Movements | July 17th, 2019
Movements | July 17th, 2019
Bird unit economics, Turo raises $250m, and Citi Bike expansion
Issue #56— 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.
Micromobility
The Information ran a report looking into Bird’s financial state earlier this year: Hit by Big Loss, Bird Seeks $300M in New Funds. Bird’s CEO and CPO fire back on Twitter and LinkedIn with data on the company’s revenue growth and unit economics. The company’s custom Bird Zero scooter now comprises 75% of its deployed fleet, has an ‘average lifetime of 13 months’ and a weekly churn rate below 1%. “It's def a seasonal business and we weren't diversified in the southern hemisphere last year. We will be this year.”
Bird investor David Sacks explores the myths and reality in the shared scooter business. | David Sacks
Have you ever wondered how one starts a scooter company? Scootermap founder Victor Pontis does a deep dive. | Scootermap
Refraction emerges out of stealth with it’s autonomous bike lane delivery robot. Yes, this 80 pounds vehicle meets eBike regulations. | The Verge
Bird’s Head of Policy, Ashwini Chhabr, gives a TEDx talk: ‘One day our kids will play in the streets again’. | TEDx
China’s Hellobike claims it averages 20 million trips a day and has done a total of 12 billion trips over the last 2.5 years. | SCMP
How Dott uses electric bikes for it’s scooter operations in France. | K-Ryole
Video: Techcrunch Mobility scooter panel with Skip, Jump, Scoot and Segway. | Techcrunch
Bird interviews parking expert Donald Shoup, the author of “The High Cost of Free Parking”. | Bird
An excellent piece in the Financial Times about how e-bikes, not AVs, are reshaping urban transportation. | Financial Times
A glimpse into scooter app downloads after the first month of German operations. | Lufthansa Innovation Hub
Ridehailing & Carsharing
How vulnerable is carsharing to theft and hacks? Bloomberg takes a look into how Car2go lost 75 Mercedes vehicles in Chicago after they relaxed restrictions during onboarding. | Bloomberg
A breakdown of P2P carshare marketplaces Turo and Getaround. | WSJ
Toronto’s Metrolinx partners with Lyft. | Metrolinx
Product Launches & Updates
Using iOS shortcuts to open Transit app with the Clipper Card NFC. | Gabriel Lewis
Spin and Swiftmile launch charging docks in Ann Arbor, Michigan. | Brett Wheatley
Transit app partners with Spin. | Transit
Google Maps launches municipal bikeshare integration which gives users dock and real time bike information. | The Verge
Didi is launching debit cards for their drivers in Latin America to enable faster payouts for rides. | Bloomberg
New Funding & Investments
“The digitization of transportation is not a zero sum game”. A look into how Auto OEMs are approaching digital mobility. | Olaf Sakkers
Turo raises $250m from IAC. | WSJ
Cities & Policy
Ranking walkable urbanism in America’s largest metros. | Smart Growth America
In collaboration with NYCDOT, Citi Bike will be expanding massively into outer boroughs over the next 4 years. | NY Times
There’s been a great deal of debate over who should have access to data from ridehail companies. Here’s why: ridership patterns are super helpful for revealing underserved travel demand in cities. “If we can identify corridors that are heavily used, transit advocacy groups can help put some transit in or arrange some sort of subsidy”. | Smart Cities Dive
New mobility options will impact real estate values. According to Lime’s David Richter: "Whether at Uber or Lime, I've been surprised by the degree to which real estate entities want this to happen," Richter said on stage in Aspen, Colo. "They will get greater value from the real estate they already own because they won't have to allow 'X' number of parking spaces for people either residing or leasing space." | Fortune
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