Movements | June 4, 2019
Issue #50 — Brought to you by Michal Naka and Adam Feldman. Join thousands of others who receive this analysis and curation of emerging mobility news in their inbox every week — subscribe now.
Welcome to a super special edition of movements! Why? Well for starters, this is episode FIFTY of movements. Yes, we’ve been doing this for just over a year now! It’s been quite the ride following the explosion of (micro)mobility software and services. When we started, there was just ~5 scooter companies in the world, and today there are over 50. **double checks spreadsheet** There have been times where we felt like we could barely keep up with the sheer amount of news, features and product launches. We want to thank all of you for following along, sending us your links, insights and perspectives. Secondly, Adam got married over the weekend! So congratulate him and blame Michal if this issue turns out to be not so special after all.
Micromobility
Bird is going multimodal with the announcement of its new electric lightweight moped called the “Bird Cruiser”. In an apparent collaboration with Juiced Bikes, the vehicle has a range of up to 50 miles and can seat up to two people. This wannabe eBike will include pedals or pegs depending on local regulations. As scooters proliferate in cities, they become the gateway drug to new micromobility form factors that can cover more use cases and Bird is trying to capitalize on it. | TechCrunch
Ridehailing firm Bolt quietly launches a scooter platform product in Europe. Similar to Bird Platform, Bolt gives potential fleet operators access to hardware, software, and support to run their own scooter program. It appears that both Bird and Bolt recognize that scooters are commodities and in turn want to make it as easy as possible for anyone to be a fleet operator, which puts pressure on the mid-tier scooter startups. | Bolt
European micromobility startup Flash rebrands as ‘Circ’, crosses the 1 million rides milestone in 4.5 months, and quietly acquires Spanish scooter startup Koko. You cannot escape the Law of 4-Character Scooter Company Names! | Techcrunch
Is history repeating itself? Voi signed a 7-year bikesharing agreement with the city of Stockholm and formed a joint-venture with Norwegian bikeshare platfrom Urban Sharing. They plan to launch up to 7500 eBikes and 500 e-cargo bikes in Stockholm starting in 2020. | Press Release
Australian scooter startup Ride partners with EcoCaddy to deliver scooters via cargo e-bikes. | Thomas Cooper
Kuhmute (pronounced commute) is prepping to launch a docked scooter service with Acton vehicles in Flint, Michigan. | Mlive
The long awaited Lyft dockless eBike was snapped in the wild in San Francisco. | Brad Williford
Who bikes? “Workers in low income households rely more on bikes for commuting, but the data shows people of all income levels cycle to work”. | City Observatory
A Bird’s eye view: How machine learning can help you charge your scooters. A great technical deep dive into optimizing scooter deployment locations. | Perry Johnson
Ridehailing
Firefly raises $30 million to put ads on ridehailing vehicles. | Venturebeat
How much are ridehailing passengers willing to pay? “Economic theory predicts that sensitivity to price changes determines who will pay more. And it turns out that passengers aren’t very sensitive to price, while drivers are.” | NYT
Uber’s Q1 2019 earnings call. Highlights: Uber Eats is launching an aggregator feature where restaurants can use their own couriers and gross bookings for bikes and scooters “grew strong quarter over quarter”. | Uber
Cities & Policy
Lyft is threatening to sue the city of San Francisco over bikeshare exclusivity. | Wired
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