Huaweii takes on Apple. Is Urban Mobility viable?

Diogo Caldas e Nuno Marques | August 2018

English version | Versão Portuguesa

As promised, we’re back!


WC | CO: Which Tecno events most marked this month?

NSM: August was an interesting month in Silicon Valley while awaiting the new iPhones, Hauweii overtook Apple in the sale of smartphones … Then we had the heated discussion about Tesla’s future after Elon Musk announced he wanted to go private, and everyone started reevaluating their investment options. The idea of ​​cashier-less stores seems to be gaining traction: Zippin has developed a technology that rivals Amazon GO. As I work in nutrition, I had to talk about SquareBaby, an online baby food site that moms can customize to have all the right nutrients. Lastly, Salesforce has been around since the launch of Einstein (their AI ​​platform that optimizes Performance Marketing and CRM), which has also benefited the growth of their core platform.

DC: Huawei (along with ZTE) is not even well received by public authorities in the US market, having “bad publicity” particularly from federal agencies such as the FBI, CIA and NSA that consider their products as potential threats to privacy and security for allegedly having “spy” software linked to the Chinese government. For that reason, the sales data that you just mentioned is still more impressive.

August ended with the “W” Day, the day Facebook Watch was launched world wide. This is nothing new for the US customer, but it means a lot for users on other parts of the world. The launch of the platform is important for Facebook itself, but mainly for a whole community of creatives, producers and content owners. Facebook Watch enables revenue share of advertising money with all the parties involved. And this is something new at Facebook ecosystem, as revenues were never shared before. Will this be a serious alternative to YouTube?


WC | CO: What does Urban Mobility mean to you and what are the main advances?

DC: On my EU West Coast, the new urban mobility is including a large number of innovations, but not that different from US, with just a few exceptions such as the “self driving vehicles”. Everything is working pretty well, from carsharing, to ridesharing along with shared bikes, electric cars and shared electric scooters. They work equally well in flatter cities like London or in more rugged cities like Lisbon. Electric engines are helping in every way!

NSM: I’ve always thought that the European West Coast was very innovative and ahead of the game: I’ve used some of the most common platforms: GreenWheels, Carpooling, Blablacar, Car2Go orDriveNow. But do you think they will always need support from Cities or Goverment to be viable?

DC: What’s so different about your West Coast? What news in terms of mobility? It seems that this week Uber bought a network of electric bicycles but on the other hand he sold his share of self-driving cars. What do you think is the way?

DC: Most of the solutions are implemented, but my idea is that self-driving will take a bit longer to be accepted in the tortuous streets of most European cities. It is not impossible, it will only take some time.
Something different on your West Coast? What do you have new in terms of mobility? Uber recently bought Jump Bikes and is under tremendous pressure to get rid of the autonomous driving department because of the several accidents it has had. How do you think it will end?

NSM: Urban mobility and a serious problem for people living in the San Francisco’s Valley. In addition to constant traffic, building more roads or bridges does not seem to be a solution, public transport solutions are clearly out of touch with reality, which generates a natural demand for the different platforms for sharing the journey (ie Uber, Lyft, Via, RideArro, Zipcar, Ofo, Lime) and therefore, although the number of people who use these are already high, it will continue to grow because the problem is far from being solved. And, unfortunately, not all alternatives, such as Sitbaq or SocialDrv, had the fortune to survive.

As I see it, the strongest innovation seems to come before the car’s “digitalization”: in addition to the many Teslas on the street, every day I see see Waymo cars driving (by themselves). Even more interesting would be to understand the business model of these companies and to see how the true value of capitalization of these companies has as their own electronics as the main assets, in the sense of programming but even more in the sense of building databases that allow to analyze behaviors and to make a profit. It’s no wonder that despite rivals, Facebook, Twitter, Uber and Lyft are known ot collaborate and take advantage of the shared information.

DC: What about Scooters … a not-so-alternative means of transportation?

NSM: I’ve mentioned Ofo and Lime’s electric bicycles or scooters. I have some doubts about the viability of these platforms, and the controversy has already settled: from robberies, failure to pay suppliers all the way to lack of support from cities (i.e. Dallas banned OFO operations), etc. Even long-distance rideshare programs are not that well-established. US cities institutions need to take a more significant action towards solving for urban mobility.


See you soon! Have a safe ride!

West Coast | Costa Oeste

Short talks on West Coast. Breves conversas sobre a Costa Oeste.

West Coast | Costa Oeste

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Series of conversations about US West Coast vs Europe’s Costa Oeste. Diogo & Nuno live a world apart but regularly check what’s going on the other coast…

West Coast | Costa Oeste

Short talks on West Coast. Breves conversas sobre a Costa Oeste.

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