Movements | May 22nd, 2019
Issue #48 — 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.
Micromobility
Skip teases its new custom hardware with swappable batteries. | Skip
Segway-Ninebot released a crowdfunding campaign for their new Segway MAX scooter model, starting at $599. | Indiegogo
Electisan, one of the largest shared electric scooter manufacturers is now selling its F350 consumer model in the US for $799. | Juiced
Voi is targeting 150 European cities this year. | NYT
Is China’s bike boom over? Hellobike says no. | The Information
Product Launches & Updates
Usain Bolt backed micromobility startup Bolt launched the ‘Nano’ electric micro vehicle for preorder. Bolt claims that four Nanos can fit into one parking spot. “You can use our Bolt platform to share the Nano and earn revenue for yourself.” | Bolt
Coord releases Curb Analytics — a new tool for visualizing the allocation of curb space in cities. Coord
European scooter startup Voi unveils it’s new lineup of shared micromobility vehicles including a cargo eBike and a 3-wheel electric scooter. Lets see what actually gets launched! | Techcrunch
Uber now reminds passengers to check for cyclists before opening the door. | VentureBeat
A new shared mountain eBike startup called ‘YodaCity’ is launching in Brussels, Belgium. Depending on the users’ driving license, speed is capped to 25 or 45 kph (16 or 28mph). | Brussel Times
Uber launches a new Uber Black experience with ‘quiet mode’. | Uber
Auto OEMs
GM’s Maven is scaling back operations and stopping services in 8 of its 17 North American markets. | TechCrunch
Why American auto companies no longer want to sell cars. | Marketplace
Volvo is continuing to iterate on new ownership models for its cars that depend on deeper relationships with consumers. They’ve set a company level goal build at least 5 million direct consumer relationships by 2025. Dealers are having a hard time stomaching this.| Automotive News
Ridehailing
What effect has rideshare had on drunk driving? “Rideshare entry reduces fatal alcohol-related auto accidents by 10–11.4%.” | John B. Holbein
Google to Grab: One Year Later. “Grab is rolling out a vast number of critical safety measures: Driver selfie matching, rider selfie matching, machine learning models for detecting collisions, drivers falling asleep, or even violence within the car, SOS buttons and emergency response teams, the list goes on and on.” | Steve Yegge
Cities & Policy
What can NYC learn from London’s implementation of congestion pricing? | NY1
New research shows that consumers are pretty myopic when it comes to considering fuel costs for vehicles. | SSRN
A recap of the results of NYC MTA’s Transit Tech Lab. | Transit Tech Lab