We dive into the rationale behind sidewalk robots versus road-based vehicles, the surprising stats about food delivery distances, and how Serve’s robots—some capable of 40 miles on a single charge—are redefining last-mile logistics. Ali also explains how the company maintains Level 4 autonomy with human-in-the-loop oversight and the unique challenges of operating in pedestrian-dense environments.

Hear how Serve’s robots navigate public spaces with body language, what goes into scaling to cities like Dallas, Miami, and soon Atlanta, and why the future of delivery may depend less on bikes and more on scalable automation. Plus, Ali reveals unexpected revenue streams—from ad campaigns on robots to software licensing deals—and shares his dream cities for future deployment (spoiler: New York is high on the list).

We dive into how Lyft plans to support its diverse driver base—over two million strong annually—by creating new opportunities, such as turning today’s drivers into tomorrow’s AV fleet owners. Plus, we break down the economics of surge pricing, the complexities of fleet ops, and how Lyft compares to competitors like Uber and Waymo.

This week’s episode is shorter than usual, but hopefully it serves as a good introduction to Sophia and her point of view on AI mobility. She’ll be podcasting more with us in the future.

As a reminder, the first Ride AI summit is taking place on April 2 at Neuehouse in Hollywood, California. We already have an amazing group of speakers lined up, including Amnon Shashua of Mobileye, Gill Pratt of TRI, and other top decision makers from Waymo, Zoox, Wayve, Apollo Go, Nuro, and more. There's a ton of excitement around the fact that this will be the first event of its kind that people will be able to take a fully driverless Waymo robotaxi to, making it the perfect opportunity to inaugurate the second chapter of this technological space. The on-stage conversations will be focused on this shift, from experiments and ideas to delivering real-world realities, and how to reboot conversations with stakeholders in the public sector, capital markets, media, and beyond.

Tickets are currently on sale ⁠here⁠: https://ti.to/rideai/ride-ai-2025

We already have an amazing group of speakers lined up, including Amnon Shashua of Mobileye, Gill Pratt of TRI, and other top decision makers from Waymo, Zoox, Wayve, Apollo Go, Nuro, and more. There's a ton of excitement around the fact that this will be the first event of its kind that people will be able to take a fully driverless Waymo robotaxi to, making it the perfect opportunity to inaugurate the second chapter of this technological space. The on-stage conversations will be focused on this shift, from experiments and ideas to delivering real-world realities, and how to reboot conversations with stakeholders in the public sector, capital markets, media, and beyond.

Tickets are currently on sale here. Space is limited.

• Sterling shares his journey from leading Autopilot at Tesla to starting Aurora in late 2016.
• The conversation covers the technical and strategic decisions behind Aurora's development, emphasizing their shift from robotaxis to autonomous trucking.
• Sterling highlights key partnerships with OEMs and others that have allowed Aurora scale their operations efficiently.
• Tim and Sterling discuss Aurora's unique approach of verifiable AI to ensure safety and reliability compared to end-to-end monolithic systems.
• Finally, Sterling explains the critical regulatory aspects Aurora is navigating as they aim for a driverless trucking launch between Dallas and Houston by April 2025.

With autonomous vehicles poised to revolutionize transportation, understanding the risks and liabilities associated with this technology is paramount. Unlike traditional auto insurance, where policies are based on factors like driver history and vehicle usage, insuring self-driving vehicles requires a deeper understanding of the technology itself. Edge Case Research aims to fill this gap by providing risk assessment technology tailored specifically for autonomous cars and trucks. Michael sheds light on how this nascent industry is developing new insurance solutions that address the unique challenges of AVs, while incentivizing safe practices and fostering trust.

• Stefan reflects on the history of self-driving trucks and the challenges faced during his time at Starsky Robotics, including the overconfidence in machine learning and the misconception that data collection alone would lead to successful autonomous driving.

• He highlights the difficulty in raising funds for a more focused approach compared to competitors' broader promises.

• Stefan discusses the need for a more grounded understanding of robotics and AI, emphasizing the importance of addressing specific problems rather than chasing general solutions.

• Polymath Robotics aims to democratize automation by reducing the upfront costs and complexity, allowing smaller players and seed-funded startups to compete effectively.

• Stefan emphasizes the parallels between the evolution of the automotive and smartphone industries, indicating a similar maturation process in robotics hardware.
  

• Discussion on the cyclicality of the auto industry and recent turbulence due to COVID-19: undersupply situation, excess savings leading to increased demand, and supply chain disruptions.

• Pricing dynamics in the EV market: oversupply of EVs in the $50-60k price range leading to price cuts.

• Fleet sales and their impact on EV market dynamics, including potential risks to resale value and pricing stability (Hertz struggled with high repair bills and consumer dissatisfaction with EV rentals, prompting them to unwind their EV-focused strategy.)

• Tesla's decision not to pursue a low-cost model raises questions about the industry's focus and the challenges of making EVs profitable.

• The auto industry seems to be retreating to familiar corners, like focusing on SUVs, hybrids, and high-margin segments, rather than investing heavily in lower-cost EVs.

• EVs face challenges in consumer perception and understanding of total cost of ownership, compared to hybrids, which have been around for a while but still face low adoption rates.

• The auto industry's struggle to make EVs profitable raises concerns about the future of EV adoption and the profitability of traditional segments like trucks and SUVs.

• There's uncertainty about the trajectory of EV adoption and whether there will be a "EV winter" where growth stalls.

• Regulatory factors still incentivize automakers to invest in EVs despite profitability challenges.

• The concept of unbundling the car for different trip types and purposes, similar to computing devices

• Observation that the world seeks to improve cars, but they are already highly optimized

• Critique of current approaches by companies like Tesla and Apple, which aim to fit new technologies into the existing car model

• Emphasis on the need for truly disruptive innovation in mobility, either through cheaper, more accessible options or new directions of competition

• Discussion on the potential for self-driving technology to transform mobility by enabling new experiences and connections

• Examinations of the challenges of building an EV that is both cheap and has extensive battery range

• Why investors are over-focused on cars as a platform at the expense of other autonomous driving use-cases, like agriculture, defense, and transit. 

⌲ Subscribe to our free newsletter to stay on the forefront of the intersection of AI and mobility 👉 https://rideai.beehiiv.com/

• Ed and Mike discuss the concept of the five-part "hype cycle" in technology adoption: innovation trigger, peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment, slope of enlightenment, and plateau of productivity.
• The "slope of enlightenment" is explained as the phase where technologies become useful and start to see real-world applications.
• Autonomy in vehicles, while not profitable yet, is advancing (especially in robotaxis)
• Meanwhile autonomous technology is diffusing into other industries like agriculture, mining, and construction, where simple design domains allow for easier implementation.
• Despite challenges, significant investment in autonomy has advanced technologies like vision systems and edge AI.
• The hype surrounding autonomy is similar to that of other emerging technologies like generative AI, which may have significant impacts but will likely manifest in smaller, more practical applications initially.
• Media attention tends to focus on hype, but the most significant advancements often occur quietly, requiring deliberate effort to discover and understand.

⌲ Subscribe to our free newsletter to stay on the forefront of the intersection of AI and mobility 👉 https://rideai.beehiiv.com/

Topics Discussed:

Shared and Owned Micromobility

Prabin takes us through the Tier and Dott merger:

• Tier/Dott deal 
• Background of the deal
• What the deal is
• Challenges in merging
• Where can they go from here
• What does this mean for the industry?

Augustin predicts continued consolidation in the shared mobility space, with potential mergers or acquisitions among companies like Bold, Lime, and Voi. Prabin critiques Bolt's strategy and their future as the next Uber.

Augustin also spoke about the struggles of owned ebike companies and the shift towards software-defined vehicles (SDVs) and AVs to enhance customer experience and safety.

Software Defined Vehicles, AI and Regulation

Augustin elaborates on Europe's position on AVs, noting a lag compared to the US and China due to a lack of investment and no existing tech giants.

The potential for software-defined vehicles to improve user experience and safety, but recognizing Europe's fragmented approach to AVs and mobility tech.

How government and local authorities could play a more significant role in advancing AVs and shared mobility through funding and regulatory support.

Augustin speculates about Europe's potential to catch up in the AV space by pooling resources from major automotive players and focusing on local mobility solutions.

Safety is discussed as a primary concern for micromobility users, with different European cities showing varying degrees of progress in creating safe infrastructure for cyclists and scooter users.

Despite the challenges faced by shared mobility and AVs, there's optimism about the future, with emphasis on the need for innovation, better regulation, and strategic investments.

The discussion concludes with a call for continued exploration and improvement in the mobility space, acknowledging the long journey ahead but recognizing the opportunities for impactful change.

Trends to watch:

- Software-Defined Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence

- The Role of Government in mobility investments and Regulation

- Safety and Infrastructure

🚗 Apple's decision to exit the car industry is not surprising given the challenges and complexities associated with building and selling cars. The company's strengths lie in software and user experience, which may be better applied to mobility services and smart accessories for vehicles. 📱 The smartphone is already a powerful tool in the car, with features like Apple CarPlay allowing users to integrate their phone's apps and functions into the vehicle's infotainment system. Apple's focus on privacy and AI could enhance the smartphone's capabilities and create unique mobility experiences. 💡 Apple's decision to pivot away from the car industry and explore opportunities in micromobility aligns with the broader trend of urbanization and the growing demand for sustainable transportation options. By focusing on smaller, more agile vehicles, Apple can address the needs of urban dwellers and contribute to the future of mobility.

