Movements | April 24th, 2020
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Issue #90 - 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.
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Micromobility
The German automobile association is offering members discounts on select eBike and scooter brands. | ADAC
Gogoro, a Taiwanese moped and battery infrastructure company, is set to launch in the US with its debut eBike model. Details are scarce but more information is coming out in May. | SlashGear
‘Bicycles are the new toilet paper’ as bike sales boom in Australia. “The biggest problem facing retailers, Kaplan says, is that they will soon run out of stock.” | The Guardian
Lime has started to relaunch its scooter service, starting in Copenhagen, “with cities across the Nordic region following in quick succession.” | Niklas Joensen
Product Launches & Updates
VanMoof unveiled its beautiful new S3 and X3 eBikes. The bikes feature upgraded motors, automatic shifting, hydraulic brakes, and more. The company also offers 3-year theft protection and at-home maintenance and repair. Stephen Lambe notes: “It costs $72/month for three years to get the new VanMoof, including maintenance and anti-theft protection. It costs $81/month for an unlimited SFMTA bus/tram pass.” | The Verge
Bird is testing a new feature called ‘Warm Up Mode’ that allows users to select a vehicle acceleration profile: gentle vs normal acceleration. | Bird
Uber has launched a pair of new delivery options for consumers and businesses, Direct and Connect. | FT
BlaBlaCar launched “BlaBlaHelp”, an app the connects neighbors who want to help each other with grocery shopping. | BlaBlaCar
Ridehailing, Carsharing, & Delivery
Uber’s middle east subsidiary, Careem, launched an on-demand grocery delivery service. | Whats On
Lyft ridership is down ~75%, while Uber’s ride business is down ~80% globally YoY. Uber Eats is up 70%+ YOY. | Amir
GM shuts down its Maven carsharing business. Uber investor Bill Gurley notes: “Aggregating demand is the one & only key. Aggregating supply is not the hard part, & having differentiated supply or thinking because you own supply you can enter the market is misplaced thinking.” | The Verge
A new study in Nature shows that people underestimate the all-in cost of car ownership by 50%, and that providing better visibility into the total cost of owning and using a car might reduce car ownership by 37%. | Nature
StreetCred, the crowdsourced mapping startup, is expanding to Jakarta to meet demand from Grab and GoJek. | Asian Review
A deep dive on Bipi and vehicle subscription businesses. | Nate Jarret
Investment & Deals
Chinese ridehailing firm Didi, raises $150 million for its bikesharing unit. | The Information
Autofleet, a fleet optimization platform for ridehailing and delivery services, raises $7.5m. | TechCrunch
Lime has acquired the remaining assets of Boosted Boards. | The Verge
Cities & Policy
Impact of COVID-19 on mobility services in Berlin. “While public transport was affected most and fell by nearly 92%, other modes such as bike sharing increased slightly by 8%.” | Porsche Consulting
We’ve built cities we can’t afford. | Strong Towns
Two NYU researchers are trying to figure out why it's so expensive to build subways in America and how the US can do better. | Eric Goldwyn
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