🤯 E-bike Sales Jump +3x
Plus, Ola Electric scores $200m, eSC teases high-speed scooter specs, and Europe cracks down on e-bike hacking.
Hello and welcome to the Micromobility Newsletter, a weekly missive about mobility, mostly mobility in cities by small electric vehicles (e.g. e-bikes, scooters, mopeds). The reason you’re reading this email is that you signed up on our website or came to one of our events.
If you’re not a subscriber and you want to keep getting the latest news and analysis from inside the micromobility movement delivered straight to your inbox every Tuesday, sign up here for free. If you’d like to unsubscribe, just click that link.
Thank you for reading.
Streaming Soon
We talk a lot about how lightweight electric vehicles are going to unbundle the car. But with the growth of e-commerce, especially in the last 18 months, what about the delivery van? A couple of important stats:
📦 E-commerce revenue is expected to top $6.3t in the next three years.
🚚 A recent study found that, in the largest urban markets, cargo bikes deliver parcels 60% faster than vans.
🚲 Already some of the world’s largest logistics companies, including Amazon, FedEx, and DHL, are rolling out two- and three-wheelers to optimize last-mile deliveries.
All of which is to say the intersection of micromobility and logistics is going to be a very big deal.
So don’t miss our next webinar, as Nathan Wang, head of micromobility at Particle, and Oliver Bruce, co-host of The Micromobility Podcast, discuss the future of lightweight electric vehicles as a means of last-mile delivery in urban environments.
What You Need to Know This Week
In the wake of the pandemic, US e-bike revenue grew by a mind-blowing 240% in the 12 months ending in July 2021, year-over-year, according to NPD Group. That’s compared to a 15% increase for all cycling equipment during the same timeframe. Electric bikes are now the third largest cycling category in terms of sales revenue, ahead of road bikes.
Ola Electric has raised $200m at a valuation of $3b following the highly successful rollout of its first two models of e-mopeds this summer. The Indian startup says it sold $150m worth of sit-down scooters in just two days.
With 1 out of 10 Parisians cycling daily, Paris now ranks among the top 10 bike cities in the world.
Latin American micromobility provider Tembici has raised $80m in Series C funding to launch in more cities and expand e-bike delivery.
Automated Rebalancing and Charging as a Service close the gap between supply and demand in micromobility: 60%-80% of the market demand is not met, which leads to a huge drag on revenue. Ubiq addresses that by placing vehicles in the right place at the right time. They are charged and redeployed to generate a revenue boost of 20% within 8 weeks.
Want to close the gap between supply and demand? Get in touch here.
Do laws requiring that shared e-scooters be locked to bike racks actually make streets and sidewalks any safer?
A 15mph speed limit is expected to be introduced across the city of London in 2022. London’s proposed speed limit goes even further than Paris, which recently introduced a groundbreaking law requiring cars travel no faster than 19mph in the city.
As well, Paris may soon introduce “noise radars” to target loud motorcycles and reduce noise pollution.
A majority of Americans say transportation policy should “shift trips toward transit, walking, and biking,” according to a new poll. But that same study also shows most Americans think the central goal of transportation planning should not be to reduce driving…
A group of 68 European bike companies have signed onto an industry-wide commitment to prevent people from hacking their e-bikes for more speed and power.
The White House bike-share station is back after being removed in 2017.
Orion Electrics Company is making e-bikes available in low-income areas in Ohio at highly affordable rates (starting at $899 to purchase or $10/month to lease).
The eSkootr Championship (eSC), the world’s first standing electric scooter race, has released some more specs about its model S1-X: “The 12 kW (16 hp) electric scooters split their power between two in-wheel hub motors, and a special boost button will be available to dump an extra 20% power on straightaways. Stored energy comes from a 1.5 kWh battery under the deck of the scooter.”
Oslo’s government voted to increase the city’s cycling budget by 60% next year. Now that’s how you get behind biking.
Looking beyond electric cars, many cities around the world are electrifying ferries, trams, buses, and other other forms of mass transit.
Lime says scooter usage in the U.K. has spiked 20-40% recently because of fuel shortages.
This new 19lbs electric bicycle claims to be the lightest in the world.
Tortoise is expanding remote-operated robotic delivery to convenience stores across the US through a new two-year strategic partnership with King Retail Solutions.
Dott is planning a major expansion of shared e-bikes throughout Western Europe this fall.
United Airlines has removed all special fees for flying with a bicycle, finally following the lead of Delta and American.
Forbes reports on what it saw at the first Micromobility America conference in over two years: “It is telling that at least 3 exhibitors were promoting hardware and software to make their scooters better behaved for cities.”
Pod People
New episode of the podcast—featuring Jaideep Dhanoa, co-founder and CEO of UAE-based micromobility startup Fenix—is out, exploring the emerging market for micromobility in the Middle East and Asia. A few topics:
🚲 Lessons from the Chinese bike-share bubble
🌍 Strategies for shared scooters in the Gulf States
🇹🇷 Why Istanbul could be the next Paris
Jobs to Be Done
Welcome to our jobs board, where every week we post open positions in hopes of connecting our talented readers with professional opportunities in the burgeoning world of new mobility. Find out who’s hiring below and sign up for the newsletter to view fresh listings every week.
Hit reply if you have a job that you’re interested in listing.
Publicity Director @ Micro-AV (Seattle)
Growth Marketing Manager @ Shift Transit (Chicago or remote)
Head of Growth & Growth Marketing Manager @ Unagi (remote)
Zoba (location flexible):