Movements | February 26th, 2019
Lyft's new Shared Saver product, Scooter Liability Issues and more...
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Micromobility
Ark Invest dives into the latest scooter unit economics: “They will have many ways to contain unit costs, among them: the cost of the scooter hardware, the cost of charging/relocating them, maintenance costs, and credit card fees, as well as higher utilization rates and longer lifespans.” | ARK Invest
Lime hires former Morgan Stanley banker who helped Uber raise its funding war chest. “Lime plans to follow the Uber playbook of persistent private fundraising, in a bid to establish itself as the dominant player for electric-scooter rentals, Tobiason said.” | Bloomberg
How are scooters doing in the bike capital of the world, Copenhagen? Pretty dang good: 200 scooters, 1000 trips per day, and over 10,000 installs since Voi launched in Mid-January. | Thomas Hecker
Scooters for sustainable suburbs. | Medium
Mapbox released its guide to micromobility. | Mapbox
JUMP is proving to be more popular than Uber rides in Sacramento. “An October study found more Sacramentans were renting Jump bikes than using Uber’s car service by a 53 percent to 47 percent margin.” | The Sacramento Bee
City of San Jose is hiring a Micromobility Transportation Specialist. | San Jose
TNCs
Uber and Lyft to pay into a California state fund for wheelchair accessible trips. | SF Examiner
Didi looks to take on Uber in Colombia, Peru, and Chile. | Reuters
Uber Eats India is said to be in the final stages of selling to local food delivery competitor Swiggy. “The transaction is likely to be a share swap, sources said, giving Uber around 10% stake in the Bengaluru-based company last valued at $3.3 billion.” | Economic Times
Grab is integrating its food delivery service ‘GrabFood’ into its ridehailing app. “By our own estimates, an average user transacts 100 times a month, and the top two use cases are transport and food… So while the other players may view just one use case, we are looking at it from a totally different lens.” | The Business Times
Lyft starts discounting rides again in an effort to grab marketshare ahead of its IPO roadshow. | The Information
New Features & Launches
Transit launched an offline trip planner for public transit. Here’s a great behind the scenes look into how they did it. | Transit
Lyft launched its most affordable ride option yet with the “Shared Saver” product. Similar to Uber Pool Express and Via, Lyft Shared Saver allows users to save a few dollars by walking a few blocks to and from pickup and dropoff points. Lyft’s goal is to reach 50 % shared rides by 2020. | Venture Beat
Auto OEMs
Daimler and BMW are unifying their mobility investments as part of a joint venture. | Bloomberg
Cities & Policy
Oakland and scooter companies square off over liability issues. | GovTech
Why US cities are becoming more dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians. “Across the nation, cyclist fatalities have increased by 25 percent since 2010 and pedestrian deaths have risen by a staggering 45 percent.” | The Conversation
Uber is paying for WMATA to run an extra hour of service after Capitals games. | Fox DC
New Investments
Zoba raised $3 million to help scooter companies predict demand. | Techcrunch
China based “virtual kitchen” and food delivery startup Panda Selected raises $50 million. “China’s food-delivery market is already worth $37 billion dollars, according to the SCMP, which says 256 million people in China used online food ordering services in 2016, and the number is expected to grow to 346 million this year.” | Techcrunch