A tale of two e-bike startups

Plus, Meituan’s bike armada, all of Uber’s latest drama, and inflatable scooters...

May 19, 2020

Hello and welcome to the Micromobility Newsletter, a weekly missive about mobility, mostly mobility in cities by small modals like bikes and scooters. The reason you’re reading this email is that you signed up on our website or came to one of our events.

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For operators and manufacturers alike, insurance is critical to being successful in micromobility. Competitive permit applications, tight deadlines, and meeting requirements can often be a burden. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

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Our next guest is…

This Thursday, May 21, entrepreneur, bike-share pioneer, and Jump founder Ryan Rzepecki will join us for an exclusive video conference about the origins of dockless micromobility, Jump’s journey, and how he sees the industry changing against the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis.

Sign up for Triple M, free for 30 days, to join the video conference with Ryan. In addition to exclusive webinars, Triple M members also get access to a private Slack workspace for peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing, deals on tickets, and other great perks.

What you need to know this week.

  • People are buying up e-bikes like hotcakes. Even with many dealers closed due to Covid-19, e-bike companies like Aventon, Vanmoof, Lectrek, Gocycle, Brompton, and Cowboy are seeing huge sales bumps. “US retail sales of e-bikes in the first quarter of 2019 grew 90 percent year over year… Rad Power Bikes said its sales in April increased a whopping 297 percent year over year, vastly exceeding the company’s expectations. The company’s sales to business customers in the delivery sector also rose 191 percent from March to April this year.”

  • Two e-bike companies are reacting to the sales bonanza very differently. While the Dutch startup Vanmoof capitalized on the news by raising $13.5 million in new funding, General Motors announced it was folding its e-bike brand, Ariv. Disruption theory tell us that incumbents usually prefer to retreat to higher-margin products rather than fight entrant attackers at the low-end of the market.

  • The NYSE is banning workers from using public transport due to the risk of Covid-19. Will other institutions and businesses follow suit?

  • Google Maps now shows which streets have restricted car access in most U.S. cities.

  • Chinese subway data reveals that ridership is down most heavily on Friday nights and weekends. This suggests that, even when businesses reopen and rush hour restarts, people will continue to avoid leisure trips at least at first.

  • Meituan placed an order for “millions” of new e-bikes last month.

  • Uber is in talks to buy Grubhub. With rides down about 80%, delivery is the rare bright spot in Uber’s books right now. If the two companies were to combine, they would edge out DoorDash as the largest food-delivery service in the U.S.

  • Even as Uber eyes acquisitions, it is still making retrenchments. This week, the company announced it would let go of 3,000 employees and close 45 offices, on top of the 3,700 jobs it cut two weeks ago. The latest layoffs include Uber’s entire micromobility robotics team, which was in the middle of piloting sidewalk detection.

  • In Wuhan, car use has doubled compared to pre-pandemic levels.

  • London looks to create the world’s largest car-free zone.

  • The number of vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. plummeted almost 20% in March when many states put up travel restrictions.

  • In a hopeful sign for fans of dockless e-bikes, Lime says it plans to return Jump service to Seattle soon.

  • Bike scarcity: “The United States is facing a shortage of bicycles as anxiety over public transportation and a desire to exercise has sent the demand surging.”

  • On the heels of Uber Eats exiting India, local food-delivery player Zomato is laying off 13% of its workforce.

  • Car lobbyists are arguing that the new bike lanes that Germany is building in response to Covid-19 will make car traffic worse. Will this be the auto industry’s go-to strategy to claw back road space after the pandemic passes?

  • Ridership for London’s Santander Cycles hit an all-time high last weekend with 50,000 trips in one day.

  • A team of Japanese designers and researchers have developed a soft, inflatable e-scooter.

  • Las Vegas is the latest city to allow restaurants to extend seating onto the sidewalk to help with social distancing.

  • Pedestrian deaths in LA are keeping pace with last year, despite the city’s stay-at-home order.

  • Meanwhile NYC recently went 58 straight days without a single pedestrian death, a new record.

  • California is suing Uber and Lyft, claiming the ride-hail companies misclassify their drivers to avoid paying them the minimum wage and providing other benefits.

  • Italy has approved subsidies of up to €500 for people to buy lightweight vehicles, including bikes, scooters, and hoverboards. Subsidies are limited to people who live in cities with at least 50,000 inhabitants.

As micromobility relaunches around the world, cities want to partner with companies that can provide quality mobility data that helps them expand bike and scooter infrastructure—accelerating their growth.

Trusted by more than 70 cities, Populus has created a guide to help operators navigate the complex issues of data sharing. To learn more about mobility data and how to partner with Populus to reach cities around the world, download their guide to Mobility Data & Cities.

  • Twitter diplomacy: Local authorities caved and will allow Elon Musk to reopen his Fremont Tesla plant after all.

  • NYC is losing The War on Cars. Cycling activist and co-host of the WOC podcast Doug Gordon says “the appeal of being car-free in NYC has vanished” because of the threat of Covid-19.

  • From the 1970s oil crisis to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami to the Covid-19 pandemic, people always turn to bikes (and now scooters and hoverboards) in times of trouble. The challenge is making these modes more accessible.

  • James Dyson spent £500 of his own money on his aborted EV project.

  • Is direction request data from Apple Maps an accurate proxy for real-life behavior? Many people are currently only venturing outside for necessities, like food and medicine. These kinds of frequent errands to the supermarket or pharmacy typically do not require directions from Apple Maps.

  • Bird is rumored to be replacing its gig-based charging program with a new system in which workers would have more responsibility over fleet maintenance in exchange for a greater share of the revenue.

  • Americans owe $400 billion on their cars—up more than 50% compared to a decade ago. Auto debt could stall the Covid-19 recovery.

  • Car commuting decreases in cities that have bike-share systems, according to new research.

  • Transit officials from some of America’s largest cities are lobbying for an additional $33 billion in federal aid.

  • Right now, everyone is reevaluating their traditional commute and looking for safer modes of transportation. Some are considering walking or scootering; others are thinking about driving. As Harvard Kennedy School visiting scholar David Zipper writes in new article for Slate, “A moment like this—when millions of urban trips are temporarily up for grabs across transportation modes—is exceedingly rare. The stakes for cities could scarcely be higher.”

Pod people.

On the latest episode of the podcast, Horace Dediu and Oliver Bruce have a great discussion about the philosophical underpinnings of price signals, going back to Freidrich Hayek and how price works to coordinate activity in society. They also discuss how micromobility suffers from market manipulation from infrastructure and manufacturing, and how road space allocation is currently misaligned to its real estate value.

Jobs to be done.

Welcome to our jobs board, where every week we post new career openings in hopes of connecting our talented readers with professional opportunities in new mobility. Find out who’s hiring below and sign up for the newsletter to view fresh listings every week.

If your company is looking to make its next hire and would like to reach thousands of qualified candidates who live and breathe mobility, hit reply to list with us. Free of charge.

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