5️⃣0️⃣ Reasons for Walkable Streets
Plus, Uber Eats devours Uber Rides, Veo snags $16m, and Ola’s moped sees Cybertruck-sized preorders.
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Don’t Miss…
People ask us: How can micromobility startups align their market entry strategies, with cities’ desired policy outcomes, to score coveted permits?
To help them, Oliver Bruce, co-host of The Micromobility Podcast, is hosting an in-depth virtual panel next week—featuring experts from Particle and Superpedestrian—about policy, permits, and more. It’s going to be full of timely, practical info for operators.
The Longview
FastCo has 50 reasons why everyone should want more walkable streets. Reason #4: “Someone with a one-hour commute in a car needs to earn 40% more to be as happy as someone with a short walk to work. On the other hand, researchers found that if someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.”
Sobering statistic on American road deaths: “In the last decade, fatalities for car drivers and passengers have increased by no more than 2 percent, but pedestrian fatalities are up almost 50%.”
Tesla has started selling its “Full Self Driving” package for $199 a month. The cars still don’t drive themselves, but FSD does point to a new and likely lucrative subscription model for ADAS.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi predicts Eats will be a bigger business than Rides in the long run. (Indeed, Uber added grocery delivery in 400 cities this week.)
Why “infrastructure” is such a tricky word to define.
The more time a vehicle is in use, the more money it can make.
Ubiq’s Fleet Rebalancing API addresses this by providing rebalancing suggestions for each vehicle. While our StreetCrowd service enables complete crowdsourced fleet repositioning, the API-only version offers rebalancing recommendations without the execution. Combine it with our Operations Management Application and you are ready to go with your ops team or external service provider.
Want to make your business profitable? Let’s get in touch!
From the 1-min city (Stockholm) to the 1,000-min city (Turin), here’s an interesting look at how urban planners are tinkering with Paris’s 15-min concept.
What if employers that subsidize parking at work were required to offer an equal cash benefit (aka a “parking cash out”) to employees who don’t drive? “After employers offered the cash option, solo driving to work fell 17%, carpooling increased 64%, transit ridership increased 50%, and walking or biking increased 39%.”
The vast amount of user, traffic, and mapping data Didi collects is becoming a liability in China.
Used car prices in the U.S. climbed an insane 10.5% in June.
Do online shoppers really use their cars less? Maybe not. A study from China indicates that online shopping is more likely to reduce trips to the store among non-car users than car users.
Why is promoting active transportation crucial to meeting our climate goals? An Oxford researcher sums it up: “If all new cars sold were electric, it would take 15-20 years to replace the world’s fossil fuel car fleet.”
The Microview
Micromobility operator Veo has raised a $16m Series A round to fund U.S. expansion. Led by Autotech Ventures.
Ola is seeing a huge response for its soon-to-launch e-moped, reporting that more than 100k potential buyers placed orders on the first day of presales. However, you probably should take those Cybertruck-sized booking numbers with a grain of salt. The fee to reserve a moped, 500 Rs ($6.70), is a tiny fraction of the total price.
Superpedestrian has acquired Navmatic, a startup that helps detect and control unsafe e-scooter behavior by slowing or stopping the vehicle in real time.
A Fluctuo survey of 16 European markets found that, as cities shook off travel restrictions, shared scooter ridership increased by 200% since June 2020.
Traffic management platform NoTraffic has raised $17.5m in Series A funding to double the size of its team. Led by Nielsen Ventures.
India’s Zypp Electric unveiled a new heavy-duty electric moped designed for last-mile logistics and delivery.
Bird is requiring late-night riders to complete an in-app puzzle before unlocking a scooter in an attempt to discourage inebriated riders
Rad Power is out with a new version of its flagship e-bike, the RadRover. As the company’s most expensive bike to date ($2k), it features a bevy of important upgrades, including hydraulic disc brakes, a custom geared-hub motor, a new ergonomic frame, an improved LED display, and a semi-integrated battery.
Revel is using a scheduling app to charge its moped fleet without straining New York City’s electrical grid.
Experts are arguing about whether it’s safe to let kids ride e-bikes.
What to know about buying moped insurance.
Apple Watch lead Kevin Lynch is shifting to a new role focusing on Project Titan, Apple’s mysterious vehicle project.
Jobs to Be Done
Welcome to our jobs board, where every week we post open positions in hopes of connecting our 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.
Dance:
Senior Mechanical Engineer (Berlin)
Senior Supplier Quality Engineer (Taiwan)
Senior Firmware Engineer - Hardware (Berlin)
Joyride: Academy Manager + Hardware Partnerships Manager (Toronto)
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