Issue #31 — Brought to you by Michal Naka and Adam Feldman. Please forward this weekly mailer to friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up!

Micromobility

Uber is formally launching a team working on scooter and eBike autonomy features called ‘Micromobility Robotics’. The biggest operations cost for shared fleet operators is charging and rebalancing, while the biggest pain point for users is not having a vehicle nearby when you need one. As Horace Deidu puts it, “Autonomy is sustaining to micromobility while its disruptive to automobility. Guess who adopts it first and has the better chance to develop it sustainably?” We are defintley going to see a few more companies emerge in this space over the next year. | TechCrunch

More scooters with seats: Ojo prepares to launch its shared service in Austin, Texas. Its vehicles feature a top speed of 20 mph, a 50 mile range, and yes, a built-in bluetooth speaker. | Washington Post

Uber is exploring launching an electric moped pilot. | Bloomberg

A San Diego towing company launched a scooter removal service, where business and property owners can call to get unwanted scooters picked up and impounded. | Scooter Removal LLC

Lime wants to incorporate transit data into its app. | Emily Castor Warren

TNCs

Uber declares: “Public transport will continue to be the backbone of the future of mobility” in a plea to European authorities to continue to invest in Public Transit at national and local levels. | Uber

India’s Ola cab released a new payment feature allowing users to accumulate charges and pay them off in one go, similar to a monthly utility bill. | TechCrunch

Microstransit is dead — long live microtransit! | David Block-Schachter

Auto OEMs

Cadillac is rebooting Book, its vehicle subscription offering, with the help of local dealers. | The Drive

Investments

Lime is raising $400m at a $2 billion valuation. The company previously closed a $335m Series C in July. | Recode

Mobility comes in all shapes and sizes: RV marketplace Outdoorsy raised a $50m Series C. | TechCrunch

German electric scooter startup Flash, led by DeliveryHero founder, comes out of stealth with a $63m Series A. | TechCrunch

Robin Chase, formerly of Zipcar, launches the New Urban Mobility Alliance. It’s a non-profit with $6m in funding to help cities implement the Shared Mobility Principles. | Curbed

Cities & Policy

Transportation for America released its “Shared Micromobility Playbook” to help cities craft policy. Whether you are a city or not, it’s a recommended read! | Playbook

The biking capital of the world, Copenhagen, has formally opened up its streets and bikelanes to electric scooters. Stockholm based company Voi quickly launched 200 scooters on the streets. | The Local

LA Metro is making more noise about road pricing. Will they beat NYC to implementing it? | Curbed

Jobs

Scooter Map is hiring a founding engineer. | Scooter Map

Transit app is hiring for partnerships. | Transit app