Movements | May 7th, 2019

Issue #46 — 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

Bird announced a monthly scooter rental service for $24.99 month, launching in regulation constrained markets like San Francisco and Barcelona. Users get a bluetooth lock, free delivery and pickup, and some basic maintenance. If you do the math, this is a fairly good deal for your own scooter! | Bird

Tortoise: low-speed autonomy for micromobility. The startup looks to launch on city streets by 2020. | Tortoise

Electric motorbikes are taking off in India with startups Vogo and Bounce. “But in developing countries like India, where two-wheeled vehicles outsell cars six to one, Uber and its competitors must figure out a different approach or risk disruption from below.” | NYT

Swedish train operator SJ partners with scooter startup Voi to offer free rides to users (Link is in Swedish). | Feber 

The executive hired to run Lyft’s bike and scooter business is out after 7-months on the job. | Techcrunch

A look into how Bird is working to bring their unit economics in line. | LA Times

Ridehailing

Uber does a deep-dive on their High Capacity Vehicle (HCV) product i.e. Uber Bus. “We are seeing growth of this product take off faster than when UberX launched in a city.” | Uber

Southeast Asia might be a far better market for ridehailing companies given the relative earning power of drivers, the cost of vehicle ownership, and the adjacent opportunities. | Bloomberg

Product Launches & Updates

Uber launches the ability to purchase transit tickets within their app in Denver. | KDVR

Cubic launches support for digital transit cards in Apple Wallet. | Cards International

Deals & Investments

D.C. based TransitScreen raises $3 million. | Business Journal

Bond mobility (formerly Nere) raises $20 million. The startup currently operates Smide eBike share in Switzerland with 28-mph Stromer vehicles and plans to launch in the US later this year. | Axios

Cities & Policy

WePark launched a co-working space in downtown San Francisco for a cost of $2.25 an hour. | Fast Company

A more skeptical view of the cost per vehicle mile in AVs. | FT Alphaville

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