🤯 E-bike Sales Jump +3x

Plus, Ola Electric scores $200m, eSC teases high-speed scooter specs, and Europe cracks down on e-bike hacking.

October 05, 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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Streaming Soon

We talk a lot about how lightweight electric vehicles are going to unbundle the car. But with the growth of e-commerce, especially in the last 18 months, what about the delivery van? A couple of important stats:

📦 E-commerce revenue is expected to top $6.3t in the next three years.

đźšš A recent study found that, in the largest urban markets, cargo bikes deliver parcels 60% faster than vans.

🚲 Already some of the world’s largest logistics companies, including Amazon, FedEx, and DHL, are rolling out two- and three-wheelers to optimize last-mile deliveries.

All of which is to say the intersection of micromobility and logistics is going to be a very big deal.

So don’t miss our next webinar, as Nathan Wang, head of micromobility at Particle, and Oliver Bruce, co-host of The Micromobility Podcast, discuss the future of lightweight electric vehicles as a means of last-mile delivery in urban environments.

What You Need to Know This Week

  • In the wake of the pandemic, US e-bike revenue grew by a mind-blowing 240% in the 12 months ending in July 2021, year-over-year, according to NPD Group. That’s compared to a 15% increase for all cycling equipment during the same timeframe. Electric bikes are now the third largest cycling category in terms of sales revenue, ahead of road bikes.

  • Ola Electric has raised $200m at a valuation of $3b following the highly successful rollout of its first two models of e-mopeds this summer. The Indian startup says it sold $150m worth of sit-down scooters in just two days.

  • With 1 out of 10 Parisians cycling daily, Paris now ranks among the top 10 bike cities in the world.

  • Latin American micromobility provider Tembici has raised $80m in Series C funding to launch in more cities and expand e-bike delivery.

Automated Rebalancing and Charging as a Service close the gap between supply and demand in micromobility: 60%-80% of the market demand is not met, which leads to a huge drag on revenue. Ubiq addresses that by placing vehicles in the right place at the right time. They are charged and redeployed to generate a revenue boost of 20% within 8 weeks.

Want to close the gap between supply and demand? Get in touch here.

  • Do laws requiring that shared e-scooters be locked to bike racks actually make streets and sidewalks any safer?

  • A 15mph speed limit is expected to be introduced across the city of London in 2022. London’s proposed speed limit goes even further than Paris, which recently introduced a groundbreaking law requiring cars travel no faster than 19mph in the city.

  • As well, Paris may soon introduce “noise radars” to target loud motorcycles and reduce noise pollution.

  • A majority of Americans say transportation policy should “shift trips toward transit, walking, and biking,” according to a new poll. But that same study also shows most Americans think the central goal of transportation planning should not be to reduce driving…

Figure

  • A group of 68 European bike companies have signed onto an industry-wide commitment to prevent people from hacking their e-bikes for more speed and power.

  • The White House bike-share station is back after being removed in 2017.

  • Orion Electrics Company is making e-bikes available in low-income areas in Ohio at highly affordable rates (starting at $899 to purchase or $10/month to lease).

  • The eSkootr Championship (eSC), the world’s first standing electric scooter race, has released some more specs about its model S1-X: “The 12 kW (16 hp) electric scooters split their power between two in-wheel hub motors, and a special boost button will be available to dump an extra 20% power on straightaways. Stored energy comes from a 1.5 kWh battery under the deck of the scooter.”

  • Oslo’s government voted to increase the city’s cycling budget by 60% next year. Now that’s how you get behind biking.

  • Looking beyond electric cars, many cities around the world are electrifying ferries, trams, buses, and other other forms of mass transit.

  • Lime says scooter usage in the U.K. has spiked 20-40% recently because of fuel shortages.

  • This new 19lbs electric bicycle claims to be the lightest in the world.

  • Tortoise is expanding remote-operated robotic delivery to convenience stores across the US through a new two-year strategic partnership with King Retail Solutions.

  • Dott is planning a major expansion of shared e-bikes throughout Western Europe this fall.

  • United Airlines has removed all special fees for flying with a bicycle, finally following the lead of Delta and American.

  • Forbes reports on what it saw at the first Micromobility America conference in over two years: “It is telling that at least 3 exhibitors were promoting hardware and software to make their scooters better behaved for cities.”

Pod People

E-scooter operator Fenix launches Bahrain service amid GCC expansion - Arabianbusiness

New episode of the podcast—featuring Jaideep Dhanoa, co-founder and CEO of UAE-based micromobility startup Fenix—is out, exploring the emerging market for micromobility in the Middle East and Asia. A few topics:

🚲 Lessons from the Chinese bike-share bubble

🌍 Strategies for shared scooters in the Gulf States

🇹🇷 Why Istanbul could be the next Paris

Jobs to Be Done

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