Highlights: - 🚲 Reviews play a crucial role in the success of small electrical vehicles, with online reviews impacting pre-orders, investments, and revenue. - 🛵 The importance of local dealers and retailers in providing better customer experience and service for e-bike buyers. - 🌐 The rise of influencers in the scooter and one-wheel market, focusing on lifestyle and fun rather than technical attributes and formal reviews.

We also use this episode to make some announcements around Ride AI, a platform covering all the technology that moves us. We have started with a newsletter, you can subscribe at http://rideai.org and very soon we will be launching a Ride AI podcast with Ed Neidemeyer who has tirelessly covered the AV and vehicle tech landscape for over 15 years now. Finally, as part of the new launch, we will also be announcing our Ride AI Conference in Costa Mesa, CA the week of November 11th that will also coincide with Micromobility America. 

So big news there is 1) a new event Ride AI highlighting all the technology that moves us with our first ever event along with Micromobility America moving from the Bay Area to Southern California. 

Why Southern California? On top of the being the largest market in the United States for small electric vehicles we also think it represents the renaissance happening in the hard tech world both as it relates to AI and mobility. SoCal is home to incredible mobility history like Hughes AirForce Base, the first west coast refineries from Rockefeller and now home to SpaceX and many startups looking to change the way we move. 

We hope you buy tickets and join us at the event, go to Micromobility.io to learn more about it.

Timeline:

• 🚴 1906: Arnold's grandfather arrives in the U.S. and opens up his first bike shop in the Lower East Side.
• 🛠️ Early 1920s: The family moves the business to New Jersey.
• 📈 1947: Post-WWII, Arnold's father shifts the business from retail to wholesale.
• 🌎 1950s-60s: The company adapts to changing markets, beginning to import bikes from Europe and then Asia.
• 🏁 1970s: Kent International experiences a boom with the popularity of racing/road bikes, starting in California.
• 🚵‍♂️ 1990s: The company adapts to the mountain bike craze and faces the challenges of globalization and competition from China.
• 💸 2008: The financial crisis impacts the business, leading to strategic pricing and inventory adjustments.
• 🌐 2010s: Kent International focuses on e-commerce and begins exploring the electric bike market.
• 📉 2020-21: The COVID-19 pandemic causes a surge and then a sudden drop in demand, impacting inventory management.
• 🌿 Present Day: Kent International remains a resilient player in the bicycle industry, adapting to current market trends and consumer needs.

Other Highlights:

• 🌍 Global Expansion: Kent International's strategic shift to importing and later manufacturing in China.
• 🚀 Growth: Significant growth in the 1970s, reaching new heights in the 2000s with major retail partnerships.
• 🛠️ Manufacturing Innovations: Experimentation with different bike designs and materials, adapting to changing consumer preferences.
• 🛍️ Retail Shifts: Adjusting strategies to cope with the rise of e-commerce and direct-to-consumer sales.
• 🚲 Industry Trends: Continuous adaptation to industry trends like electric bikes and changing consumer habits.

Upway is an innovative company in the e-bike marketplace, specializing in the refurbishment and resale of electric bikes. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Paris, France, Upway has made significant strides in the e-bike industry. Toussaint Wattinne, the CEO and co-founder of Upway, along with co-founder Stéphane Ficaja, have backgrounds in leading roles at Uber Eats, bringing their expertise in tech-driven business models to the e-bike industry. The company is notable for refurbishing and certifying a vast array of electric bikes, offering customers a wide selection of over 400 brands. As of March 2023, Upway had refurbished and certified more than 20,000 electric bikes, showcasing its commitment to providing quality and sustainable transportation options. The company has successfully expanded its services beyond France, with availability in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. This expansion is a testament to the growing demand for sustainable and affordable mobility solutions. Upway's approach to e-bike sales centers around a seamless ordering and delivery process, ensuring that the bikes and their batteries are of high quality and safe for use. This business model has attracted notable investors like Sequoia Capital, Global Founders Capital, Exor Seeds, and Origins, contributing to Upway's impressive total funding of $60.6 million. Highlights 🚲 Upway, a company specializing in selling refurbished electric bikes, has successfully raised over $30 million in Series B funding. 🌍 Founded in 2021 and based in Paris, Upway has expanded to Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. 🔄 They have refurbished over 20,000 electric bikes from more than 400 brands, offering up to 35% discount compared to new bikes. 🛠️ Upway's business model focuses on rebuilding trust in the used ebike market by refurbishing bikes to a high standard and offering a one-year warranty. 📈 Despite initial skepticism, the market demand for used ebikes has been strong, with Upway receiving high customer satisfaction ratings. 🤝 Upway collaborates with over 1500 retailers and ebike dealers, using trading software for customer trade-ins and managing returns for D2C manufacturers. 📊 The business mix varies by region, with a significant portion of sourcing in Europe coming from dealers, while in the US, direct consumer purchases and manufacturer returns play a larger role.

🚲 Lectric sells over 150,000 electric vehicles annually, that is more than any US vehicle company besides Tesla

📈 Despite industry downturn, Lectric still seeing double digit growth

⚙️ Focused on high quality, low cost bikes rather than maximizing margins

🛒 Committed to DTC as it provides valuable customer feedback

🆕 Excited about upcoming partnerships and new wider wheelbase models

🤝 Sees need for more industry regulation to protect consumers

🫂 With influence comes responsibility - brands can drive positive change

Micromobility America is right around the corner. You can get your tickets to the show here: https://micromobility.io/events/micromobility-america Enter for your chance to win a new Lectric Lite at RideReview.com https://ridereview.com/giveaway/win-a-lectric-lite-with-commuter-bundle Summary James Gross talked with Ain McKendrick the Founder and CEO of Faction about how the future of delivery is evolving with Faction, offering new opportunities and advancements in the industry. Faction provides driverless delivery vehicles for last mile logistics by combining autonomous technology with remote human assistance. In the conversation, Ain discusses Faction's focus on short 3-5 mile repetitive delivery routes for commercial users like bakeries and retailers. He explains how Faction works with light electric vehicle OEMs to incorporate their driverless tech on the production line. McKendrick notes they have operated legally in states with supportive regulations like Nevada, Arizona, Texas. Faction recently raised an extension funding round from TDK Ventures to help scale their delivery fleets in 2024, with plans to partner with national retailers and food brands. Faction won Micromobility America's Riders Choice Award in 2023 for autonomy and robotics. Highlights 🚚 Faction provides driverless delivery vehicles combining autonomy and remote human assistance 📦 Focus on short 3-5 mile repetitive last mile logistics routes for commercial users 🤝 Works with light electric vehicle OEMs to incorporate driverless tech 🚦 Has operated legally in states with supportive regulations 💰 Raised extension round from TDK Ventures to scale fleets in 2024 🤝 Looking to partner with national retailers and food brands 🏆 Won Micromobility America's Riders Choice Award in 2023

Chapters: 00:00- 9:55 Announcements and Giveaways 9:56 - 19:17Travel Patterns Are Changing19:18 - 21:52 Electric Share is the only Share 21:53 - 24:51The Dreaded Car Pickup Line 24:52 - 32:00 Vehicle Launches 32:00 - 47:34 Meet Sartee Bikes CEO

Notes - 🎙️ Hosts: James Gross and Julia Thayne discuss their experiences at the recent Climate Week in New York, shedding light on the intersection of climate change, technology, finance, and micromobility. - 🌱 NYC Climate Week Insights: Despite missing key policymakers, the event was characterized by enthusiasm and a high level of participation. Julia highlighted a notable shift in focus towards tech and finance as vital components in climate transition, emphasizing their increasing role and presence in discussions and initiatives. - 🚲 Micromobility Underrepresentation: Julia noted a lack of representation and underestimation of micromobility solutions in climate discussions, suggesting a need for better quantification and communication of the impact of micromobility on climate change. - 📈 Shift in Travel Patterns: Studies from The Brookings Institute and Bloomberg showed a shift in Americans' travel patterns, with a significant increase in bike trips and a growing interest in electric bikes, underscoring the necessity for cities to adapt transportation options to people's evolving needs. - 🚴 Bike Buses for Schools: Highlighting the current inefficient and wasteful car-centric school commute patterns, James discusses the emergence of "bike buses" as a potential solution to mitigate congestion and promote sustainability. Additional Information - E-Bike Popularity in Bike Shares: The rising preference for electric bikes in bike share programs in various cities was discussed, with speculation on how this preference could influence the cost and operational strategies of these programs. Launch Highlights 🛵 Honda's Moto Compacto: Honda has revived its iconic 80s Moto Comao as an all-electric vehicle. This vehicle is designed for easy storage and is targeted at urban environments. Test rides are being held until November, reflecting some concerns from Honda about the vehicle's reception. 🚲 Mini’s Angel Mobility E-Bike: Mini has released a sleek e-bike limited to 1959 units, marking the year Mini was founded. It reflects Mini’s entry into the micromobility space and seems to be a test to gauge market interest. 🚨 Product Recall: TreK Alant+ 7 faces a recall due to a serious brake issue. This recall highlights some challenges traditional bike makers face in the e-bike market. Bo's Scooter Headed for Production: Bo has announced the production and delivery timeline for its highly anticipated scooters. The first units are expected early next year, with deliveries commencing in early 2024. 🌟 Celebrity Influence: Ryan Reynolds' endorsement of the Arc electric motorcycle has boosted interest in electric bikes. Interview with Sartee Electric Bikes Founder and CEO, Jared Sartee 🚴 Sartee Bikes' Front-loading Cargo Bikes: Jared Sartee discussed the advantages of front-loading cargo bikes and their potential to replace car trips.The focus is on modularity, repairability, and providing a fun ride. Manufacturing is done in Canada, aligning with the company’s principles of customer connection and adaptability. 🤔 Consumer Perceptions: The episode delves into the consumer perceptions surrounding front-loading and back-loading cargo bikes. It emphasizes the need for more hands-on experiences for consumers to understand the benefits and feel comfortable with new formats of micro-mobility vehicles.

