đŸȘ Best Buy Sells Micromobility

Plus, Vanmoof banks $128m, Paris caps speed limits, Ola moped could roll out in US sooner than expected.

September 07, 2021

Hello and welcome to the Micromobility Newsletter, a weekly missive about mobility, mostly mobility in cities by small electric vehicles (e.g. e-bikes, scooters, mopeds). 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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Two Weeks Away


Micromobility America is just over 2 weeks away and the response so far has been fantastic. So much so that we are nearly at capacity.

ICYMI: On September 23rd in the SF Bay Area, we’re hosting the world’s largest summit devoted to the disruptive potential of lightweight electric vehicles. We’ve tapped micromobility’s top global experts, founders, investors, and builders to share their insights, including:

đŸŽïž Lucas Di Grassi on what happens when micromobility meets high-speed motorsports

🧱 Andrew Yang & Lauren Goode on micromobility’s growing importance in our urban transportation systems coming out of the pandemic

📈 Horace Dediu on why micromobility will play a life-or-death role in meeting our climate goals

Register now and save $400 off full-priced tickets during our Labor Day Sale. Space is limited.

What You Need to Know This Week

  • Best Buy is pushing into micromobility retail. The big box chain is now selling a selection of electric scooters, bikes, and mopeds from several top brands—including Unagi, Segway, Bird, and Super 73—online and plans to add rideables to select US stores in October. As well, select e-bikes will be eligible for assembly by Best Buy’s Geek Squad for $99.99.

  • Dutch e-bike company Vanmoof has raised $128m in Series C funding, led by Led by Hillhouse, to fuel global expansion.

  • As society reopened—and our streets were once again flooded with cars—U.S. traffic fatalities jump 10.5% in the first quarter of 2021.

  • Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal says the S1 electric moped will begin shipping to the US in early 2022.

Segway is the global leader in the products and solutions that power the millions of scooters behind the brands our communities love and depend on. Our industry-leading scooters are explicitly designed to meet your unique demands.

Join us at Micromobility America and you will experience our latest electric vehicles designed for sharing—such as Segway’s IoT-enabled e-Bike and e-Moped, as well as our full line of shared scooters featuring the latest AI technologies.

Want a test ride? Click here.

Makkabox

  • An engineering student created an Apple AirTag holder to protect their bike against theft.

  • A new profile of Donald Shoup sums of the legendary parking critic’s worldview in three points:

    • Stop requiring off-street parking for new developments.

    • Price street parking according to market value, based on the desirability of the space, the time of day, and the number of open spots.

    • Spend that revenue on initiatives to better the surrounding neighborhoods.

  • Last week BMW unveiled the i Vision AMBY—an e-bike concept that can reach speeds of 37 mph and comes equipped a massive battery that the company says is good for an insane 186 miles of range. “Using an accompanying smartphone app, riders can choose between the European legal 25 km/h (15.5 mph) speed, a second speed-pedelec mode that reaches 45 km/h (28 mph), and a new high-speed-pedelec mode that ups the ante to 60 km/h (37 mph). BMW even floated the idea of having those speeds be modifiable in real time based on geo-fencing, meaning you could be slowed down automatically when you hit the city center, then unleashed to your top speed once turning onto a larger road.”

  • Voi, Tier, and Lime have introduced a speed limit of 9mph in Helsinki between the hours of 12AM-5AM to deter reckless late-night riding.

  • Zoov has a new connected e-bike whose features—capable of being charged at a public dock and via a swappable battery—blurs the categories between on-demand rental and long-term leasing.

  • US shipping companies have been way slower to adopt cargo bikes—which have been shown to deliver packages up to 60% faster than vans in urban settings—than their European counterparts: “In Germany, DHL/Deutsche Post now manages a fleet of nearly 17,000 cargo bikes and trikes, with another 5,000 on order
 According to a DHL spokesperson, the company has launched one American pilot: a Miami deployment involving just four vehicles.”

  • Journalist Clive Thompson recounts how the pandemic transformed him from a subway straphanger into an avid urban cyclist.

  • TechCrunch reviews Ubco’s utility-oriented 2x2 Adventure Bike: “the Ubco bike looks like a dirt bike and rides like a moped and absolutely shreds.”

  • Inside Dott’s e-scooter operation in London, the company says they’re currently seeing only around 1% of their fleet per day coming in for servicing and maintenance 

  • Urbanism twitter is very worked up about a recent Pew Research Center survey that shows 60% of Americans would prefer to live in big homes in sprawling, unwalkable communities. Crucially, the percentage who say they’d prefer to have a smaller home in a more dense area has gone down since the pandemic.

  • That said, Census data shows US density actually rebounded during the 2010s to the highest levels since 1990. So who knows what Americans really want.

Pod People

The latest episode of the podcast is a freeform wander through our co-founder Horace Dediu’s mind—always an interesting place to spend time—centering on what he sees as the three main categories of batteries:

🔋’s we carry (phones, laptops)

🔋🔋’s that carry us (e-bikes, e-scooters)

🔋🔋🔋’s that carry themselves (electric cars)

Jobs to Be Done

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

Hit reply if you have a job that you’re interested in listing.