Uber wrecks Jump

Protests engulf US cities, micromobility dealmaking is down, and scooter startups make UK moves

June 02, 2020

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

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.

Founder Shield has a special panel lined up for Wednesday, June 10 at 1:00pm ET with some of the leading companies in the on-demand delivery space. They’ll be hosting the CEOs of Urbanstems, Relay, Saucey, and ibott @ Apollo for a roundtable discussion.

They'll be examining the changing landscape in the industry and the decisions involved to support the increasing demand.

What you need to know this week

  • Videos emerged on Twitter this week showing thousands of Jump e-bikes and scooters being destroyed at a North Carolina scrapyard, sparking outrage among micromobility enthusiasts. Uber, which recently sold Jump to Lime, confirmed that it is sunsetting older vehicles that Lime did not want. ‘We explored donating the remaining, older-model bikes, but given many significant issues—including maintenance, liability, safety concerns, and a lack of consumer-grade charging equipment—we decided the best approach was to responsibly recycle them.’

  • FWIW Tier’s CEO offered to purchase the remaining Jump bikes, and Okai, the manufacturer of the scooters, reportedly said it would be willing to buy back the devices at used prices.

  • Micromobility startups are scrambling to get into the UK after the country legalized scooters this month ahead of schedule. In particular, Tier and Voi are both betting big on Britain.

  • From March through May, VC activity involving bike and scooter startups declined 26% year over year. Our own Horace Dediu explains to Pitchbook why micromobility’s overall vital signs still look good to him. ‘A lot of the more fragile or overextended companies are failing but this is one of those pivotal moments where the habits of generations are going to change and political will in cities will flow to permit micromobility growth.’ (P.S. The themes of this article are a good primer for Horace’s next webinar.)

  • Chicago is delaying the second round of its scooter pilot until late summer. City officials said the scooter industry’s currently precarious financial situation influenced their decision.

  • Singapore-based micromobility startup Beam raised $26 million in a financing round led by Sequoia India and Hana Ventures.

  • Uber released a new feature that allows you to hire a driver for $50/hour and make multiple stops.

  • As quarantine orders lift, cities are racing to stave off a “traffic catastrophe” and provide low-income communities with safe alternatives to public transport.

  • Softbank pumped half a billion dollars into Didi’s AV subsidiary.

  • Indian TNC Ola acquired the Dutch e-moped manufacturer Etergo. The move comes at a time when Ola’s core ride-hailing business is struggling.

  • Micromobility fleet supplier Acton patented self-sanitizing grips.

  • South Africa–based ride-hailing startup Vaya Africa launched an electric taxi network in Zimbabwe.

  • Japan ended its Covid-19 state of emergency last week. Incredibly, the country did not trace any clusters of infections to its notoriously crowded commuter trains. One anecdotal explanation for why is that transit riders are typically “alone,” “not talking,” and “wearing masks.”

  • Gogoro entered the e-bike game with the 27.5-pound Eeyo, soon to be available in the US, Europe, and Taiwan.

  • Bay Area Rapid Transit unveiled a 15-point plan for social distancing and disinfecting trains post-Covid. 

  • LA Metro, which is forecasted to lose $1.8 billion between now and June 2021, says it could take two years for ridership to recover.

  • NYC’s Citibike says it will add “thousands” of e-bikes this summer.

  • VanMoof has big 2020 plans. The Dutch e-bike maker expects to triple its output to 10,000 units a month and double last year’s revenue to more than 80 million euros. 

  • Amazon is in talks to buy AV startup Zoox. The proposed deal would value Zoox at less than the $3.8 billion it achieved in 2018.

  • Many US metros have responded to protests over the death of George Floyd and systematic police brutality by restricting travel through enacting curfews and curtailing transit service. A few cities, including Washington DC and Portland, have ordered shared bikes and scooters be removed from the streets after dockless vehicles were used as projectiles by some individuals.

  • Indonesia surpassed India as Honda’s biggest moped market. 

  • Toronto proposed more bike lanes for the coming cycling surge. Likewise, Boston is opening some of its streets for cycling and outdoor dining. Meanwhile, Australian activists are calling on the government to fast-track more than 450 miles of proposed bike lanes.

  • ADAC, which is sort of like the European version of AAA, started a monthly subscription program for e-bikes and e-mopeds in Germany. 

  • Could the shared mobility sector emerge stronger from the Covid-19 pandemic? Maybe. ‘Success indicators for shared mobility operators include exposure to delivery, public-private partnerships and the ability to scale down efficiently.’

  • The bicycle supply chain was not prepared for Covid-19. 

  • US scooter-rental startup Bolt launched a monthly leasing option in NYC, Miami, and Richmond, Virginia.

  • Superpedestrian acquired the fleet management division of Zagster.

  • More info on Tuul, the new micromobility service from Comodule: The company’s debut scooter has an expected lifespan of 60 months—or five years—and is 90% recyclable.

  • Bikeep is installing free parking/charging stations for personal scooters and e-bikes in New Zealand’s major cities.

  • Vanlife-rental startup Cabana raised $3.5 million in funding from Craft Ventures, Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden, Ford X’s Sunny Madra, and others. Co-founder Scott Kubly, a former Lime exec, says, “The way I would describe it is vanlife meets car-sharing meets a boutique hotel.”

Our next guest is…

Tomorrow is the next edition of Horace Dediu’s all-questions-welcome, town hall–style webinar, Office Hours. This month Horace will be broadly exploring how coronavirus is reshaping the supply (capital), demand (modal shift), and enablers (infrastructure) for micromobility.

Become a member to gain access to the webinar and join us as we talk about predicting Covid-19, trip reallocation, and anything else of import.

Pod people

It’s been only six months since Vanmoof CEO Taco Carlier was last on the podcast, but in those six months, Covid-19 invented a market for socially distanced commuting, bicycle sales shot into the stratosphere, and Vanmoof launched two state-of-the-art electric bikes as well as closed a major funding deal. 

On the latest episode of the podcast, he and Oliver Bruce reunite to discuss how the pandemic is pushing e-bikes into the mainstream. 

Stay connected

Like what you see here? Be sure to subscribe to the newsletter and check out our website.