✋ There Are 5 Things People Want from Cars—and Micromobility

December 03, 2019

This week, India’s micromobility startups keep raking in funds, meet the SUV of shared ebikes, and the world gets closer to solving scooter clutter, but first…

Bye Bye Early Bird

All good things must end, even Early Bird.

Next Wednesday, December 11, the Early Bird special for Micromobility America tickets will come to a close.

That means you have about one week to reserve your spot at the world’s largest, most-informed gathering of micromobility experts ever before prices shoot up.

Grab your Early Bird tickets today for only $295.

Learn more about Micromobility America, which will take place in the Bay Area on April 22 & 23, 2020, here.

Thank You to Our Early Bird Partners

The Micromobility Conference wouldn’t be possible without the support of our sponsors.

For Micromobility America, we are pleased to announce that so far a host of leading tech and mobility companies—including both emerging and established players, spanning manufacturing, IoT, charging, insurance, and more—will showcase their products and solutions for over a thousand attendees.

If your company is interested in partnering or exhibiting at the California conference, contact us.

The Visual Narrative

Want to know what to expect from Micromobility America? Let us show you.

We just published a visual narrative from the last conference, Micromobility Europe in Berlin, featuring photos from dozens of panels, presentations, vehicle demos, meet-ups, and more. You will likely recognize more than a few faces, both onstage and off.

Check it out here.

The 5 Outcomes

In a major new article, Horace Dediu articulates the things people actually want from mobility and mobile computing, arguing that they are not so different from each other—nor are they all that different from the things people desire from micromobility.

Be aware at all times that if you want to deliver mobility, you are in the business of delivering enablers. You are selling drills while the customer wants holes in their walls. What the customer is looking for is an outcome, and that outcome may be made possible with what you are selling, but it may not be the only way of getting it.

People want to work and earn, to meet others and to entertain themselves. The transportation business thinks people want machines for movement. But what they really want is either to be close to others or, alternatively, away from others. 

Let’s look at the world this way.

Strongly recommend reading the full piece here.

Brand-New Pod

Oliver Bruce and Horace Dediu reunite on the latest episode of the podcast for a far-reaching check-in covering:

  • Emerging vehicle standards for micromobility

  • The disillusionment of autonomous experts

  • Cybertruck’s big arrival

Fair warning: Horace’s view on Cybertruck may surprise you.

Listen here.

What You Need to Know This Week

  • Leading off, Bangalore-based micromobility startup Bounce has raised around $150 million as part of a Series D round led by B Capital and Accel Partners. This reportedly brings the company’s total funding to over $500 million. Bounce operates more than 17,000 gas- and battery-powered mopeds in three dozen Indian cities. | Yahoo Finance

  • Lime is aiming to be EBIT positive by as soon as 2020. | CNBC

  • Tier meanwhile has pledged to go carbon neutral in 2020. In addition to carbon offset projects, the company’s sustainability plan includes switching its fleet to swappable batteries (it is already 20% of the way there), powering its warehouses with renewable energy, transporting scooters long distances by rail instead of plane, and refurbishing its old fleet scooters for resale. | Tier

  • Shared micromobility startup Pony has unveiled a two-seater electric cargo bike that will be added to its fleets in two French cities. | Presse Citron

  • A recent study found that nearly a third of the bikes in Seattle’s dockless program were parked incorrectly, but only 2 percent were parked in a way that violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. | Komo News

  • One solution for bad parking would be better docking. U.S. startup Charge just gained permission to install scooter charging docks in Paris. | Les Echos

  • And Estonian startup Bikeep unveiled a public parking dock, which would be accessible for all scooters, regardless of brand or operator. | Emerging Europe

  • Speaking of decluttering the sidewalks, Skip unveiled a tip-over detection feature that alerts the company when its scooters have been knocked down. This publicly available dataset offers the most comprehensive picture yet of the tip-over problem’s extent. “Of all tip-over alerts we received, 11% were placed upright within 5 minutes, 39% within 30 minutes, 53% within an hour, and 74% within 3 hours.” | Skip

  • Chinese emoped maker Doinnext will begin retailing in Europe next year. | Electrek 

  • Joining Uber, Helbiz has won a permit to operate dockless ebikes in Rome. The startup plans to deploy up to 2,500 of the devices in the Italian capital by the end of 2019. | Intelligent Transport

  • One month after debuting, ebikes are almost twice as popular as conventional pedal models among users of Glasgow’s bike-share system. | Scotsman

  • Whill is bringing autonomous wheelchairs to North American airports. | TechCrunch

  • Lime is being booted out of Auckland in favor of four other scooter operators, Jump, Beam, Neuron, and Flamingo. | Newshub

  • In Paris—where micromobility providers are doing everything they can to get on regulators’ good sides ahead of a competitive permit process—Jump is partnering with Veolia to recycle more than 90 percent of the scrap from its decommissioned bikes and scooters. | Les Echos

  • Revel has hired the lobbying firm California Strategies, prompting speculation that the on-demand emoped provider has its sights set on the Golden State next. | San Diego Reader

  • Projections show that shared and private micromobility could account for up to 30 percent of all trips in Munich by 2030. | McKinsey

  • Spanish automaker SEAT has collaborated on a kick scooter with Segway and an electric moped with Silence. | Sifted

  • Bulgaria is emerging as the ebike-manufacturing capital of Europe. The country’s export numbers grew 240 percent in 2018 before more than doubling in the first half of this year. | Bike Europe

  • New York State’s electric scooter legalization bill is being held up by its governor. | WSJ

  • After a delay this summer, Brussels bike-sharing program Villo has launched its ebike subscription service, eVillo. | Brussels Times

  • With Bosch quitting the moped-sharing game in Europe, its rival Emmy is doubling its fleet in Berlin and expanding in other cities as well. | Electrive

  • Norway has the safest roads for cycling. | Forbes

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