•  Laura Kavanagh, the 34th commissioner of the NYC Fire Department, has held various roles and oversaw the department’s response to several emergencies, including the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and the Ebola outbreak in 2015.
•  The FDNY reports a substantial rise in battery fires, recording 220 in 2022, up from 30 in 2019, and has noted the prevalence of these fires in small electric vehicles like e-bikes, scooters, and mopeds.
•  Much attention is given to delivery workers as they are heavily reliant on these devices, which are often modified or altered to enhance performance or extend battery life, contributing to the risks and frequency of fires.
•  Numerous issues arise from modifications, DIY conversion kits, and unregulated devices entering the market, creating unsafe conditions and usage that go beyond the original intended design of these electric vehicles.
•  The challenge of inspecting and regulating these devices is intensified by the prevalence of underground markets and the inability to inspect private apartments where unsafe charging and alterations often occur.
•  The FDNY is collaborating with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to examine and address the public safety impacts, with considerations on future innovations, recycling, and regulations on electrification.
•  While government agencies are receptive and showing progress, Kavanagh emphasizes the urgency in expediting regulations and legislative actions to address the growing and immediate risks associated with battery fires in small electric vehicles.

We announced the Ride Expo in the San Francisco Bay Area on October 20th! Register now for a $10 ticket. https://lu.ma/yvv4158o

Wondering where you can and can’t drive your new low-speed electric vehicle? GEM’s new app shows every road in the U.S. with posted speed limits of 35 mph (56 km/h) or lower. Here is our interview with their CEO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtqX6s1CyXg

NABSA just released its fourth annual Shared Micromobility State of the Industry Report for North America, which finds that ridership in North America has returned to pre-pandemic levels with 157 million trips taken in 2022. 401 cities = all-time high.

James' interview with Ed Niedermeyer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HTfjKCoijw

Vehicle Launches

Bengaluru-based Ola Electric is coming out with four new electric motorbikes, with sales and deliveries starting in a year. Among the latest additions is the S1-X, which the company claims will be one of the most affordable mopeds in India at $1,085.

… on the other end of Ola’s new product spectrum is the outlandishly edgy Diamondhead. While little is currently known about the futuristic supersport’s performance, based on the teaser video, internet sleuths have deduced the bike is a center-hub steered machine.

Trek just announced the Ponto Go, its first moped-style electric utility bike, through its Electra brand. The Ponto Go is outfitted with a long rear rack, an extended bench seat with foot pegs for a second rider, pedal forward geometry, and high rise handlebars. The tandem vehicle can reach a top speed of 26 mph (42 kph) with pedal assist and has a max range of 60 miles (96 km).

Indian manufacturer Mahindra’s new electric rickshaw, the e-Alfa Super, is a modern utility vehicle with 59 miles (95 km) of range on a single charge. (But if you do run out of juice, the vehicle comes with access to 10,000 charging stations across India). Mahindra claims the new three-wheeler is “best-in-class” for its safety and comfort features.

Electric trikes truly come in all shapes in sizes. Take, for example, the new Vook, which looks likes a cross of a gokart and beach cruiser with its low center of gravity and swept-back handelbars. The tiny vehicle, which just launched on Indiegogo, promises a remarkable top speed of 40 mph (64 kph).

We have Kyle Doerksen on Ride On! Founder and CEO of Onewheel https://onewheel.com/

The 'New York Times' attacks e-bikes while ignoring the real danger all around us 

The New York Times published a pair of articles this weekend highlighting the rising number of deaths of cyclists riding electric bikes. However, in one of the most impressive feats of victim-blaming I’ve seen from the publication in some time, the NYT lays the onus on e-bikes instead of on the things killing their law abiding riders: cars.

By all accounts, the e-bike rider was correctly and legally using the roadway in the only way he could. In fact, according to eye-witnesses of the car crash that killed the e-bike rider, he “did everything right,” including signaling his turn. 

The article goes on to detail how just three days later another teenage e-bike rider was pulled out from under a BMW – thankfully still alive – and taken to the same emergency room where the previous boy had been pronounced dead. Apparent praise is lauded on Encinitas for soon afterward declaring “a state of emergency for e-bikes,” which is a bit like saying we could just solve the school shootings crisis if kids would stop walking into all of those damn bullets.

Two other points that the NYT didn't do research on: 

El Camino is the most dangerous road in Encinitas.

We also had a pedestrian fatality this year of a young man at another area of high crash count in Encinitas.

The Encinitas City Council in 2020 voted out speed cameras on El Camino Real, which is one of the biggest deterrents to speeding and distracted driving. It also set a terrible precedent that we don't believe in enforcing traffic laws and using technology to help create a consistent standard that we won't tolerate dangerous and illegal driving in our city.  https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/encinitas/story/2020-05-10/encinitas-pulls-the-plug-on-red-light-camera-program 

This quote should have led the NYT piece with some more research: “Nothing has changed, and hundreds of people are still getting these ridiculous fines,” Mosca said, referring to the $490 court-set cost of a ticket.

Credit to Mayor Kranz and Councilmember Hinze for both voting against taking out the speeding/RL cameras. 

Finally, a 56 year old woman was killed and a 32 old man is in critical condition from car violence while on bikes this week in San Diego. One was hit by a Chevy Silverago and the other a F-150. Can you guess which two cars are responsible for killing the most Americans every year? Imagine if we looked to regulate safety for those vehicles? I know that is not going to happen anytime soon, in the meantime we can make our streets safer through slower speeds, traffic enforcement and safety education for riders (and drivers) and not through victim blaming. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/e-biker-dies-after-collision-with-pickup-in-gaslamp-quarter-san-diego-police/3272854/ 

Micah on Electrek: https://electrek.co/author/micahltoll/

Micah's ebike school channel: https://www.youtube.com/@EbikeSchool

Meet Linus Bikes Co-Founder Adam McDermott founded Linus Bike. The company is based in Venice, California. Check out their 2 new electric bike modes at: https://www.linusbike.com/

Vanmoof goes Poof.

Cult ebike brand VanMoof has paused sales and some of its top execs are departing or taking lower roles. The company has yet to release an official statement on the abrupt changes, but sources say that they are trying to secure a bridge round to keep the business afloat.

After several bouts of layoffs and lawsuits, US-based D2C ebike seller Rad Power has announced that it will be pulling out of the European market by 2024, opting to focus its efforts entirely on North America.

Lectric might have overcome market share in the US…but RadPower does better with accessories and customer repair centers.

A comeback in Shared?

“We are aiming for sales of $100 million this year.” How Swing's franchise model allowed it to become one of the few profitable shared micromobility companies in the world, with over 100,000 vehicles in South Korea.

By contrast, CEO Wayne Ting says Lime’s pathway to profitability involved investing in more durable, modular scooters as well as better technology for operational crews. Won tenders 90% of the time.

Amsterdam’s city leaders say they want to see more shared cargo bikes, mopeds, and cars on the street in an effort to reduce car usage.

The Truth and Lies About Driverless Cars in SF Garry Tan exposes some wild accusations against the city of San Francisco MTA that appear to be true!

Launches

Last month on Ride On! We talked to Chris Rey of Apollo Scooters about the fast and powerful Apollo Pro. The innovative new two-wheeler has since launched on Indiegogo, and is receiving rave reviews- check out some here

Parkour! BMW just released their new CE 02 electric two-wheeler, which they say is neither an emotorbike or emoped - it's an “eParkourer.” Despite the confusing semantics, its performance capabilities are clear: the CE 02 tops out at respectable 59 mph and claims 55 miles of range. ​

The Brits at The Little Car Company typically deal in downsizing famous cars into small electric vehicles (see Bughatti Baby II). Now they’ve done something of the opposite, taking inspiration from the 1980s Tamiya Wild One RC car and turning the toy into a full-sized 37 horsepower electric dune buggy.

The new Ago T ebike is now available from Tenways, which features a comfortable step-through frame as well as an Enviolo Stepless Shifting Hub, a cool feature which allows riders to shift gears while at a stand still.

Eli Electric

We have Marcus Li, CEO and Founder of Eli Electric Vehilces with us

Roman was joined on stage by folks from the Walmart, the European Cycling Federation, Safran and Zenride to talk about how e-bike as an employee benefit works in different markets, what models exist to incentivise them, the players in the market, and the impact on employees and on the wider company. It’s a great session.

