Yandex to buy Uber’s stake in Russian JV, Lyft and Delivery Hero disappointing Q1 guidance and Vay drives fully teleoperated

Yandex to buy out Uber in Russia; Lyft and Delivery Hero show disappointing guidance on Q1 reports sending stocks down; door2doors (by SWVL) shuts down; Yango banned in Cameroon; Uber partners with Apple CarPlay and HSBC; GreenMobility out of Germany & Sweden and JOKR out of Mexico & Peru - both to focus on core markets and profitability; Tier new parking tech; Rivian cuts 6%, Deliveroo 9%, REE 11%, Baraja 75%; Tik-Tok deliveries?; Zomato exits the Philippines; in another existence, Nana raises $133M for grocery delivery; Vay drives first teleoperated no-driver on public road in Europe; a anti Tesla FSD ad in the Super Bowl; Etioca EV taxi roadshow; Wisk in Australia; Tesla 'master plan 3’ is coming soon; and more. #movingpeople, let’s start. 

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Lyft disappointing Q1 guidance sends the stock down by 30%, from ±$16.2 on Thursday to $10.31 end of trade Friday. Revenue for Q1 is expected at $975M vs. analysts expectation of $1.09bn, a result of lowered ride prices set by Lyft. 

Yandex is to complete the buy out of Uber's 29% stake in their joint venture for $925M, half the sum agreed upon in a pre-Ukraine war reality. 

Door2Door, acquired by SWVL back in March 2022, files for administration. The German DRT company had roughly 25% of the German market, now leaving the local market to DB-owned ioki. 

Heber Valley microtransit and bus ridership; a story worth mentioning only because the graphs inside show how much it takes for a public transit service to really pick up (2 months in this case) and the difference between utilisation with fixed scheduled buses (106) and microtransit. 

Yango suspended in Cameron for failure to comply with transport regulations, such as proper licensing, opening a local office and committing to local tax and banking presence. This follows a warning issued to Yango back in September, which the company responded to by saying it is a platform, rather than a taxi service, and therefore needs not comply with the rules. 

Uber is integrating its driver app with Apple CarPlay, allowing drivers to work directly with the in-car system. Uber partners with HSBC in Egypt to launch Flexpay, digital payment solution for the unbanked drivers. UberShare (pool) is back in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Calgary Airport allows Uber pickups at the arrivals zone. 

Spare and Uber create partnerships (Uzurv, GoGoGrandparent) for paratransit operations in the US. Addison Lee partners with PostTag for precision pick-up and drop-off locations. Low taxi and PH satisfaction score in Singapore is attributed mostly to long waiting times. High demand and traffic are to ‘blame’. 

In Pakistan, a new women-only ‘pink buses’ initiative aims to provide safer transportation and allow more women to enter the workforce. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedSharing/renting 🚗🛴

GreenMobility, Denmark based e-car sharing, is focusing on profitability, leaving the German and Swedish markets, hopefully getting closer to break even in FY2023. 

UFODrive and CarTrawler partner; CarTrawler’s B2B customers will now be able to use UFODrive’s keyless technology. 

Quick Ride, taxi and carpooling in India, launches taxi services with its own fleet of EVs. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMicromobility 🚲🛴

Voi calls the UK government to finally make up its mind on e-scooters, which are in a state of perpetual trial, with 18 pilots running and no clear legislation going forward. Voi all-time Oslo numbers: 16 million rides, 27.5 million km. 

Tier launches new parking technology in London. Replacing GPS signals, which can be several meters off, with a solution that combines Google’s Visual Positioning System (VPS) and an in-house solution developed by Fantasmo (which Tier acquired in March 2022). 

Helbiz completed the Wheels acquisition in November 2022. For the first nine months in 2022, Wheels had a revenue of $5M and a net loss of $20.9M; G&A was more than double the revenue at $11.5M and Wheel’s previous years’ reports don’t look much better (from Jones). 

Bird in Montgomery but maybe not in Janesville. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedDelivery 🍽🧺

Last week I reported that JOKR intends to double down on Brazil - and this week the company exits Mexico and sells activity in Peru - and now is active in Brazil only. 

Deliveroo cuts 350 jobs, %9 of staff, mostly in the UK, ‘correcting’ the rapid growth in hiring that has been in the past years. 

