Movements | February 4, 2022

Big news for electric car owners, and more safety protections for pedestrians roll out in the micromobility space.

Feb 4, 2022

Issue [123] - Every week, we deliver analysis and curation of emerging mobility news.

This week’s edition features extra insights into the curb from our friend Jonah Bliss, of Curbivore. Read on for some insights into the recently released Curb Data Specification.

Curbivore is coming to LA on March 4th! The pandemic has caused a surge in demand for curb space and now cities are left wondering how to equitably dole out space to everything from outdoor dining and last mile delivery to rideshare, micromobility and delivery robots. Hear from superfast delivery unicorn JOKR’s Aspa Lekka, parking rockstar Donald Shoup, Uber Eats’ Sachin Kansal, deli-legend Alex Canter, plus top chefs and restaurateurs. The first five readers can register for just $5 with code Movements5.

Micromobility

Dott, Lime, and Tier are developing a universal warning sound for their e-scooters to help alert other road users. / TheGuardian

The new BMZ online store for e-bikes and accessories is here. / Bike Europe

Global bicycle sales are forecast to grow at a value CAGR of 5.8% over the forecast period of 2022-2032. / Cision

Take a look at Cupra's new Folding E-Bike. / AutoEvolution

Source: AutoEvolution

Let's talk about the Dutch Traffic Safety Revolution and learn from them. / Bloomberg

A Lancia Fluvia 1961 has become an Italian tourist attraction. / Independent

Ridehailing, Carsharing, & Delivery

Startups like Jokr, Getir, and Buyk face mounting losses in the race to deliver groceries fast and cheaply. / Wall Street Journal

Partnership between Uber and Wallbox will expand to all of the U.S. by April 2022. / Business Wire

GoPuff dominates the U.S. 1P convenience market, with share levels fluctuating from 70 to 85% in the last two years. / via YipitData

With numbers like that, no wonder their IPO is right around the corner! / Reuters

A ride on Cruise's new driverless vehicles looks exciting yet scary! / via Kyle Vogt

Investment & Deals

Canoo backs out on the deal with Dutch company VDL NedCar. / InsideEV

Jidu, an electric car brand set up by Chinese tech giant Baidu, raises $400m in a Series A funding round. / TechCrunch

MIT spinout Superpedestrian raises $125 M in a Series C round and plans to deploy its Pedestrian Defense safety system. / TechCrunch

Source: Superpedestrian

Indian EV startup BattRE plans to expand its dealerships and add two new products to its portfolio. / IndianTimes

Cities & Policy

Driverless car company Waymo filed suit against the California DMV to prevent its crash data from being released. / The Verge

E-bikes have been banned from Caledonian Sleeper trains. / TheCourier

Happy first anniversary, Beryl! / MicromobilityBiz

Are parking miniums finally over? / StreetsBlog

What is Pete Buttigieg going to do about the spike in road deaths? / Slate

Source: Alex Wong/Getty Images

New Products, Features, and Data Points

Elon Musk has predicted Tesla Full self-driving will be here in around a year…for the ninth time. / GizModo

How’s that for a cute face? Nuro unveils the latest version of its bubbly delivery vehicle / HotCars

Insights & Analysis: Meet the Curb Data Specification

Deep Dive: OMF Launches Curb Data Specification

If today’s newsletter hasn’t made it clear, we can’t think about mobility without considering the curb. Any bike, scooter, car, or robot that moves starts and ends its trip by the curb: a piece of civic real estate that’s been famously under-invested in, and under-regulated, for decades.

Thankfully, that’s starting to change. The pandemic has shaken cities and citizens out of their curbside cobwebs, as we’ve seen a surge in outdoor dining, delivery (by human or robot) of groceries, foods, & convenience items, and a planet-wide restriping of asphalt lanes once solely reserved for single occupancy vehicles.

But all this change hasn’t come easy, especially as municipalities and businesses struggle to simply keep the lights on. It’s no simple task to know who is using a street or sidewalk at any given second, to calculate the demand for a congested corridor, to route a user to the right parking spot in a moment’s notice. There are both technical and political decisions to consider… should a Fedex delivery van pay the same rate to access a slice of curb as a commuter. (And even among commuters, should pricing be scaled to income?) What about curb uses that don’t require movement as all, like outdoor dining or parklets?

Stepping into this fray is the Open Mobility Foundation. Building off the success of MDS, which brought order to the swarm of scooters that were taking over cities just a few years back, the nonprofit has just released version 1.0 of CDS - the Curb Data Specification. This new tool is open source, meaning eager users can and will expand CDS to address even more urban issues. But its initial application - commercial loading - truly is one of the thorniest issues confronting cities today.

With CDS now in the hands of forward thinking cities and vendors, we can look forward to a day where fewer delivery vans double park and block traffic. Now they can be routed to an open parking spot or loading zone at the right moment, and pay exactly the right fee (which the company can write off like any business expense) instead of racking up parking fines. It’s a victory for shippers, cities, and citizens!

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