Of course, if you like this material, you’ll love Micromobility America, which is coming up on October 19-20th in Richmond in the Bay Area. We’re expecting hundreds of the top thinkers and builders in the space. Please come and join us, and check it out!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

This one is the ebike revolution which was hosted by Micah Toll from Electrek who is in our minds one of the best micromobility journalists out there.

Please go and check his stuff out if you haven’t already. He was joined on stage by former guests of the podcast Taco Carlier from Vanmoof and Tanguy Goretti from Cowboy, as well as folks from ebike brands Lekker, Cannondale and Ampler which have coverage across Australia, Europe and the US.

They talk a lot about the global market and what hasn’t hasn’t worked, especially in the owned bike space. We thought it was a really good discussion and we're stoked to be able to share it.

If you like the session you also really like our Micromobility America, which is coming up on the 19th/20th in Richmond in the Bay Area. Come and join the top thinkers and builders in the micromobility space in North America and further afield.

And with that, here’s Micah and the team!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

Rich is the founder of Finmile, a micromobility first freight company in London using four wheeler cargo e-bikes to deliver for companies such as HelloFresh and some very large global companies that unfortunately we can’t name but who Oliver was very impressed with.

They are expanding very quickly and have a relevant and replicable model for a lot of cities around the world. We encourage you to particularly listen to the section where we talked about what the model offers in terms of labour and increasing the throughput of deliveries relative to existing encumbrance.

It feels to us, very disruptive to the existing freight delivery incumbents. So! Enjoy!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

This one is the shared scooter CEO’s talking about the state of their business which was a very popular session on the Friday.

Ben Hubbard From Zag Daily had the leaders from some of the top operators from all over the globe on the stage – we had Henri Moissinac, Dott in Europe, Tomás Martin from Tembici in Latin America, San Kim from Swing in South Korea and Jaideep Dhanoa from Fenix in the Middle East.

So! Quite a global coverage, and lots of really interesting parallels between all operators.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

This one is the rise of the subscription panel that was hosted by Jon Woodruff from Twotone with some of the titans of the e-bike sharing world including Eric Quidwenus-Wahlforce, founder of Dance, Karianne Solfjed Eid, from Whee! and Richard Burger from Swapfiets (all of whom we've had on the podcasts) being joined by Teet Praks from Comodule.

This was an excellent session covering the dynamics of this part of the industry, what's working and what's not and where these folks think that the industry is going.

And with that, here's the panel!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

We have talked on the show for years about how augmented reality would benefit micromobility, and so we wanted to take this opportunity to unpack a little bit more about what he saw, the idea of special computing, and how it could impact how we think about Mobility.

We had an amazing show – our biggest yet, with more than 60 startups pitching in our award series and the most incredible bike rave at the end through the streets of Amsterdam with DJ Dom Whiting.

We’ll be sharing more content over the coming weeks but in the meantime, thank you to all who attended and hope that you had a blast.

We certainly did.

Specifically they dig into:

- Horace’s experience of the Vision Pro and why Apple has chosen to make a ‘spatial computer’

- The implications for the general mobility market, and especially the difference between visions of the future based on autonomous or micromobility

- Horace’s predictions for spatial computing

And with that, here’s Horace.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

Oliver had a chance to ride some of these bikes around Santa Monica when he was doing the tour of Southern California and was really impressed with the pickup and handling of these bikes, especially for someone like him who’s new-ish to motorbikes.

In this episode, we dig into the history and how they decided to get into this, as well as design, funding, and their recent deals with producers in both Asia and Mexico. We found this a super interesting episode and hope that you do too.

Specifically they discuss:

• How Cake was founded

• How they have chosen to focus on design. 

• How Stefan Stefan has thought about manufacturing and fundraising to over the years. 

• The recent announcements from Mexico and China of the large volumes of bikes that have been contracted.

And with that, here’s Stefan!

We're in Amsterdam right now with the whole team for ⁠Micromobility Europe⁠, hosting the Startup Awards. We have over 60 companies presenting and vying for the top spot. So many amazing vehicles and people around. We're looking forward to sharing more of what we find in time. Also, Oliver is going to be at Eurobike in Frankfurt from the 21-24th of June so please ping him a message on Twitter if you’re going to be there too and want to meet up.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

For those who are in the know, Michael Keating is an OG of the Micromobility space, having founded Scoot back in 2012, which was one of the first moped sharing companies before selling it to Bird.

Tempo is Michael's latest venture and one we're very excited about, having followed the journey along for a while. We are honoured that he would share this with us on a busy launch day, as they were fielding calls from lots of other journalists, and we really enjoyed this conversation about not only the history of shared Micromobility, but also the current state of things and his efforts to accelerate getting Micromobility into the hands of millions.

Specifically the discuss:

- Who is Tempo, what do they do?

- Why subscription and not sharing?

- What makes Tempo different from other subscription micro businesses?

We hope you enjoyed as much as we did, and if you are listening to this and would like to come and join us, get your tickets for Micromobility Europe – June 8th and 9th in Amsterdam. Horace will be there along with Oliver and the whole rest of the team and over 1000 thinkers and builders in the space of Micromobility. It will be an absolute blast.

And with that here is Michael.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

Specifically they discuss:

- Tims's background as a designer and his work at Bird

- The initial design of the Onyx and their first fundraiser

- Transitioning from a project to a company and James joining

- Their expanding product line and what they are excited about

 If you enjoy this conversation, you will also enjoy Micromobility both in Europe and America. We have Europe coming up on June 8 and 9th, and then we have America happening in the Bay Area on the 18th and 19th of October. We will of course be at both. Looking forward to hopefully having some more of you there along with more than 1000 people at both events talking about the latest in Micromobility and lightweight electric vehicles. And with that, here is Tim and James!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

We hope that you enjoy it too! In the meantime, if you enjoy this conversation, you will also enjoy Micromobility both Europe and America. We have Europe coming up on June 8 and 9th, and then we have America happening in the Bay Area on the 18th and 19th of October. We will of course be at both. Looking forward to hopefully having some more of you there along with more than 1000 people at both events talking about the latest in Micromobility and lightweight electric vehicles. And with that, here is Kevin!

Specifically, they discuss

- The background of Electra Bikes including its strong connection to the beach culture in Southern California

- The history of how they came to be acquired by a PE firm and then by Trek

- Their emergence as a large ebike manufacturer

- How Trek operates with them and how traditional bike companies are adapting to micromobility

- Their retail and distribution choices.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

If you enjoy this conversation, you will definitely enjoy Micromobility Europe – We would really encourage you to see if you can join us – on June 8 and 9th in Amsterdam! This will be a collection of over 1000 top thinkers and builders in the space building everything from e-bikes and scooters all the way through the vehicles just like the one we are discussing today. We are really excited with the companies that are going to be coming and cannot wait to get there. Get your tickets at micromobility.io

Specifically they tackle:

• The background of City Transformer - where did the project start?

• Why adaptive width vehicles are unique and special

• What classification of EU - L7E

• What the traction has been like to date and where you’re selling them into

• What the manufacturing challenges have been

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

We really loved this interview for a few reasons - firstly, because the operators – Oliver and his father Whim were the OGs of the Micromobility space – setting up a company literally called Micromobility back in the early 2000s and producing the first kick scooters and then subsequently some of the first electric kick scooter’s. Secondly, anybody who is producing small electric vehicles at any sort of scale deserves to be congratulated – it has been quite the journey for them, especially as they have done it entirely self-funded of the back of their original acoustic and electric scooter business. We have really enjoyed getting to know Oliver and are looking forward to hopefully having him at Micromobility Europe in June.

Speaking of which if you are interested in the latest in lightweight electric vehicles, including neighborhood electric vehicles like this and everything in between you will absolutely love Micromobility Europe. It is the show we are most excited about in terms of what we’ve done in our history of producing shows at Micromobility industries and we are sure you would have an absolute blast coming and hanging out with our team and more than 1000 others as we talk about the future of what these vehicles might enable for our cities. I will be running a start-up stage with more than 60 companies expected to patch – it is going to be pandemonium– and I can’t wait. Get your tickets at Micromobility.IO.

And with that, here is Oliver!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

Unfortunately, we lost the end of the audio for this the first time around and had to go back and rerecord the end. Our awesome editor Lynda has managed to get this sounding good, but just a heads up about it towards the end.

In this episode they discuss:

- Caroline’s background as an activist and how it led her to shared micromobility policy

- The story of Lyft’s micromobility business - how it came about and why they’ve chosen the strategy they have with PPP docked bikeshare vs freefloating.

- Getting micromobility away from identity politics

- What has electric vs. acoustic offered to the advocacy conversation?

- What is the role of companies like Lyft in micromobility advocacy vs. (for example) vehicle producers etc.

- How do we get a broad coalition of advocates that can tackle the status quo?

If you want to see the latest vehicles and be in the most cutting-edge conversations about micromobility, you should check out Micromobility Europe, our premier event happening in Amsterdam on the 8/9th of June. We’re expecting over 1000 of the top thinkers and doers in the micro space to be there and I am pumped with the amazing vehicles that are coming down the pipe that will be there. We’re expecting over 60 companies to be pitching in our Startup Awards too. It’s going to be epic. If you’re interested in joining, get your tickets at micromobility.io.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

Kersten provides an extensive overview of his research, including the emergence of direct-to-consumer electric vehicles brands like Lectric and Ride1Up, and the innovative hardware-as-a-service models offered by companies such as Lug and Carrie/Whee! They also delve into the promising growth of the German bike leasing market, the unique benefits of tax exemptions for employer-provided bikes, and the leading players in this space.

We hope that you enjoy our conversation about the rapidly evolving world of micromobility and its potential to reshape the future of transportation.

Specifically they tackle:

- The challenges faced by mini mobility startups

- The lack of investment in personally owned scooters

- The potential explosion of micro-freight

- The factors influencing the funding disconnect between EVTOL, Autonomy, EVs and micro-mobility

- Why no micro mobility-specific funds have emerged

- How content creators can assist McKinseys clients

In the meantime, if you haven’t already please consider getting some tickets for Micromobility Europe - ⁠https://micromobility.io/events/micromobility-europe⁠, join us on June 8th and 9th in Amsterdam. Horace, Oliver, and the whole crew will be there – this year. We have opened up the start-up awards to a whole heap of companies and already have at least 55 presenting including some of the most exciting vehicles we have seen in the space to date. Be sure to check it out at micromobility.io. And with that, here’s Maciek and Chris.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

Last year, they shipped 30,000 scooters – which is a pretty decent amount for a company that has never raised outside capital at all. In this conversation we run through the founding of the company, the opportunities that exist in the space, their journey with being direct to consumer, and focusing on being an e-commerce brand, who they admire in the space and what they think is interesting.

We really appreciated both Mac’s and Chris’s humility and how they are running their company and their perspective on the space. Thanks to them for joining.

Specifically they tackle :

• The background to Apollo and how they got started

• What models they have now - they unpack the Pro

• How they’ve funded the company to date - how and where micromobility can source capital

• Marketing scooters - what works and doesn’t?

In the meantime, if you haven’t already please consider getting some tickets for Micromobility Europe - https://micromobility.io/events/micromobility-europe, join us on June 8th and 9th in Amsterdam. Horace, Oliver, and the whole crew will be there – this year. We have opened up the start-up awards to a whole heap of companies and already have at least 55 presenting including some of the most exciting vehicles we have seen in the space to date. Be sure to check it out at micromobility.io. And with that, here’s Maciek and Chris.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

In this episode, Drew Smith interviews Horace, exploring the origins and future of micromobility. Per their description, “Horace offers a blistering critique of the failure of the automotive sector to embody the new design possibilities offered by micromobility: transportation choice in our urban centres, and a powerful framework to rethink our transportation networks and cities.”

This was a great episode and many thanks to the Next Billion Seconds team for letting us resyndicate it here.

From The Next Billion Seconds:

What is ‘micromobility’? It’s a philosophy that emphasises choice and urban-centered design in our transportation networks and transport options. Drew Smith speaks with Horace Dediu, the ‘father’ of micromobility, about its origins, his critique of the new generation of EV companies, and the way things must change in order to provide a transport future that we can all enjoy.

Mark looks at the ‘wheel’ of transportation that takes developing nations from bicycles to scooters to cars – and back to bikes again? Sally Dominguez makes a heartfelt and well-observed plea for micromobility solutions that don’t favour able-bodied young men by design. In the round-table, Mark, Sal and Drew analyse everything they’ve learned in this series: Are we any closer to autonomous vehicles? Pervasive electric vehicles? Commercial hydrogen vehicles? Micromobility solutions that work for everyone? A huge final for this series of THE NEXT BILLION CARS

You can listen to The Next Billion Seconds and learn more right here.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠. ⁠Horace⁠ and ⁠Oliver⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠Micromobility Newsletter⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠.

This felt like an important interview. We think that subsidies and government support are something that micromobility has traditionally eschewed in favour of just doing it, but there are more and more cities, states, and countries around the world realising that the bang for the buck on these vehicles are substantially higher than they’d be for the other transport climate policies. They talk through the newly launched subsidy tracker that Micromobility Industries has just launched which tracks all subsidies for E-bikes, scooters and more globally. We’re very excited about it - and think that it’ll be an important tool going forward.

Oliver and Grace also run through other schemes of government support for end consumers looking to use micromobility and how to make micromobility support non-partisan.

If you’re a policymaker who is looking into this, welcome - We hope that you enjoy this, and that this conversation inspires you to push for a similar policy in your jurisdiction. If you have the desire to develop better materials for you on how to best do this and that we can host, please reach out to our team - we’d love to hear from you.

Specifically they tackle:

- How is the subsidy funded?

- Why pick this? What are the motivation/outcome objectives?

- “The city reported that the e-bikes purchased as part of the program were ridden 26 miles (42 km) per week on average, and replaced 3.4 car trips each week.”

Does the city calculate trips?

- How do you balance action and resiliency?

- Which companies benefit the most from this?

Connect with Grace on LinkedIn

Catch us on ⁠Twitter⁠. ⁠Horace⁠ and ⁠Oliver ⁠are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠. ⁠Horace⁠ and ⁠Oliver⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠Micromobility Newsletter⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer ⁠Micromobility Pro membership⁠ that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠.

Like we’ve discussed many times on the show, we think that there is a real opportunity for Micromobility to contribute to the conversation. We really love Melinda‘s take on the whole space – she has a wealth of industry knowledge and is in New York with the legislators having the grunty conversations that will help lead the industry forward. Really hope that you enjoy this episode as we did.

Specifically they tackle:

- The E-bike fires for the Micromobility Podcast and know that you've been doing some advocacy in this space.

- The work on transport equity she has been doing

- How she is working to better aggregate and lobby for ebike subsidies at MMI.

- How micromobility companies can play a more active role in getting streets ready for smaller vehicles.

Connect with Melinda on LinkedIn and Twitter

Catch us on ⁠Twitter⁠. ⁠Horace⁠ and ⁠Oliver ⁠are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter ⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠. ⁠Horace⁠ and ⁠Oliver⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠Micromobility Newsletter⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer ⁠Micromobility Pro membership⁠ that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠.

We’ve been following along with what they’ve been doing for a while and really love the new pedal Ebike that they are bringing out, along with the standard throttle bike and moped that they've been offering. They have really nailed the subscription services for micromobility, lowering the barriers to entry. 

We really loved the conversation with Rickard - he’s very mission-driven. We're really looking forward to watching them in the future

Specifically they talk about: 

- The early origins of Vässla with e-moped and throttle bikes, and now their pedal e-bikes. 

- How they’ve sold around 5000 mopeds - beating the global market leader NIU - in Sweden and sell them in Berlin too. 

- How they’ve thought about Vässla Club, their subscription business - what was the insight, and what did it require from them to pivot into this

- How they do their manufacturing

- Their funding journey for early moped and into developing an ebike and subscription

Catch us on Twitter. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our Micromobility Newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer Micromobility Pro membership that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Matt has a wealth of knowledge about the interplay of politics, Transport and land use and Julia is an excellent host to ask him about it. This was a really compelling and interesting 50 minutes. We hope you enjoy it! 

They dig into:

- His journey to be an ‘e-bike dad’ - and a big proponent of electric bikes 

- The intersection between transport and built urban form - and the overhang of cars. 

- How people are now getting used to taking the vehicles that are appropriate to the trips 

- The divide between privately owned and shared systems, and how land use rules interplay with those decisions. 

- The regulatory drivers helping and hindering EVs and micromobility 

- The subsidy question - needed or not? 

- Why he thinks SoCal should be ground zero for a micromobility first city

- The importance of making micromobility a positive, accessible brand rather than making it snobby or a ‘poverty option’

- The importance of allowing the built environment to innovate to new mobility options. 

- What should micromobility advocates do to help drive change. 

- Americans are typically pro-growth, opportunity and innovation. How can those attitudes be harnessed for micromobility, and transcend the left/right divide. 

Follow Matthew on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

And now, here is Matt and Julia.

Catch us on Twitter. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our Micromobility Newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer Micromobility Pro membership that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram. 

As we’ve talked about a lot here on the podcast, "the faster it goes, the slower it goes”. 

In recent years, the trend towards micromobility has been exploding. Our thesis is that smaller electric vehicles, like electric bikes and scooters, are more adaptable and can be developed and evolved at a much faster pace than larger vehicles like cars. The shorter development timeframes and lifespans of micromobility vehicles means that they can be more quickly adapted to changing market trends and consumer preferences, and can stay ahead of the curve in terms of technological advancements.

Specifically they tackle:

-The potential of micromobility

-The challenges facing Apple's car efforts

-The role of smaller, more modular vehicle solutions in shaping the future of the automotive industry.

And with that, here’s Horace!

Catch us on Twitter. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our Micromobility Newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer Micromobility Pro membership that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

It’s stories like this that we love from Micromobility – companies that have really just nailed the product market fit by focusing on the bits that people love - cost and convenience. We love this conversation – Levi is an incredibly impressive founder who is hyper focused on the job the customers are trying to do – in this case selling Ebikes to people with RV’s direct to consumers, and really just nailing that experience. We really hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did. 

Specifically they tackled:

- The background to Levi's involvement in the industry including his first venture in electric skateboards 

- The formation of Lectric including early funding and their failures 

- The explosive growth through the pandemic 

- The specific things that Levi focusses on for the customer that have been most valuable 

- How they think of value engineering and quality

- Their marketing strategy, including how powerful the You Tube influencers are in driving sales

- The new bikes they have coming out, including the announcement of their insanely specced and priced new cargo bike, the XPedition. 

- Tariffs and macro conditions and how they've navigated them 

- What he's excited about in the future

- Their D2C strategy and what that has enabled for them

Check out the Lectric website right here

And with that, here's Levi!

Catch us on Twitter. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our Micromobility Newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer Micromobility Pro membership that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Gabes' job is to break down barriers to electrifying transportation. We’ve had him on the podcast before for episode 122 for what was one of the top episodes of the year. Before he took his current role, he has held a number of really interesting roles as a Zipcar exec and chief of the Washington DC and Chicago DOTs. 

He joins Julia to discuss the role small electric vehicles can play in America’s EV transformation. He’s a self confessed ebike nut and it was awesome to have him join to talk micromobility. 

Learn more about Gabe and what he does, via his website here

In this episode they tackle:

- The new role that Gabe has taken on and what it's scope is

- How he thinks about micromobility in the overall scope of electrification of transport in the US and the role that it can play 

- The lack of ebike subsidy that was in the IRA, and what other programmes are doing to support their adoption 

- The role of government in rolling out electrification of transport

And with that, here’s Gabe and Julia.

Catch us on Twitter. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our Micromobility Newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer Micromobility Pro membership that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Specifically they tackle:

- The intersection of tech and transport

- The micromobility thesis and is it correct or not?

- Which cities are best for micromobility

- What Elon got wrong

With that, here’s Kara, Julia and Horace!

Catch us on Twitter. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our Micromobility Newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer Micromobility Pro membership that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

This episode is with LeGrand Crewse, founder of Super73, on the growth of his very distinctive brand. Ever since Oliver first saw the first image of the electrified mini taco bike, he thought that Super73 were on to something - they clearly understood what electrification buys you in terms of bike design, and they had focused on knobbly tyres, aesthetics and the likelihood that riders would end up using the throttle over really peddling to create something that was a substantial departure from anything we’d really seen in popular bike design before - most companies just electrified the existing form factors that they’d been making. 

So, it was awesome to sit down with LeGrand and talk about the history and where things are going for the company, including its expansion into motorbikes. 

Also, we didn’t really discuss it, but Oliver got to test ride their kids bike afterwards too, and that thing is going to sell like hotcakes. It’s built super tough and has an adult mode meaning that adults can ride it as well - check out Oliver's SoCal tour write up on Twitter for a video of him checking it out.  

Specifically they tackle:

- The history of Super73

- How the company has grown over time

- Funding and how they have thought about it

- Why they chose to raise less than their competitors

- The new motorbikes and the impact that they will have on servicing and maintenance

Take a closer look at Super73 on their website

And with that, here’s LeGrand!

Catch us on Twitter. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our Micromobility Newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer Micromobility Pro membership that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Benno Baenziger is an OG of the bike space, founding Electra Bikes back in 1993 as a recent immigrant to California from Germany and growing it through the 90s and 2000s till he sold it to a private equity group in 2008. He stuck around but eventually left to start Benno bikes in 2015 with a focus on what electric can bring to the bike industry. 

There’s a few things that you should know about Benno. Firstly, the company has less than 10 employees. He has really understood the bike industry and what makes for great bikes so focusses on the very specific points that he has as a designer to make great bikes and leaves the rest to others, a very different strategy to other companies in this space like Vanmoof or Cowboy who have chosen to eschew the old bike industry and try and do it themselves. 

Secondly, he’s profitable with no outside funding beyond what capital he put in himself.

Like the conversation with Josh Hon from Tern, Oliver learns so much about how the world works with experiences like this. It is an honour to bring you material like this and we hope that we get to do more of the tours - it’s always better to do these interviews in person! 

Finally, Micromobility World went great. It was one of our largest events to dates and We had a lot of really excellent content come out of it, the relevant ones of which we will drop as podcasts soon. 

And here's Benno!

Specifically they tackle:

- His background founding Electra Bikes and then moving on 

- Why, despite him saying that he’d not do another bike business, Benno Bikes exists 

- What is ‘etility’ and what does it offer to the customer 

- Why he’s chosen to go a more traditional route for componentry and servicing 

- How he has managed to self fund the company to date 

- The importance of design and quality in a brand

Catch us on Twitter. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our Micromobility Newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning. And for those who want more, we offer Micromobility Pro membership that includes exclusive content and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team.

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Firstly, they’ve got a pretty unique new metal folding technique for frame design which, if you listen to Horace and how he talks about how manufacturing techniques dictate how products evolve, has a lot of potential in offering lower cost, more innovative vehicle designs and companies. 

Secondly, they’re about to go into production with only around $1m raised, and 

Thirdly, they’ve just been the recipients of a $20m calcompete grant in California, which is one of the largest grants that we’ve ever seen given to a Micromobility company. We really like Dong and his attitude, and it’s a pleasure to be able to bring you this conversation.

Specifically they tackle

• The background to Ryvid
• The vehicle - The Anthem
• What they’re building - vehicles, battery systems etc
• Why they have chosen folded metal frames vs. more traditional frame systems and the impact of that on the bike
• How they have funded the company - equity, grants
• What Dong is excited about in the industry going forward

 And with that, here’s Dong!!

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

We were excited to hear that they’ve recently added payments, and so wanted to have them on to run through their growth and where they think the marketplace for mobility is going. 

We really enjoyed this conversation with Robin - he’s super smart and has clearly navigated through the challenges to build a product that we're really excited to use when next in Europe.

Specifically they tackle:

• The origins of Cogo with Robin's background in flight aggregators
• The rise of shared micromobility services and the use cases for having all mobility options in an app.
• The maturation of the shared micro business model and why now is the time for aggregation to occur
• Facilitating payments in the app, and regulatory barriers/opportunities for growth
• Who Robin sees as competition in this space

Learn more about Cogo App on their website.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Our recent Spotify Wrapped and general analytics we get from our podcast platform gave us a few really cool stats about the podcast. We’re in the top 5% of followed and shared podcasts shared globally, with listeners from 61 countries and the majority of you being new listeners who only found us in the last year. 

Exciting times! 

We're excited to rerelease what was our most listened to episode from 2022.  What is Micromobility and Why does it matter (2022 edition) that Horace and Oliver recorded at Micromobility Europe in June. We do these every so often as a recap of the thesis about why lightweight electric vehicles are interesting - cheap, best suited to the majority of trips that most people take and as vehicles, fast to evolve - and what micro therefore offers to the transport and decarbonisation conversation. 

In this episode we discuss what we got right back in 2018 when we started this podcast, what we were hoping to see that is either starting to happen or now common place, and what we got wrong. 

Specifically they tackle:

• Where the insight for micromobility came from
• The core tenets of what it is
• Electric, lightweight, utility
• Why it matters including how the world is urbanising, how we need to radically reduce emissions per vehicle, how most trips are short trips and how small vehicles evolve faster than small vehicles etc.
• Why it is significant to transport systems in terms of enabling point to point transport in dense urban areas
• What we got wrong in the last four years

Right before we head off to this. we wanted to also suggest that you check out the Rider Choice awards. These are the Oscars of the micromobility world ahead of Micromobility World on the 19th of Jan. We’ve just shifted to the semi-final rounds for many of the categories, and we’re excited to see which brands are considered the most popular whether it’s your favourite scooter, ebike, shared service or more - with tens of thousands of votes already in, be sure to not miss out. Check it out at Micromobility.io.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

It would be remiss not to note that Lit Motors has a storied history, to say the least. A quick scan of their Wikipedia page certainly makes that clear - like Oliver, there are a bunch of people who did put in pre-orders back in 2012 and 2013 that haven't seen a vehicle. But after meeting Danny and learning more about both his journey and also what technical issues they’ve managed to work through we are more excited than ever for the potential future of having lots of these crazy amazing vehicles zooming around our cities. We love bold founders who show incredible tenacity and grit in building something as bold as this.

Full disclosure, as mentioned in this episode, Oliver recently invested in Lit Motors on the basis of their team and technology. None of this should be construed as financial advice, and we are VERY aware that it was an insanely risky investment, but like Marc Randolph, the founder of Netflix said in a recent tweet storm, there are some times when you just want to have a seat in the arena to watch the journey, and to cheer on those crazy enough to try and build a better world. Danny is, in our mind, one of those.

Specifically they dig into:

- The early days of Lit Motors

- The promise and potential of gyro-balacing technology in car/vehicles

- Danny's accident in 2015 and the impact of that

- The team he's built

- The plan for the next few years

- The addressable market and implications of these vehicles if they work.

Right before we head off to this. we wanted to also suggest that you check out the Rider Choice awards. These are the Oscars of the micromobility world ahead of Micromobility World on the 19th of Jan. We’ve just shifted to the semi-final rounds for many of the categories, and we’re excited to see which brands are considered the most popular whether it’s your favourite scooter, ebike, shared service or more - with tens of thousands of votes already in, be sure to not miss out. Check it out at Micromobility.io.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

We love what they’re doing - they really have taken to heart what Horace talked about early on with the concept of what a smartphone on wheels would look like, rather than being a bike with phone bits stuck on. With the company about to ship bikes in Q1 next year, We wanted to bring David on to discuss their product but also their philosophy and what makes their vehicle different to any other bikes in the space. It’s a bold strategy, but I’m excited to see what conversations it’ll provoke about what a bike is or should be.

Specifically they tackle

• David's background and how you and Justin got into building crazy e-bikes that ride themselves
• What software the bike offers
• Where they’re at with Weel in terms of development/funding/etc
• The route to market
• Why no incumbents would be crazy enough to build this themselves
• What David sees as the future of ‘bikes’
  

Learn more about David here.

Visit the Weel website.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Tern is different from a lot of the other micromobility companies that we've had on the Micromobility Podcast in that it’s definitely more of a traditional bike company, using bike shops etc to sell and service their bikes in what has now grown to be 61 countries.

They also pass over it relatively quickly in this episode, but Tern is an amazing story in that Josh has raised only around 6m in funding to date.  

 We really valued Josh’s humility and perspective as someone who has been around the bike industry for a really long time, especially on his insights into Taiwan and what does/doesn’t work there. We are really looking forward to future discussions with him.

Specifically they tackle:

Josh's personal history and how he came to start Tern

The current range - what’s notable right now

How they’ve raised capital and built their team

Building in Taiwan - what should people know about what they’ve done

Also, if you haven’t already, please be sure to check out our Rider Choice Awards - the Oscars of the micromobility world. Voting is open now ahead of Micromobility World on the 19th of January. We’re excited to see which brands are considered the most popular whether it’s your favourite scooter, ebike, shared service or more - with tens of thousands of votes already in, be sure to not miss out. Check it out at Micromobility.io

To learn more about Tern Bikes, click here

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Murvah is one of those. We loved this interview. We got into the backstory for HIVED, what they’re building and why micro is core to their strategy. The world of package delivery is one that is here and real. We're super excited to follow her career and see them succeed.

In the meantime, if you haven’t check out our latest effort, the Rider Choice Awards. It is our industries version of the oscars, the baftas, the Top Gear Speed Week and the webby’s all tied into one. You can select the best firms and vehicles in more than 30 categories and get them selected for consideration ahead of judging for Micromobiltiy World, which is happening on January 19th online. We have many of the top brands in the world currently battling it out for top spot in the bike, scooter, pod, subscription business, shared operator and more from around the world. We’ve been blown away by the level of excitement from the community and are super excited to share the preliminary results with you. The first round of cutoff is coming this month, and then again next month so get your votes in quickly!

And now, here’s Murvah.

Specifically, they dig into:

• Murvah's background and what led to the foundation of HIVED
• The problem that they're trying to solve, and why micro is core to it
• Traction on HIVED to date
• Fundraising for businesses like this

In the meantime, if you haven’t check out our latest effort, the Rider Choice Awards. It is our industries version of the Oscars, the Baftas, the Top Gear Speed Week and the Webby’s all tied into one. You can select the best firms and vehicles in more than 30 categories and get them selected for consideration ahead of judging for Micromobiltiy World, which is happening on January 19th online. We have many of the top brands in the world currently battling it out for top spot in the bike, scooter, pod, subscription business, shared operator and more from around the world. We’ve been blown away by the level of excitement from the community and are super excited to share the preliminary results with you. The first round of cutoff is coming this month, and then again next month so get your votes in quickly!

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

This should really be listened to in context of the 5 Billion Riders talk that Horace gave at the conference, which is now on Youtube. Here, we dig into Horace’s thought pattern and the significance of mapping out addressable markets in informing the debate and opportunity for the space.

Specifically, they dig into:

• The backstory for Total Addressable Markets and why these matter
• What has changed since Horace’s early work in this space
• The potential impact of 5 billion riders
• Why this matters for companies raising

In the meantime, if you haven’t already, check out our latest effort, the Rider Choice Awards. It is our industry's version of the Oscars, the Baftas, the Top Gear Speed Week, and the Webby’s all tied into one. You can select the best firms and vehicles in more than 30 categories and get them selected for consideration ahead of judging for Micromobility World, which is happening on January 19th online. We have many of the top brands in the world currently battling it out for top spot in the bike, scooter, pod, subscription business, shared operator, and more from around the world. 

We’ve been blown away by the level of excitement from the community and are super excited to share the preliminary results with you. The first round of cutoff is coming this month, and then again next month so get your votes in quickly!

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

So it was awesome to more recently discover the team at Lug and Carrie, based in Australia, who are as far as we can tell, the largest e cargobike consumer subscription business globally (notwithstanding Dance and Swapfiets etc in Europe that do commuter bikes). 

As you’ll hear in this interview, Dan and Ben have absolutely nailed product market fit - e cargo bikes being absolutely perfect for subscription - and we’ve been super impressed with both them as a team but also their execution and positioning. It will be very exciting to see what this company goes on to do, especially with their forthcoming launch into larger markets.

Specifically, they dig into:

• Dan and Ben's backgrounds and what led to the formation of Lug and Carrie
• How it’s going - the model, vehicles, uptake etc
• What they have found fundraising/company building like
• What are their plans for the future

Check out Lug and Carrie's website here.

In the meantime if you haven’t check out our latest effort, the Rider Choice Awards. It is our industries version of the Oscars, The Baftas, The Top Gear Speed Week and the Webby’s all tied into one. You can select the best firms and vehicles in more than 30 categories and get them selected for consideration ahead of judging for Micromobiltiy World, which is happening on January 19th online. We have many of the top brands in the world currently battling it out for top spot in the bike, scooter, pod, subscription business, shared operator and more from around the world. We’ve been blown away by the level of excitement from the community and are super excited to share the preliminary results with you. The first round of cutoff is coming this month, and then again next month so get your votes in quickly!

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

We have long thought that the market for Micromobility would be most exciting in countries where automobility and electrification has yet to happen simply by nature of these vehicles being cheaper and the markets less attached to the past than OECD countries. It’s also the most exciting spot for future decarbonisation opportunities. 

Specifically they dig into:

• Roam’s backstory - how they ended up building EV’s from Kenya
• The details of the bikes and what Roam is working on
• What has been hard/different about building for
• How much Roam has raised and what the market for raising is like

Connect with Albin on LinkedIn

Learn more about Roam here

We are committed to finding more people to interview in this space. If there’s anyone listening to this who can give us an introduction to the team at Ola in India please let us know via Twitter DM’s or at oliver@micromobility.io. We would love to have that conversation with them and about their electrification efforts given that they’ve just shipped their 100,000th electric moped in only just over a year since starting production.

In the meantime if you haven’t check out our latest effort, the Rider Choice Awards, you really should check it out. It is our industries version of the Oscars, the Baftas, the Top Gear Speed Week and the Webby’s all tied into one. You can select the best firms and vehicles in more than 30 categories and get them selected for consideration ahead of judging for Micromobiltiy World, which is happening on January 19th online. We have many of the top brands in the world currently battling it out for top spot in the bike, scooter, pod, subscription business, shared operator and more from around the world. We’ve been blown away by the level of excitement from the community and are super excited to share the preliminary results with you. The first round of cutoff is coming this month, and then again next month so get your votes in quickly!

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

We are always VERY interested in how micromobility will create and enable new production techniques for lightweight electric vehicles, and we think that what Stilride have built might offer something very interesting to the conversation. 

As Horace has often laid out, the manufacturing technique determines so much about a product, and new vehicle manufacturing techniques like iStream from Gordon Murray or modularised microfactories that Stilride talk about, so goes new types of vehicles that can be created.

Specifically they tackle:

• The background of Stilride and what they are building
• The significance of alternative vehicle fabrication techniques
• Why Jonas is working on his own vehicle and what’s significant about it
• The manufacturing technique and what it offers
• The details about the moped
• Fundraising to date and what has worked/not worked

Find Jonas on LinkedIn and learn more about Stilride right here

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

He’s been a real advocate for the space and it was great to reconnect at Micromobility America and to get into more depth about the opportunities that exist in micromobility around the edges and in niches that otherwise aren’t always covered. 

We really enjoyed this conversation and hope you do too.

Specifically they discuss:

• Sam's background with Wunder Mobility and what led to the formation of Mobility Fund
• What he is focused on at Mobility Fund, and where he is excited about opportunities
• Who are his LP’s and why are they interested in this space?
• What Sam thought of Micromobility America and what we can be doing to better tell the story of micro

You can connect with Sam on LinkedIn here

And you can learn more about what is happening with Mobility Fund here

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

South Korea is one of the worlds biggest shared micro markets and also one of the most underreported. This interview lifts the lid on the growth of the space and why the unique regulatory environment, high incomes, dense urban environment and other factors has contributed to one of the highest levels of penetration per capita for shared than anywhere else on the planet. 

In this great first exclusive interview with San, they unpack:

• The background of San at Softbank and auto companies and how that perspective gave him the idea for Swing
• How they got into the scooter game initially
• The South Korean landscape - players, regulations and other contributing factors
• How they’ve managed to build such a strong operational team and how that compares relative to other companies around the world
• How he’s thinking about growing the company - focus on competition vs expansion
• How they’ve raised capital over time

To learn more about San and Swing Scooters, visit his LinkedIn page.

