💥 Cambrian Explosion

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The Longview

• Electric car sales are predicted to reach global tipping point in 2033. For now, hybrids are still way ahead of EVs among new U.S. registrations.

• Also in the U.S., electric bikes outsold electric cars by 2-to-1 last year.

• Nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers bought groceries online in the last 12 months.

• Overall transit ridership has been in a state of decline in the U.S. since 1970, driven by losses in the Midwest and Sunbelt.

• A bipartisan infrastructure deal is picking up support in Washington, including $109b for roads and bridges, $15b for EV infrastructure and EV buses, $66b to improve the railroads, and $49 billion for mass transit.

• Roads would get the lion’s share of the funding under the current plan. But no amount of new highway construction can solve solve our urban gridlock problem: “If more people decide that driving is quicker, there will be more traffic, clogging streets and making trips longer.”

• Wales has the right idea. It just halted all future road building.

• Ford CTO, Ken Washington, is moving to Amazon to become VP of software engineering.

The Microview

• The Cambrian explosion of new micromobility vehicles took a quantum leap this week, with Spin and Bird both announcing major hardware updates:

  • Ford’s Spin unveiled its first custom-built e-scooter, the S-100T, featuring triple braking, an integrated lock-to cable, self-diagnostic technology, and other upgrades. Subjected to 400 different safety and durability tests, the scooter is expected to last over 3 years on the road—more than twice as long as current models—as Spin seeks to address one of the industry’s biggest barriers to profitability: high vehicle turnover. The startup hopes to have a few thousand S-100T scooters in use by the end of the year.

  • Meanwhile, Bird is expanding beyond e-scooters with the launch a new Okai-manufactured e-bike, which will be deployed in North America and Western Europe later this year. Responding to pressure from Lime, Bolt, Helbiz, Tier, Veo, Dott, and others, the California startup is trying to build a multimodal ecosystem that offers users a wider variety of vehicles to choose from to service different types of trips. To that end, the micromobility operator will also allow local shared bike, e-moped, and transit (but not scooter) services to integrate with Bird’s app.

• Bike-share is going electric fast. According to an NBC study, e-bikes accounted for only 11% of bike-share trips across 11 U.S. cities in May 2020. A year later, that figure ballooned to 38%.

• Micromobility platform Joyride has raised $3.7m to help local operators find and finance the right vehicles, access insurance programs from trusted partners, and learn how to deploy a profitable fleet.

• Chinese bike-share unicorn Hello is said to have suddenly put its IPO plans on hold.

• BMW says RIP to the i3, the electric hatchback that launched its EV efforts in 2013. The pint-sized city car will cease production following years of underwhelming sales, yet another victim of Americans’ obsession with massive trucks and SUVs.

• New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission is blocking Revel from launching an all-Tesla ride-hail outfit for some truly petty reasons.

• Gogoro struck a deal with Foxconn to make its battery-swappable mopeds available worldwide.

• Shell is set to become the first oil company to supply power to the micromobility sector, with plans to install e-scooter charging hubs at its gas stations in Berlin through a partnership with Swiftmile.

• Reviews: Veloretti’s first-ever e-bikes (“vintage cool and high tech as hell”) and Cowboy’s much-anticipated fourth model (“makes cycling the most viable choice for almost any journey”)

• Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, spent a day delivering meals for Uber Eats on an e-bike last weekend.

• Vanlife startup Cabana has raised $10m in funding for its camping-meets-car-share concept.

• Integrating e-scooter services with a city’s public transport network can boost train ticket sales by up to a third, according to study from Voi.

• Shared micromobility revenue plummeted 58% in the U.S. in 2020, year-over-year, as Covid-19 brought city life to a standstill. However, sales data suggests scooter and bike ridership is already on the road to recovery.

• Related: shared micromobility’s pain was personal micromobility’s gain during lockdown. Last year, nearly $1.4b worth of e-bikes were sold in the UK, as commuters sought out safe, socially distanced ways to get around the city.

• Micromobility operator Veo has partnered with Hologram for its IoT needs.

• India’s Hero Cycles has begun selling e-bikes in Europe, jumping into a burgeoning market that has traditionally been dominated by Chinese manufacturers.

• Why electric motorcycles are failing.

• As Uber has retreated from micromobility in the last year, its European ride-hail rival Bolt has only stepped up its e-scooter efforts. Here’s a look at its multimodal strategy.

• Chicago proposes to permanently integrate shared e-scooters into its transportation network.

• Bosch acquired the domain ebike.com for $1m.

• Oakland will receive $1m in state funds to create an “e-bike library” where low-income residents can access pedelecs.

• Our own Horace Dediu stopped by the Freewheeling podcast for a brilliant interview about why he believes we’re still in the very early days of the micromobility revolution: “What micro has going for it is this proliferation of entrants, this completely chaotic, unknowable, unforeseeable future. You can’t even make a bet on what size of vehicle, what form factor, what business model [will win yet].”

Jobs to Be Done

Welcome to our jobs board, where every week we post open positions in hopes of connecting our 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.

• Dance:

  • Senior Mechanical Engineer (Berlin)

  • Senior Supplier Quality Engineer (Taiwan)

  • Senior Firmware Engineer - Hardware (Berlin)

• Lime: Supply Project Manager (remote) + Sr. Fleet Partner Manager (Warsaw)

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