Waymo expands (again), Via & Zoomcar Q3 (meh) results and automatic fire weapons on scooters

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

Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi 🚙🚕

Waymo expands to 3 more cities - Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Tampa (after announcing Detroit, Las Vegas, and San Diego just a couple of weeks ago), bringing the total US cities it operates or intends to operate to over 20 cities, focusing on red states. In Miami, Waymo removes safety drivers, as it starts offering rides to employees, ahead of a commercial launch in 2026. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando will transition to fully autonomous (i.e. No safety driver) in the next few weeks.

Waymo partners with LA Metro to participate in the City’s Mobility Wallet program, “providing transportation stipend to low-income Angelenos”.

The new Waymo - Zeekr car (sensor wipers included): 

Tesla receives ride-hailing license in Arizona - and can now launch robotaxi operations in Phoenix.

Kenya: nationwide strikes against ride-hailing platforms (Uber, Bolt) led the Transport Ministry to order a 50% fare-price increase (calculated per km). This raise has been on the books since 2024 but so far has not been enforced, similar to the 18% commission cap rule. The winner so far is Little Cab, which is seeing more drivers joining the platform.  

New Zealand Supreme Court rules that drivers are employees, reaffirming the Employment Court 2022 ruling. The ruling applies only to the four drivers who filed it; hardly impacting Uber and not at all the rest of the NZ drivers and couriers. 

InDrive South Africa lowers driver commission to 1%, in a move to gain ground against Uber & Bolt. Yango Pakistan partners with Airblue, an airline, on discounts and marketing initiatives. 

DRT, Bus-Based Mobility & AV shuttles 🚍🚌

Via Q3/25 results: 

• Revenue $110M, up 32% YoY

• Operating loss improved to $18.9M, compared to $20.6M (YoY)

• Net loss widened to $36.9M, compared with a loss of $21.3M

Stock fell from circa $50 (before report was published) to $35.5 (true to Nov. 21st), roughly a 30% drop. 

Zoox begins offering robotaxi rides to the public in San Francisco, under the Zoox Explorer programme, which is a waitlist-pending limited launch, not open for all public and not commercial yet. The company expects the waitlist to be removed in 2026. 

Holon receives approval for autonomous testing in Germany, safety driver included. First up - Hamburg - which was targeted for launch earlier this year. Tier IV launches a public shuttle service, connecting government buildings in central Tokyo along an about 3.5-kilometer route. The vehicle used is a Suzuki Solio van. Ohmio operational in the Jeju region of South Korea.

Kakao to launch a DRT service in Seoul. Uber Shuttle available for Uber for Business (U4B) customers in Saudi Arabia. 

Are you a startup building for public transport? Read this: 

Egged is a PTO operating >4,500 buses and moving >350 million passengers annually across Israel, Poland, Lithuania, and the Netherlands. The company published a call for startups, focused on: 

🤵‍♂️ Driver recruitment & Retention

🧼 Vandalism & Cleanliness

🚌 Bus Depot Efficiency

Those selected will have the opportunity to pilot and validate solutions inside real public transport operations. Apply by January 15th: 

Car Sharing/renting 🚗

ZipZap, subscription ‘leasing’ by GetGo, a car-share company, launches Subscribe & Share - enabling subscribers (clients) to list their unused vehicle time on the GetGo platform. Excellent synergies!

Zoomcar Q3/25 financial results: 

• Revenue grew 2% to $2.23M (YoY)

• Net loss narrowed to $0.79M - that includes a one-time gain of $1.7M from closing subsidiaries in Egypt and Vietnam. Without that gain. Net loss would be $2.5M, compared to $3.35M YoY

• Total costs and expenses grew 12% to $4.27M

Zoomcar acknowledged in its SEC filings that it does not have sufficient funds to meet obligations within one year. Management is pursuing bridge financing of up to $5M and plans an “uplist raise” of $20M before FY26 ends.

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Brussels explores banning shared scooters, because “Users would wedge the handlebars with their stomachs and manage to fire automatic weapons, while riding. And all this in almost perfect anonymity". Read that again. The city is also limiting the operating hours of bikes in the Pietonnier zone (city-centre), with bikes to be only allowed between 4 and 11am, because of clashes with pedestrians. 

Voi launches e-bikes in Glasgow. Bolt to deploy 2,000 scooters and 100 e-bikes deployed in Liverpool, replacing Voi.

