Movements | November 13th, 2020
Issue [#108] - 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
Here is a Q&A with Harley-Davidson’s new eBike spinoff ‘Serial 1’ chief executive. Some interesting tidbits: Harley-Davidson is only a minority owner, as the eBike brand took outside capital from private equity firms. They have opted to sell directly to consumers and select H-D dealers over traditional bike shops. | Business Journal
The basics of ebike insurance - a helpful overview of insurance policies for ebikes. ElectricBikeReport
The Financial Times has a great report on the surge in demand for electric bikes this year, how the market is changing, and an overview of some of the more exciting models out there. | FT
Product Launches & Updates
Splyt partners with Voi to enable 3rd party apps like Alipay to integrate micromobility. | Splyt
Bird partners with PayPal to beef up its payment options to riders. | Bird
Remix launches the ability to comment directly on the map! Think of it like Google Docs comments, except instead of a phrase you can pin your comments to a bike lane. Remix
Noam Bardin is stepping down as the CEO of Waze after 12 years. | @noam
Ridehailing, Carsharing, & Delivery
A look into how ‘microfufillment’ centers in urban spaces are speeding up deliveries. | WSJ
Indonesian ridehailing provider Go-jek is entering the advertising market by selling in vehicle-ads. The business plans to split revenue with drivers as it looks to drive late-stage monetization. | KR Asia
Lyft is looking to enter the food delivery market. “While Lyft said it was in the "early days" of building such a business, the offer is aimed at undercutting the prices Uber, GrubHub Inc. and other food-delivery services charge restaurants for every order.” | AutoNews
An interview between Mina Nada of Zoomo and Meir Dardashti of Maniv Mobility on the future of delivery and last mile logistics. | Anything that Moves
Walmart is partnering with Cruise on a pilot that uses self-driving vehicles to fulfill deliveries in Scottsdale, Arizona. | VentureBeat
Investment & Deals
Softbank jumps into micromobility with a $250 million dollar investment into German startup Tier Mobility. The company plans to use the money to expand its vehicle mix and build out a charging network. “later-stage investors who had “previously been on the sidelines” of e-scooter investing got more interested when they saw how Tier’s charging network changed the economics of the business.” Softbank is also reported to determine that the European market is more attractive than the US and Asia for scooters. | Financial Times
Reef Technology raises $700 million from Softbank and others to continue its vision of reimagining parking lots with cloud kitchens, retail, and last-mile delivery . | Techcrunch
Usain Bolt’s micromobility startup ‘Bolt Mobility’ is raising money via equity crowdfunding. Check out Bolt’s pitch video here with sneak peeks of their new moped and ebike. | StartEngine
Grab has invested in LinkAja, an Indonesian digital payments company. | Nikkei Asia
Cities & Policy
'It's turned a negative into a positive': How parklets have changed the face of SF for the better. | SF Gate
Dutch government is piloting tech to cut ebike road deaths by cutting power when the bike enters a crowded environment. | The Guardian
Mexico established a constitutional right to safe mobility, which will hopefully open the door to significant policy and regulatory change. | Streetsblog
Lithuania established a program for people to trade in their old cars for electric bikes and scooters. | Elektrek
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