Delivery Hero fell ±15%, from circa €54 Wednesday to €45.4 end of trade Friday, as expected results look poor. And an unusual row (or quarrel?) between the CEO of Delivery Hero and that of Adzuna in the comments. 

Hong Kong online delivery market share - foodpanda 70%, Deliveroo 30%. Just Eat partners with Dia (Spain) for grocery deliveries, now starting a pilot with 50 stores in larger cities. 

Douyin, Chinese TikTok, is offering ‘group-buying deliveries’. The service enables merchants to promote and sell food packages that are generally for two or three people, and are delivered within a selected timeframe. Merchants can use 3rd party or own delivery service. 

Zomato exits the Philippines; remains now in India and the UAE. Yababa, oriental grocery deliveries, files for administration. Barcelona is planning a total ban on dark stores. 

Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, dark store grocery delivery startup Nana raised $133M in a Series C funding, bringing total funding to $212M. Phlo, UK digital pharmacy same-day prescription delivery service, raised £10M. Funds will be used to scale up operations. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAutonomous 🤖

Vay drives the first teleoperated with-no-driver vehicle on a European public road. The tests are being run in Hamburg. 

Watch this anti Tesla FSD commercial that was also on the superbowl. Its 30 seconds. Watch!

The UK is investing £81M in autonomous bus and truck pilots. Projects are to roll out in Cambridge, Edinburgh, Sunderland, Belfast, Solihull and Coventry, and are all intended to demonstrate sustainable commercial services by 2025.

Driverless shuttles are coming to Geneva; Kronach (Germany) and Oslo. The EU funded pilot will launch circa 2025. 

Etioca presents its prototype, ‘Minor’, in Madrid. The ‘Mibor’ is an EV built for taxi drivers, and has mobility apps and crypto functionalities built into the vehicle. 

U.S. national security regulator is pursuing criminal charges against TuSimple’s three top officials for illegal transfer of technology to China. The company is expected to sell off its Chinese division and sort out relationships with Chinese based Hydron in order to get a green light from US regulators. 

Baraja, Australian LIDAR tech, lays off 75% of its workforce. The layfoss are mostly attributed to the slowdown in customer programs as autonomous vehicles take longer to roll out. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFlying cars 🚁

Boeing backed Wisk is closer to launch in Australia, partnering with South East Queensland (Brisbane). 

Joby Aviation completes the second stage of the FAA’s certification process. Only three more stages to go. Currently Joby is the race leader in the states, ahead of Archer Aviation, which intends to complete the 2nd stage by Q2/23. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedOEMs ⚡️

Tesla’s ‘Master Plan 3’ is coming March 1st, which will reveal “the path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth”, per Musk. This master plan should also include updates on SpaceX and The Boring Company. The ‘Part Deux’ master plan was revealed in 2016. 

A long read of Tesla’s long awaited Cybertruck, which is now set to go into production by the end of 2023. The truck is to be built from stainless steel, which is an engineering challenge likely to be overcome. 

Rivian is laying off another 6% of its workforce and is working on an e-bike, or an electric motorcycle; people don’t know. This has been rumored before and is circulating again thanks to a leak from an internal company meeting. 

Canoo sells $52M in stock at a 16% discount to create cash flow, with buyers having an option to double their stock purchases. Canoo has a major deal with Walmart, for 4,500 vehicles, but is having difficulties delivering. 

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIn other news 📰

Up.Partners is a mobility venture + lab, which just published its ‘Moving World Report’. A 125 slide report on macro & micro trends in mobility, covering everything from sustainability & infrastructure to eVTOLs & autonomous and from micromobility to hypersonic travel. 

Google maps now has EV features. These include finding chargers and long trips charging recommendations based on traffic, capacity and usage. 

Skipperi, shared-use and P2P boat rental, raised €7M.  

Election, in-road wireless charging, partnered with Aspire to construct a 50 metre road at Utah State University to demo the solution. REE, automotive EV chassis, lays off 11% of its workforce. Urgently, roadside assistance tech provider, acquires Otonomo in a reverse merger. Otonomo, once valued at $1.4bn, has a market cap of $70M today. The deal is expected to close in Q3 2023. 

SpaceX will surpass the Soviet record of 108 space launches in one year.