🤩 Tel Aviv’s Micromobility Makeover

Plus, US ebike sales could crack 1M this year, private scooters are coming to England, and a motorcycle designed for the moon.

May 03, 2022

Hello and welcome to the Micromobility Newsletter, a weekly missive about mobility, mostly mobility in cities by small 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.

Today’s Micromobility Newsletter is brought to you by… Joyride

Calling all micromobility operators! The first-ever Joyride Academy Experience is taking place on June 1 in Amsterdam as part of Micromobility Europe. Completely free to conference ticket holders, join us for a high-touch workshop focused on current and prospective mobility operators and how you can successfully grow your business.

As experts in micromobility and sustainability, Joyride can’t wait to bring a decades worth of intelligence into an educational event like this. Get a taste of what to expect on June 1 and reserve your free spot here. Space is limited, so move quickly.

What You Need to Know This Week

  • Experts predict that Americans will buy more than 1M ebikes in 2022. And yes, in case you’re wondering, that is higher than the annual sales projections for electric cars. About 33% higher.

  • Did you know that, even though England has seen over 18M trips on shared scooters since the first rental scheme was introduced in June 2020, it’s still against the law for people to use privately owned escooters? This bizarre legal exception may soon be amended, though, as Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said that legislation will be included in the Queen’s Speech next week.

  • Horace Dediu on how Paris is reclaiming its strollable streets—so essential to its fabled charm—by ditching cars: “I was floored by how much it has changed. It really feels like the car is being edged out and that its time has passed.”

  • A motorcycle designed for the moon.

an electric motorcycle designed to drive on the Moon

  • Singapore-based shared micromobility company Neuron Mobility has raised a $43.5M Series B round. The company, which operates scooter and bike rentals in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, the UK, and Canada, says it is focusing on cities with exclusive or semi-exclusive permits.

  • Los Angeles is trying out a UBM pilot, offering low-income residents mobility wallets with $150/month to pay for trips on trains, buses, scooters, bikes, and the like.

  • Dat Bike, maker of Vietnam’s first domestic electric motorbike, has raised $5.3M in a Series A led by Jungle Ventures.

Expo Only Tix

Hard to believe Micromobility Europe is only one month away. We’re incredibly excited to see everyone in the global micromobility movement in Amsterdam on June 1-2, and we hope you are too.

Many have asked, and today we’re excited to announce, that Expo Only (€150) tickets are back on sale. Here’s what the Expo Only pass will get you:

🤝 2 days of access to the entire expo hall, where you can meet hundreds of startups and cities

đź›´ demos of best-in-class technologies, including all the electric scooters, bikes, boards, and buggies you can handle

🍻 entry to all social gatherings, including the official happy hour and after party

Expo Only spaces are limited and registration is first come, first serve. So if you plan on coming, don’t delay.

PS If you want access to two stages of awesome programming, including Horace Dediu’s latest SOTU speech, there are still all-access Early Mover tickets available too.

  • A spate of high-profile battery fires has made Indian consumers wary of EV mopeds: “The number of people who said they wouldn’t buy an electric scooter due to safety and performance concerns jumped eightfold to 17% in the seven months through March”

  • Tel Aviv, one of the top most-congested cities in the world, is undergoing a bike- and scooter-friendly makeover in an effort to attract more startups and tech workers. “To accommodate the now-ubiquitous presence of what has come to be known as micromobility, Tel Aviv intends to more than double its bike paths to cover 350 kilometers by 2025 in the 52-square-kilometer city… Today rides on electric two-wheelers replace almost one million car or taxi rides monthly, according to Tel Aviv’s City Hall.” 

  • McKinsey predicts that two-wheelers will be the driving force behind EV adoption in Africa, not cars. (Relatedly, check out our new pod about Rwanda’s fast-growing market for electric-motorbike taxis)

  • According to a new survey, 2% of Germans (approximately 1.2M people) now report using an e-cargo bike in their daily lives.

  • Populus is teaming up with cities and operators to measure carbon reductions of micromobility in new EU-funded initiative.

  • Klay Thompson pulled up to NBA Playoff Game on the back of an ebike this week.

  • Massachusetts is looking at creating a new ebike incentive program through the the new Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

  • The Bay State isn’t alone. Hawaii is also considering creating a rebate for electric bikes and mopeds.

  • Not enough parking, you say? A survey of Sacramento residents found that 1 in 3 garages had no car in it.

Pod People

While America carries on a love affair with monster-sized electric trucks and SUVs, the path to vehicle electrification is taking a very different route in Africa. On the podcast, Josh Whale takes us inside the burgeoning role that electric motorbikes are playing in Rwanda, one of the world’s most underserved mobility markets.

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 (Berlin):

Streetlight Data: Senior Product Designer (San Francisco)

Vassla:

Zoomo: