasing further growth in the number of PTC drivers, while balancing considerations for driver equity and user mobility”. 

Kansas City first introduced microtransit back in 2016 - in an interview with Frank White III, CEO of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA), David Zipper finds that subsidies for microtransit are “about $2 for a fixed-route bus passenger and $20 to $25 for IRIS, so roughly ten times as much. Microtransit is hugely subsidized because it isn’t really cost-efficient”; and that microtransit is most effective in rural areas or as a feeder service. 

ENAKL secures $1.4M investment to provide safer daily commute in Africa. The company manages over 15,000 bookings per month and is looking to expand beyond Casablanca. 

Bolt introduces new bidding pricing structure in Kumasi, Ghana. This follows a common practice by drivers, who were upset by their low pay, and would negotiate offline with passengers to increase ride fare. While this doesn’t solve the problem altogether, it shifts more power to the passenger. The feature has not been implemented in the capital city of Accra. 

Namma Yatri expands auto-rickshaw service to Hubballi-Dharwad. Namma Yatri partners with EnAble India to expand Purple (disabled) Rides. InDrive launches bike taxi service in Rabat, Morocco. InDrive launches in Cebu, Philippines - offering zero commission rates for drivers. Yandex Go launches in Navoi, Uzbekistan, making it Yandex’s 16th city in the country. Bolt officially launches in the UAE. The Routing Company now allows management of both flexible (DRT) and fixed routes. New women-only taxi service in Portugal introduced and immediately suspended on the basis of ​​gender discrimination. To be continued. 

Uber expands car seat offerings to more US cities. You can now book a Xmas tree and carolers via UberEats. Uber offers boat hailing in India. More on the FTC’s investigation into Uber One’s cancellation process. 

Great Britain's “annual bus statistics: year ending March 2024”. A 8% increase in passenger journeys vs. 0% change in miles travelled. And much more. 

What makes a great UK bus journey - it is all about “Timeliness” - a term encompassing waiting time, punctuality, journey time. It is not about the money. 

A farewell to Megabus. A quick history of the brand, how the competition from National Express, Flixbus and rail contributed to the shut down, and a detailed last ride by Roger French. 

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

Kia Drive, previously known as Wible, is changing its operating model, now offering rentals from car dealerships, with a minimum rental time of one day. Kia Drive is today active in Italy, Spain, France, Slovakia and Poland, and is set to launch the service in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Belgium, and in the future the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Big list, which is achievable thanks to the new partnership with dealers.  

Karos launched in the Netherlands. Hiyacar expands in the UK. Greenmobility completes ±$2.1M (DKK 15M) private placement funding. 

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Voi to leave Brussels, says judge. Back in December 2023 the city chose Bolt and Dott as providers, with Voi and Lime set to leave. The two companies challenged the decision in court, and now a decision mandating them to leave has been made. 

In Japan, scooter traffic violations are high and causing concerns, following a regulatory relaxation back in July last year. Daiki Okai, CEO of Luup, attributes this to “a small number of users repeatedly committing violations” and the company is addressing the behavior of those users. 

Nextbike expanding in France and will integrate into the public transportation network via the local MaaS platform. 

felyx is returning to Delft and Eindhoven. 

Delivery 🍽🧺

Swiggy expands its 10-minute food delivery to more than 400 cities. The service, named “Bolt”, partnered with 40,000 restaurants and offers (very) rapid delivery in a 2km radius. 

Meituan to expand Keeta in the Middle East and to North Africa. JustEat is officially out of France. The company announced its intention to leave the country back in July, and has now completed the withdrawal. ​Deliveroo and Accessorize, fashion, jewellery, and gifting retailer, partner for rapid delivery. 

The story of JOCO. How a shared e-bike startup for delivery workers kept frugal and customer centric to achieve net profitability. The company wants to grow Joco’s gig worker fleet from 3,000 today to 10,000 by the end of 2025. 

Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡

Cruise partners with Numotion to provide wheelchair-accessible service In Houston. Will Cruise come back anytime soon to challenge Waymo? 

Nebius raises $700M to fuel its U.S. expansion, after just resuming trading on Nasdaq. We can expect some of the money to find its way to Avride. 

GM has patented a system to combat bullying. The system will analyse behavior, and once suspect potential violence from a nearby person, will act - either by honking and flashing, calling authorities, transferring control to a human inside the vehicle or finding a way to exit the scene.

