🌐 Meet the Global Micromobility Subsidy Tracker
Plus, Velotric raises $12M, Uber Eats teams with HumanForest, and Taiwan’s eBike exports soar.
Hi - Micromobility is coming to Autonomy Paris! Naturally we want to see all our amazing European friends, so Askoll EVA and us are organizing a lively get-together on the evening of March 22nd. Location TBA. Someplace fun.
Join us, alongside industry insiders from all over the world, for drinks and conversation. RSVP now to guarantee your spot on the guest list.
Today’s newsletter is presented by… Faction Bike Studio
Faction Bike Studio is the one-stop solution for product development in the micromobility industry; offering strategy, design, development, and industrialization services. Entrusted with over 350 projects, from 100+ clients from around the world. Faction incorporates client values with extensive knowledge to develop unique design solutions. Learn more here.
What You Need to Know Today
We’ve just launched a groundbreaking new tool to help individuals looking to purchase small electric vehicles, such as bikes, mopeds, scooters, and more, find financial assistance. The Micromobility Global Incentives and Subsidy Tracker is a first-of-its-kind database for tracking government incentives and subsidies for small electric vehicles worldwide.
The tracker provides up-to-date information on +400 government incentives in +30 countries, allowing users to easily compare and select the best options for them. The tool also includes information on relevant regulations and policies in each country, as well as a link to each program. Check it out!
Micromobility subsidies are important in part because they are shown to reduce car usage. A study from Denver found that 71% of people who bought an electric bike as part of the city’s voucher program drove less as a result.
… subsidies are also good because they make safe, high-quality batteries more accessible to those who need them most. From the NYT: “New lithium-ion bike batteries typically cost at least $300 (and often much more), forcing many riders to turn to lower-quality products. ‘There is definitely a market where people don’t want to spend that,’ said Mr. Wohl of Armstrong Teasdale. ‘Delivery guys don’t have a lot of money and they want to go as fast as they can because the more trips, the more tips.’”
New York City is on the verge of passing a law that would ban retailers from selling electric bikes and scooters that are not UL certified. No word yet on how the city plans to make high-end alternatives less expensive to delivery workers and other riders… perhaps a subsidy.
ICMYI: Ride On! is giving away the all-new RadRunner 3 Plus. For your chance to win, subscribe to our YouTube channel and comment on our latest episode. We’ll announce the winner on this week’s episode, so be sure to tune in…
Impressive stat: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in the city of London.
Velotric, a new electric bike maker founded by Lime and Didi veterans, has raised $12M for expansion.
Uber Eats has named HumanForest as its first EV moped delivery partner.
Taiwan’s electric bike exports reached a historic high of +1M units last year.
Bike prices have fallen by as much as 40% in Germany in response to ebbing supply chain issues.
Industry experts say the lack of “approved used” marketplaces is holding back electric bike adoption.
Lime is suing Hertz for allegedly poaching engineers.
On the latest episode of The Micromobility Podcast, Horace Dediu and Oliver Bruce explore why everything about Apple’s culture, strategy, and vision would lend the company to being very bad at making cars.
Ultraviolette, an Indian electric motorcycle startup that is backed by TVS Motors, is seeking to raise up to $120M to grow its vehicle platform.
As Paris prepares to vote on the fate of shared scooters next month, France’s Minister of Transportation calls for restrictions on operators rather than a ban.
Related: Lime is being criticized for the (brilliant move) of giving away free scooter rides to Paris residents who register to vote in the referendum. Meanwhile, Madrid’s mayor is making the city’s electric bike service free in the run-up to Spanish city’s elections in an effort to curry favor with voters. Again, brilliant move.
A new study from Philadelphia finds that the availability of electric bikes led more low-income residents to try bikeshare.
The growing number of electric bikes on backcountry trails across America is aggravating traditional cyclists, pitting two tribes of weekend warriors against each other.
Vietnam’s VinFast is launching a rental arm for its EV mopeds and cars—and maybe someday bikes?
Amsterdam-based moped sharer Check is adding rental cars to its fleet for the first time.
According to a new study, where you take your scooter depends on what kind of scooter you ride. For example, shared scooters are primarily ridden for leisure, while privately-owned scooters are more often used for commuting.
A French service called Fredo is trying to transplant the business of bikesharing from the city to the suburb.
Pon.Bike has broken ground on a new factory in Lithuania. When complete, the new plant will churn out 450,000 bikes and eBikes per year for Gazelle, Kalkhoff, Focus, and Urban Arrow.
After hitting a 40-year high in 2021, U.S. pedestrian deaths rose another 5% in the first half of 2022.
Last year SUVs emitted as much CO2 globally as the countries of Germany and the U.K. combined.
Browse the best jobs in micromobility—and post your own—on our Jobs to Be Done board. Featured jobs:
We continually hear motorists demanding that city bicycle riders should have to register their bicycles. We’ll be following your story on e-bike registration in Paris. If it is successful, we’ll be sure to bring it up when we meeting with fellow advocates and government elected(s). One less roadblock for motorists to except bicycles as legit vehicles with potential ancillary benefits like an opening up used e-bikes markets? Very interesting.