⛽ Peak Combustion Engine

Plus, Ubco banks $10m, GM tiptoes back into micro, and Taiwan hits record e-bike exports.

June 22, 2021

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

If you’re not a subscriber and you want to keep getting the latest news and analysis from inside the micromobility movement delivered straight to your inbox every Tuesday, sign up here for free. If you’d like to unsubscribe, just click that link.

Thank you for reading.

The Longview

  • Peak internal combustion engine may already be years behind us. It was four years ago, in 2017, that gasoline cars hit their all-time high watermark of 85m units sold worldwide. With the rise of EVs, it’s unlikely consumers will ever buy as many ICE automobiles again.

  • More evidence, via the NYT, that urban flight mostly went to the suburbs during the pandemic.

  • America has eight parking spots for every one car.

  • In cities that depend on cars, it’s costlier for low-income residents to get to work than in cities that have strong public transit.

  • Walkability gained an important foothold in the U.S. during the early days of the Covid-19 crisis. Will it last?

  • A good look at how low-cost, low-speed commercial LEVs could replace America’s millions of pickup trucks, delivery vans, and police cars.

  • Electric car startup Canoo wants its app to be a one-stop-shop to connect all of its customers’ vehicles, not just its own.

  • China’s lead auto association is projecting that EV sales will grow by 40% in the next five years. Remember, in China, the EV category encompasses a lot of diversity in size, shape, and speed. The country’s current top-selling model isn’t so much a car as it is a golf cart.

The Microview

  • Ubco, the New Zealand-based electric utility bike startup, has raised $10m to fund a global expansion focused on the U.S. market and scale up its commercial subscription service business. 

  • In case you weren’t sure that the Covid-era bike boom is being powered by electric motors, UK retailer Halfords reports sales of e-bikes and e-scooters surged 94% during the first 12 months of the pandemic, compared to a 54% rise for all cycling products.

  • … and French retail chain Cyclable says its e-bike sales leapt 50% in 2020. Cargo bikes and folding e-bikes also showed momentum, with sales increasing by 35%.

  • On the manufacturing end, Taiwan exported $555m worth of e-bikes in the first five months of 2021, a new record.

  • The Verge test drives the Super73 RX (“more dirt bike than e-bike”) and the Juiced HyperScrambler 2 (“practically begs to be ridden—and ridden fast.”)

  • Bringg banked $100m at a $1b valuation for its last-mile delivery platform for retailers.

  • Speaking of delivery, on-demand goods service Gopuff has acquired fleet management platform rideOS for $115m.

  • Highlighting the difficulties cities sometimes face when they try to develop mobility software themselves, in the 6 months since Columbus, Ohio, launched its own MaaS app, it’s been used to book fewer than 500 trips.

  • GM is getting into last-mile e-bike deliveries in Seattle through its BrightDrop division. Maybe GM sees greater potential in commercial, rather than personal, micromobility, because last year it pulled the plug on its folding e-bike project.

  • Swiftmile will partner with Miami on the world’s largest public e-scooter charging network: over 100 hubs capable of charging more than 3,200 vehicles per day.

  • Moscow is expected to double the size of its scooter rental fleet to 20,000 by the end of the year to meet growing demand.

  • Even a once-in-a-century pandemic couldn’t slow micromobility’s remarkable growth. Since 2019, the number of shared e-scooter, e-bike, and e-moped deployments in Europe has tripled, as more cities realize the safety and sustainability benefits of LEVs.

  • Wellington, New Zealand, is the latest city to ban cars from its downtown.

  • With new models on backorder for the foreseeable future, Outside mag says there’s never been a better time to get into vintage bikes. Sure, older bikes may not have hydraulic brakes or quality suspension—to say nothing of more cutting-edge technology like GPS tracking or battery-powered motors—but at least you can actually get your hands on them.

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.