Brussels Airport to trial autonomous shuttle, with Ohmio. 

Toyota and May Mobility launch autonomous shuttle in Japan. 

TuSimple’s co-founder (and now Bot Auto founder) is fighting to liquidate the company. TuSimple, founded in the US, is moving assets to China and switching focus from autonomous driving to gaming and animation. There is a “Save TuSimple” website dedicated to the cause, stating that “TuSimple's stock trades at $0.24 per share (as of November 26, 2024), while holding approximately $1.93 per share in cash alone (according to TechCrunch), before considering any additional value from intellectual property and assets”. Complex and to be continued. 

Flying cars 🚁

Lilium continues to sell - Jets! Not eVTOLs - while looking for a buyer. But a 2nd look at A.A.M.G, the buyer, reveals a rather obscure client - a basic wordpress website dedicated to an operator which currently does not have any vehicles nor operations, and that a WHOIS search doesn’t bring back any info on who is behind the website.

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Now with a concept car, Jaguar’s pink rebranding continues. It is clear that Jaguar was in trouble well before the rebranding; and that the company risks losing dealers in 2025 while it sells no cars; add to that, that there is a risk to alienate existing customers; and you might have a perfect storm coming; it all depends if Jaguar can switch customer base to a new audience. Hmm. 

Lucid Motors completes its first Gravity SUV. The future of the company very much depends on the success of this model. Rivian opens its charging network to other EVs - for the 1st time. Stellantis and Samsung to get $7.54 billion federal loan for two EV battery factories. Tesla is launching an Apple Watch app. 

Major OEMs’ sales by region around the world, in 2023-24 - in units (not currency). Some themes: Europeans invested heavily in China; Asian producers the most global; and the US is mostly concentrated with itself. This is a good time to recommend Car Charts | Glenn Mercer, a very insightful newsletter.  

Gig economy 💰

🇪🇸 In Spain, Glovo is getting ready to hire around 15,000 riders which are now “self-employed” - after facing intense pressure (and  fines) from the government to do so. The company expects the move to the new employment model to have a negative effect of €100M on its books in 2025.  

🇲🇽 In Mexico, the labour reform is poised to pass via fast-track, potentially completing legislation by the end of 2024. The reform allows drivers more benefits, such as health services, work risk insurance, retirement saving, the right to participate in the profit-sharing of the companies and to form unions. Mexico found an interesting way to classify “employee” - if a person earns the minimum Mexico City’s monthly wage working in these apps (now circa $370). 

🇵🇭 In the Philippines. Angkas’ CEO George Royeca is running for a seat in the House of Representatives in the upcoming 2025 elections. His aim is to uplift informal workers and integrate them into the formal economy, turning them to “empowered entrepreneurs”. He is now calling for nationwide public consultation for matters on motorcycle bikers. 

🇺🇲In Massachusetts, drivers are gearing up to start a union, after being able to do so was approved on the election ballot in November. Drivers need to collect signatures from at least 25% of active drivers or those who have completed more than the median number of rides in the past six months, and union organisers feel confident they have those numbers. In New York City, two bills have been introduced to close a loophole allowing companies such as Instacart to not pay the mandatory $20 per hour delivery drivers minimum wage. In Minneapolis, the rideshare minimum law is going into effect - and we expect to see price increases in the city.

In other news 📰

Skarper can turn any bike into an e-bike. An attachable device, put on and removed in seconds, it can give 50 km (30 miles) of power to any “regular” bike. Ventete, a new cycling helmet, is gearing up for commercial activities. 

Google Map is starting to show Waze’s incident reports

The saga concerning Musk’s $56 billion pay package continues. In this chapter, a judge denies Tesla from offering the package to Musk - despite shareholders voting at the company’s annual meeting this year to “re-ratify” the deal. Tesla is appealing, to be continued. I could buy two twitters with that money. Also, I’ve just learned that Musk owns circa 22% in Tesla, which is worth roughly $268 billion. His net worth, by the way, is roughly $355 billion. No reason to be worried. 

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

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Francisco Meneses is the new General Manager @ Uber Eats Portugal. 

Jan Trullàs Vila is the new M&A Director @ Cooltra. 

Roi Peleg is the new Vice President Operations @ AIR. 

Congrats and good luck!

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