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Specifically they dig into:

- What is Ride Review and why is it important?

- The significance of discovery in a fast changing environment

- The origin of why Micromobility Industries was uniquely placed to roll this out

- The wider mission of Micromobility Industries and what they’re trying to achieve in supporting the industry.

You can follow James on Twitter and LinkedIn

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Specifically they dig into:

• The history of the space and how they’ve grown
• What he sees as the opportunities for shared micromobility
• The importance of city regulations
• The injustice of how these vehicles are viewed relative to other options

From Julia - I don't think I've ever laughed so hard during an interview as when Wayne Ting, CEO of Lime told Micromobility America that Micromobility can't just be for "white boys". Check out the full video, and Wayne's other quotable comments on our You Tube Channel

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

We’re going to be releasing a few of these talks on the podcast over the next few weeks. If you’re also interested in seeing them as videos, a number of them are up on the Micromobility Industries Youtube channel.

Panel topic:

Panel of investors to discuss how to harness cleantech and mobility funds in the U.S. and Europe for micromobility. Especially well-suited for software start-ups and for policymakers who are trying to attract more start-ups to their geographies.

Specifically they tackle:

• We've seen firms like Elemental invest in low GHG on-road transport software plays like Weavegrid or lots of EV charging infrastructure. We've not seen so much go into micromobility companies. Why do they think that is?
• What is the opportunity for entrepreneurs building in the space? And where (geographically) the opportunities for funding are.
• What counts as micromobility software – where does it start and end? And how does that definition translate to where companies should look for funding?
• Why hasn’t the general mobility investment funding translated to micromobility investments? Is the space still too nascent?
• What the iPhone of micromobility is going to be, and what will the killer app be?
• How do we insulate newer companies from being tarred by the current terrible performance of micromobility services and software on the public markets?
• How policy has changed the playing field for micromobility compared to other modes in cities, and what’s software got to do with leveling that playing field? 
• What are the coolest software companies or services that they have seen in the micromobility space and why they are interesting.

A big thank you to our panelists:

Alex Mitchell, LA Cleantech Incubator 

Olaf Sakkers, GP, RedBlue capital 

Avra Van Der Zee, COO, Elemental Excelerator

Sam Baker, GP, Mobility Fund

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Turkey is proportionately underserved with transport options in the cities – Istanbul is considered one of the most congested cities in the world. This was a great conversation and Alper is a real go-getter in the Micromobility space. 

This was a great conversation, especially around funding and the importance of building Micromobility markets for the demographics and countries that they are operating in. 

Lots of lessons in this episode. Oliver will be interviewing Alper again at the Micromobility America conference which, is happening on the 15th and 16th of September, so hopefully we will see you there and if not, we will have all of these conversations and videos coming out and up in the very near future.

Specifically they tackle:

• The backstory for Marti
• Their vehicles 
• Regulations and the Micromobility market in Turkey
• Fundraising and their plans for the NYSE listing
• What the exciting next steps are for Marti

If you like this, you’ll love Micromobility America - coming up in San Francisco on the 15th and 16th of September 2022. We are expecting 1000 people from hundreds of companies to talk about the latest on Micromobility technology services companies and more, as well as the wider implication for micromobility in climate, transport systems and cities. I will be up there and would love to see you there – please come and join us by getting your tickets at micromobility.io

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Specifically they dig into:

• Her background and how she got to Rocky Mountain Institute
• What RMI does around urban transport / electrification
• Why Micromobility is important in the overall mix, and why it’s different from other options (especially around funding/infrastructure)
• What steps we need to take to accelerate adoption

Our host Oliver has often joked that if you spend enough time talking about Micromobility, you end up falling backwards into discussions about urbanism, space allocation and what makes for great cities. Jason nails why that is in this interview, and being in the Netherlands for this conference we can see what he was referring to. The intersection between transport, vehicles, felt experience and finances are all laid to bear. 

This was also released on our YouTube channel that has turned out to be our most popular ever with more than 100,000 views on You Tube.

Specifically they tackle:

• The origin of Not Just Bikes and Jason's background
• Why car dependency creates sprawled suburbs
• How urban planning and design can determine if a city will suck or not
• A city that is built for cars is not built for people
• We need to move away from building car-centric cities, and instead build people-friendly cities with walkable neighbourhoods and good land use.
• Any micromobility solution needs to be compatible with walking

If you like this, you’ll love Micromobility America coming up in San Francisco on the 15th and 16th of September 2022. We are expecting 1000 people from hundreds of companies to talk about the latest on Micromobility technology services companies and more, as well as the wider implication for micromobility in climate, transport systems and cities. I will be up there and would love to see you there – please come and join us by getting your tickets at micromobility.io

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

They also discuss the Chinese micro electric car industry to date which is an area that is desperately undercovered here in the West. 

Specifically they tackle:

- How Marcus got to starting Eli 

- Why there is a big opportunity in this space for small vehicles

- The specifications of the vehicle itself

- How Eli is handling manufacturing, Chinese design and supply chains and transport

- The fundraising journey for the company

As you’ll hear at the end, Marcus will be one of the companies that is presenting at Micromobility America on the 15/16th of September in the Bay Area. He’ll be joining the Micromobility team, and about 1000 others to talk about the latest in micromobility and lightweight electric vehicles. He’ll be a part of the pitch competition that will happen on the stage on the 16th alongside amazing other companies such as Taur Scooters, Bo Mobility, BiMotal, Weel and more. We’re expecting this to be our best event yet. Get your tickets now at micromobility.io

You can find out more about what is happening with Eli on their website 

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Micromobility Europe is coming to San Francisco in September 2022! Learn more and get tickets here.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Whee is a cargo bike subscription service based in Oslo Norway. Kari Anne won this years inaugural Micromobility accelerate pitch competition that we had at the Micromobility Europe conference in June. She was selected by a group of judges as the best presenter on the day for a new Micromobility service or product. The judges noted her quirky style but also a really solid business under it. 

One thing not covered in this episode was Kari Anne's low cost of acquisition and very low levels of churn that they’ve had with their subscription businesses.  

Specifically they dig into:

• The backstory of Whee! and why it exists
• How the service has grown, customer expectations and unpacking ‘there is a lot of money to be made from taking women seriously'
• The subscription model and why it holds promise
• The fundraising/company building experience they’ve had to date

Oliver really enjoyed this conversation and has enjoyed the opportunity to get to know Kari Anne over the last couple of months/ He has come to the realisation that we don’t include enough conversations here about Micromobility for families or women, something that we plan to do better on - If you have any ideas please message Micromobility on Twitter.

If you’ve not yet heard, Micromobility America is coming up in San Francisco on the 15th and 16th of September 2022 and we are expecting over 1000 people from hundreds of companies to talk about the latest on Micromobility technology services companies and more. The Micromobility team will be up there and would love to see you there – please come and join us by getting your tickets at micromobility

Catch us on Twitter @MicromobilityCo. Horace and Oliver are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Micromobility Europe is coming to San Francisco in September 2022! Learn more and get tickets here.

Our newsletter is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday morning here! And for those who want more, we offer our Micromobility membership (mmm — “Triple M”) which includes exclusive content, swag, and conference discounts, as well as live calls with Horace and team!

We’re also on LinkedIn and Instagram.

This week we're releasing a talk from our recent Micromobility Europe Conference, with Horace interviewing Azeem Azhar.

Azeem is one of the great thinkers in the space of smart cities, the importance of exponential technologies like Micromobility and how they relate to governance and the social contract.

You may recall that we interviewed him earlier this year. Both Horace and Azeem are big fans of each other and at the recent conference they got to sit down and really nut out the importance of the city and how it relates to Micromobility.

These are the sort of conversations that we want to be having on the Infinite Block so if you have any suggested guests, please reach out to us on Twitter or email  Oliver@micromobility.io with ideas. We'd love to hear from you.

Find out more about Azeem and his involvement in micromobility here.

When Amazon launched their 'micromobility hub' in the UK recently, an EAV bike was the pictured bike used in promotional material for the announcement.

Micromobility for freight hasn’t been discussed a lot on the podcast, and it was really exciting to unpack the implications of Micromobility and see how it conforms to the thesis that Horace and Oliver have been weighing out of the last couple of years.

It is especially exciting to hear that EAV is fundamentally changing the business model of last mile delivery, where interestingly more than half of the cost of delivery is incurred. Adam was part of the Micromobility Accelerate pitch contest that in the recent Micromobility Europe conference in June.

Specifically they tackle:

• The background for EAV and how it came to be founded
• What EAV builds, and why it matters impact of cargo vans in cities
• Their traction to date including recent business development deals and the sales pipeline to operators working for large ecommerce platforms.
• The fundraising journey so far

See more of what Adam is doing within the micromobillity industry here.

You can view the EAV website here

Micromobility America conference coming up on the 15th and 16th of September in the Bay Area. We will have over 1000 guests from hundreds of companies talking about the future of Micromobility and how it can simultaneously help us with climate change while, disrupting the urban transport economics of cities. It’s going to be a wonderful reunion for the industry to all get together with incredible vehicles, including the Nimbus which Oliver covered in episode 141, as well as the new autonomous bike from Weel which we will be covering on a future podcast , as well as a whole heap of other really cool product announcements. Learn more and get tickets here.