Macro changes in common practices

Issue #61, Feb 18th, 2021

The sweeping changes happening in the mobility sector are not limited only to the modes of transportation used. Popular, tried and tested methodologies like Toyota's JIT or pull based systems are replaced by stock piling of critical parts, for the chips that face an acute shortage. Artificial Intelligence is used for automated vehicle insurance renewals. New business models that offer vehicles on a subscription-basis are tried out. New metrics are used to measure the performance of public transit. New fuels and networks of their stations are used to run the vehicles. Here are some interesting updates reported recently.

Toyota just broke its JIT rule to manage chip shortage

In contrast to the rest of the auto industry, Toyota said it wasn’t expecting a shortfall of semiconductors. In the 1960s and 70s, the Japanese heavyweight invented the art of just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing — a strategy rooted in keeping a low stock of inventories on hand to cut costs and boost margins, while streamlining production.

Ironically, despite its adherence to such tight manufacturing, Toyota’s inventory levels have continued to tick up over the last decade and through the global financial crisis and natural disasters in Japan and Thailand. Toyota created a system called “Rescue” that took a look deep into its tiers of suppliers. As part of this, it built a database that stores supply chain information for around 6,800 parts, giving the company a lens into where the shortages and challenges were. - Bloomberg

The subscription-based business model

Revel, the electric-moped sharing company, announced recently that it will soon begin leasing electric bicycles in New York City, hoping to capitalize on cycling’s surge in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Revel joins other companies in North America, including Zygg and Beyond, offering leases for people who want the convenience of owning an electric bike or scooter without the responsibility for maintenance and repairs. - WSJ

New measures for public transportation

Of all the information that U.S. public transit agencies track, none is more important to them than ridership — the number of people boarding its buses, trains and subway cars. But the coronavirus pandemic has shown that ridership is an imperfect measure of transit’s importance. 

Given ridership’s limitations, it’s worth asking if an alternative metric could provide a clearer picture of transit’s value. Happily, there is one — “access,” which quantifies a transit system’s ability to help people reach the places they want to go. The basic method of calculating access is intuitive: Pick a particular neighborhood, and then determine the time it would take for a person living there to use transit to reach jobs dispersed throughout the region. - Bloomberg

AI for automated car insurance

Liberty General Insurance has automated vehicle inspections for car insurance policy renewals and claim assessments using AI. This is expected to transform the car inspection process, which is currently dominated by manual inspections. Under the AI-based inspection process, end-customers capture photos or videos of a car for policy renewals and claim assessment. These photos or videos are sent to the cloud and an automated inspection report, covering damage and claim assessment, gets generated within a few seconds. - ET Auto

Charging points in condominiums

The Singapore government has been taking steps to boost EV charging points across the island, with the aim to deploy 60,000 points at public car parks and private premises by 2030 as announced earlier this month in the Singapore Green Plan 2030. However, drivers said private housing developments have been slow to install charging points. - Channel News Asia

Hydrogen pumps in gas stations

Japanese companies are moving to expand the country's still-nascent hydrogen fueling infrastructure, taking advantage of recent deregulation as Tokyo positions the fuel as central to its pivot away from carbon. Eased regulations will enable hydrogen pumps to be set up at existing gas stations. - Nikkei Asia

EU and hydrogen projects

The European Union has made hydrogen a key plank in its aim to eliminate its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with plans to install 40GW of electrolysers this decade - equipment to produce emissions-free hydrogen using water and renewable power. The EU currently has less than 0.1GW of electrolysers and is betting on a rapid scale-up to decarbonise steel, heavy transport and chemicals, the latter of which already uses hydrogen produced from fossil fuels. - ET Auto