🛍 Porsche’s Ebike Shopping Spree

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Get in touch if you’re interested in working with really talented people and want to help make urban mobility better.

This week’s Micromobility Newsletter is brought to you by… Mavenoid

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What You Need to Know This Week

• Porsche’s ebike shopping spree continues. The German automaker announced it is acquiring Fazua, an ebike drivetrain manufacturer that specializes in lightweight motors, the latest in a series of investments that suggest it is serious about pursuing micromobility.

• But Porsche isn’t the only automaker betting on small EVs. Honda’s recently launched micromobility division, Striemo, plans to release its first vehicle, a self-balancing, three-wheeled kick scooter, later this year.

• A new survey of 28 countries shows that bikes would be more popular than cars if cycling were safer.

• “A motorbike with a roof.” That’s an apt description for Nimbus, a new EV startup that recently started taking preorders for its tiny, three-wheeled pod vehicle. (This fun vid sums up Nimbus’s business case in 7 mins)

• Speaking of which, small electric cars are taking Pakistan by storm.

• A new integration will allow VanMoof owners to rent out their ebike for extra income.

• With its share price deteriorating post-SPAC, electric scooter pioneer Bird has laid off 23% of its staff.

• Indeed, profits remain elusive across the board in shared micromobility. But it’s not all bad news for scooter operators. As offices reopen, riders are returning and several major apps, including Bird, Tier, and Voi, actually have more users today than they did before the pandemic.

Micromobility America Is Back

In case you missed it, our flagship Micromobility America conference is coming to the SF Bay Area on Sept. 15-16 for two highly curated days of exceptional talks, valuable networking, first looks at new products, hands-on rides/demos, and more.

Here’s what people are saying about last week’s event in Amsterdam: “Micromobility, as a conference and as an emerging industry, presents a compelling counterpoint to pretty much everything that feels wrong with the automotive sector these days.”

• Commuters who first try an ebike through a bikesharing scheme often end up buying their own later.

• Wheels to meals? A new study finds that the introduction of escooters in a city significantly impacts restaurant spending, increasing individuals’ spending by approximately 4.4%.

• Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Annapolis, Maryland. Green Bay, Wisconsin. Micromobility operators are going after more small US cities—and encountering many of the same policy obstacles as in big cities.

• Lime is deploying electric motorbikes in Long Beach, California. The motorbike is a new form factor for Lime, if you don’t count its recently sunsetted moped program in NYC and Washington DC.

• Fenix, a shared micromobility operator that is active in the Middle East, is branching into ridehail and 10-min grocery delivery.

• Spin is investing $2 million to support academic research on how to optimize micromobility for college campus environments.

• Brompton is recalling about 2,230 folding electric bicycles over the risk of front-wheel lockup.

• Despite a lingering pandemic, there were 70M shared scooters trip in Germany last year, generating $110M in revenue.

• Consumer Reports investigates whether to buy an ebike or an escooter.

• Dott is adding e-cargo bike rentals to its app in Ghent, making it one of the first major operators to incorporate cargo bikes.

• Cities are regulating how and where scooters can operate like never before.

• On the pros and cons of a vertical technology strategy in micromobility.

• The US is importing fewer bikes from China in the wake of new tariffs.

• Urban Arrow’s new cargo bike aspires to be luxury SUV of the ebike world.

• With average national gas prices passing $5 per gallon in the US, it costs as much to fill a pickup truck’s tank 5 times as it does to buy a budget ebike.

• However, double digit price increases for ebikes are hitting Europe’s main markets.

• With gas prices and ebikes’ popularity both soaring, now is the time to create subsidies that make electric bicycles as affordable as regular bicycles.

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.

Dance: Software Engineering Lead (Berlin)

Felyx: General Manager Germany (Berlin)

Vassla:

• Market Coordinator (Austria)

• General Manager (Austria)

• General Manager (new locations in Europe)

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