Scooter comeback is real, according to key metric

Plus, scooter racing is our new national pastime, helmets won’t save you from SUVs, and Uber is accused of astroturfing.

July 14, 2020

Hello and welcome to the Micromobility Newsletter, a weekly missive about mobility, mostly mobility in cities by small electric vehicles like bikes and scooters. 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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Last chance to register for Founder Shield’s Ride-Share & Peer-to-Peer Leasing panel tomorrow, July 15th @ 1pm ET  / 10am PT. They’ll be hosting Getaround, Via, HyreCar, and ibott @ Apollo for a roundtable discussion.

Find out what is most important to sustainability and continued growth, as well as what the transportation needs of people may look like in the future.

Report: Scooter app reviews are back to pre-COVID levels

By Prabin Joel Jones

After a difficult period for the shared micromobility sector following the outbreak of COVID-19, June was the first month that several global operators saw the volume of their app store reviews return to January 2020 levels.

Last month, for the first time, the number of app store reviews left by users of Dott, Voi, and Bird were up (40%, 26%, and 7%, respectively) compared to the beginning of the year.

Even though reviews of Lime’s app grew an impressive 200% in June, the company still lagged its January benchmark by -26%. At the current rate, Lime’s review activity should recover to pre-COVID levels in July.

Perhaps due to ongoing lockdowns related to COVID-19 in its core market, Latin America, Grin’s app store reviews were down 98% compared to January.

Another outlier was Tier. As in previous months, the Germany-based startup was dramatically ahead of its rivals in terms of app reviews. In the first six months of 2020, the total volume of user feedback for Tier’s app rose an astounding 550%. (Note: The chart above was cropped at 200% to fit more data points, and does not fully reflect Tier’s growth.)

Prabin Joel Jones is the VP of IT & Enabling Tech at BOND Mobility, a premium speed e-bike sharing operator based in Zurich.

What you need to know this week

  • The first e-scooter trial anywhere in the UK have begun in Teesside through a partnership with the British startup Ginger. Meanwhile, Dott earned government approval to operate in the UK, although it has not yet launched in any cities. Expect more approvals and deployments to follow.

  • Instacart raised another $100 million on top of the $225 million it raked in last month. The new round, led T. Rowe Price, values the grocery-delivery company at $13.4 billion.

  • E-cargo bike sales in Europe are on track to grow over 50% this year.

  • Micromobility trip length and location data from Lyft suggests people are substituting scooters and bikes for transit more since the pandemic hit. The company also reports that it has given away over 350,000 free bike rentals to essential workers since March.

  • A group of Formula One and Formula E drivers is starting a new e-scooter racing series called eSkootr, set to launch in 2021. Competitors in the series will zip through the streets of a yet-unnannounced city on custom-built scooters at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour. 

  • EV automaker Rivian raised a jaw-dropping $2.5 billion ahead of its launch of a pickup and SUV.

  • Walmart’s answer to Amazon Prime, Walmart+, is here. The subscription service will cost $98 a year and include same-day delivery of groceries, fuel discounts at Walmart gas stations, and early access to product deals.

  • After struggling to reboot sales with its new electric motorcycle, Harley Davidson is laying off 700 employees.

  • Uber is launching a boat service for commuters in London.

  • Over a year after pulling its fleet due to hardware problems, Lyft-owned Motivate has returned e-bikes to Washington DC. Coincidentally Jump e-bikes reappeared in the city this week, too.

  • Interesting study: The presence of dockless e-bikes accelerates bike-share adoption in low-income and minority neighborhoods.

  • Swiftmile raised $5 million in a round led by Thayer Ventures to expand its micromobility charging stations in the US and Europe.

  • Meanwhile, Charge launched scooter charging docks in Paris as part of a one-year pilot.

  • One reason why it’s so hard to build new bike lanes is that, in many parts of the US, roadways are administered by states, not cities. Here’s another reason why:

  • Mobility tech platform Populus announced several cities, including New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Orlando, Baltimore, Boston, and São José dos Campos, are now using its digital Street Manager tool to plan new street projects.

  • London is converting nearly 2,000 parking spots into bike corrals.

  • A leading helmet manufacturer is warning new cyclists that helmets may not protect them from collisions with heavy vehicles.

  • Relatedly, Ireland’s transport minister came out against mandatory helmet laws.

  • Uber is being accused of concealing its role in creating an astroturf group to lobby against city data collection. The ACLU’s lead lawyer in its lawsuit against LADOT over MDS had this to say about Uber’s motives in the debate over scooter surveillance.

  • In 2019, e-bike sales volume in Spain increased 28%.

  • A European insurance company shows that electric bikes might be safer than conventional bikes, resulting in 38% fewer insurance claims

  • India-based Bounce unveiled its first in-house electric moped. The vehicle will be available to rent, lease, or purchase.

  • According to Foursquare data, in the age of coronavirus, bike-share is faring better than mass transit, ride-hail, and scooter rentals, and visits to car dealerships are on the rise.

  • Superstrata is takings preorders for its $4,000 3D-printed bike.

  • Up to 15% of trips on Paris’s public bike-share system, Velib, are taken by delivery workers.

  • The pros and cons of buying an e-bike versus an e-scooter.

  • The progressive case against cars, from the NYT: “Rather than stumble back into car dependency, cities can begin to undo their worst mistake: giving up so much of their land to the automobile.”

  • The conservative case against cars, from the Washington Examiner: “Communities are less cohesive in a car-centric world. You drive from your garage to a distant, regional shopping center, serving a much larger and much more anonymous population. If you sit on your front porch, fewer neighbors walk by because there are fewer places to walk to.”

Pod people

This week on the podcast, Oliver Bruce talks to Harvard Loeb fellow and Uber policy veteran Andrew Salzberg about the scale of change that is necessary to decarbonize transportation. Listen below, and if you haven’t already, check out Andrew’s terrific new newsletter about sustainable mobility.

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