Issue #91  -  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

• Sales of personal electric scooters doubled in France between 2018 and 2019. | Adrien Lelievre

• Amid layoffs and cost cutting, Lyft is ceasing scooter service is Austin, Oakland, and San Jose. | KXAN

• China’s Hellobike launches a new shared ‘smart’ eBike model with voice navigation. | eBike Tips

• Interview with Bird’s GM of France, where he hints at future safety features including inflatable helmets and an in-app storefront for helmets.  | Facebook

• System that limits eBike speeds will be tested on Dutch roads. | The Verge

• Brisbane city council is encouraging health workers to travel by shared scooters. | The Mandarin

Product Launches & Updates

• Tier announced a “Monthly Pass”, where public transit monthly or yearly ticket holders in Norway or Germany can get up to 40 free scooter unlocks for the month of May. Regular per minute pricing still applies. | Tier

• Lyft is testing a new “Wait & Save” feature for riders. | Movements

• Sixt App is now allowing users to book taxis with partitions or film between riders and drivers. | Roger Lanctot 

• Curbflow launched ‘virtual curbFlow’ that gives drivers “real-time insight into curb availability and provides retailers, restaurants, and CREs with unprecedented visibility into what’s happening at their curbs”. | Curbflow

• Share Now is testing monthly passes that save its carshare subscribers anywhere from 25% to 50% off per minute rates. | ShareNow

• Apple adds COVID testing sites to Maps. | TechCrunch

Ridehailing, Carsharing, & Delivery

• Dallas based Alto ridehailing selected the RideOS platform for its rideshare and food delivery business. Alto recently expanded to food delivery with the Alto Market.“both companies are already in discussions with several autonomous providers to supplement Alto’s existing driver network with driverless vehicles.”  | RideOS

• Europe’s Delivery Hero nearly doubled food and grocery delivery orders during lockdown. “Now it looks like the Berlin-based firm may also be seeing long-term benefits as lockdowns mean than new types of customers are willing to try online delivery services.” |  Bloomberg

• Didi claims to have 30% ridehail marketshare in Latin America. | SCMP

• Instacart swings to first profit as pandemic fuels surge in grocery delivery. “Instacart sold about $700 million worth of groceries per week in the first two weeks of April, up 450% on sales in December.”  | The Infromation

• Beating up on UberEats is easy, but building it definitely isn’t. | Andy Bowie

• Our new normal will only accelerate the transition to car subscriptions. | Maniv Mobility

• UPS drivers are travelling 10% further and making 15% more stops.  | WSJ

Investment & Deals

• From Grab’s CEO: Note to investors on addressing the challenges of COVID-19. | Anthony Tan

• Ninja Van raises $279m from Grab and others. | Bloomberg

• Otonomo raises a $46m Series C to continue growing their vehicle data platform. | Otonomo

• Nexar raises $52m for their connected vehicle computer vision platform. | Fortune

• Uber invests $170m into Lime, sells them their JUMP unit. | The Verge

Cities & Policy

• Who’s left riding public transit? Transit app surveyed 25,000 riders… “Only 9% of Transit riders have a car, while another 6% have access to one if they need to drive. For the remaining 85%, public transit is their go-to method of transportation.” | Transit app

• What COVID-19 teaches us about how to fix freeways. “The simple but seemingly amazing fact is that the I-5 freeway is carrying more vehicles, faster, now at the peak hour than it did prior to Covid-19 travel restrictions. “ | City Observatory

• Seattle is permanently closing 20 miles of street space to cars. | Seattle Times

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