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

Uber Eats partners with Starship sidewalk robots to deliver food in the UK, starting next month with Leeds and Sheffield. In the US Uber has similar partnerships with Serve and with Avride. 

LOXO launches autonomous grocery delivery with REWE, using VW ID. Buzz. 

JET partners with Superdrug for 30-minutes delivery. Starting with 29 selected retail sites, rollout across the UK is planned by March 2026.  Deliveroo expands partnership with Waitrose’s fine dining brand Dishpatch, allowing more delivery days. B&Q expands Deliveroo trial outside of London. Gopuff partners with Robinhood for cash delivery. 

AV Freight & Logistics 🚛🚜

Applied Intuition and Isuzu partner to launch logistics autonomous trucking operation. Isuzu will be rolling out autonomous trucks in three steps: (1) from early 2026, running a single 25-ton truck with a safety driver on its Tochigi–Aichi logistics route to test real-world conditions; (2) by 2027, scaling to about 30 vehicles, to validate operations, remote monitoring, and hub logistics efficiency; and (30 in 2028, to launch full commercial Level-4 deployment. 

Pony reveals 4th generation of autonomous electric trucks, in partnership with Sany Truck and Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor, designed for mass production “in the thousands”. The new partnership will bill-of-materials costs and allow logistics efficiency saving using a platooning feature.  

Monarch Tractor, autonomous tractors, prepares for layoffs and warns employees it may ‘shut down’ whilst the company is attempting to pivot to a SaaS model. In August the company lost its manufacturing plant, which was sold by Foxconn to SoftBank to transform into a data centre; and in September the company was sued by Burks Tractor, a dealership, for being “unable to operate autonomously”.

In other news 📰

Electreon, wireless vehicle charging, to acquire InductEV, a US-based wireless vehicle charging company. The joint company will have >400 patents, with operations across the US, Europe and Asia. Completion of the deal is subject to due diligence, final agreements, and regulatory approvals.

Turing (Japan), autonomous driving systems, raises roughly $100M Series A in a mix of equity (±$62M) and debt (the rest). 

Point One Navigation, centimeter-level accuracy precise location technology, raises $35M, bringing post-money to $230M. 

Volvo is breaking its partnership with Luminar, Lidar technology, terminating a five year contract. In a statement, the company said “Volvo Cars has made this decision to limit the company’s supply chain risk exposure and it is a direct result of Luminar’s failure to meet its contractual obligations to Volvo Cars”. Luminar is at the brink of bankruptcy. 

Trump to kill federal funding for public transportation. Honestly, I thought this move would have come sooner…

Gemini is starting to replace Google Assistant in Android Auto. 

Mobility Database now has visualisations.

Joby sues Archer for ‘corporate espionage’. The lawsuit claims a now-Archer past-Joby employee stole secrets while moving to Archer. Archer denies. 

Archer can’t get off the ground, and uses misleading PRs - such as this one: “Archer Completes eVTOL Flight Test Campaign in Abu Dhabi”. What was completed - flights or the campaign? The right answer is the campaign. 

Joby signs MOUs on way to fly in Saudi on H1/26; Joby completes test flight of its hybrid defense aircraft. EHang conducts its first human-carrying pilotless eVTOL flight in the Middle East - flying in Qatar. 

UK’s 10 quirkiest bus routes. 

The World’s Top EV Makers by Market Share:

What Next for the Global Car Industry - an IEA report. Takeaways: 

• 20% of cars sold globally are electric; adding hybrid, that number climbs to 30%. With China leading the EV production, this poses challenges for incumbent car manufacturers

• Growth in car sales has shifted to emerging economies, including China; emerging economies now account for over half of global car sales, up from just 20% in 2000.

• China’s car production more than doubled between 2010 and 2024, to 27 million in 2024,  overtaking the European Union to become the world’s largest exporter. China now accounts for 40% of total manufacturing capacity and Europe and North America for 15% each.

For much more. 

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

People 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Dami Adebayo is the new Chief of Staff to the COO @ Nuro. 

Ivan Cihlarz  is the new Head of Regional Management (BU North) @ goFLUX Mobility /Karos.

Congrats and good luck!

#movingpeople is a weekly mobility & delivery newsletter - from Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi through Remote-Driving & Delivery Drones to e-bikes and Autonomous Freight & Logistics.

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