VIA buses?, Felix's rise, Jatri commute, Revel's comeback and more 'moving people' news

VIA expanding into buses and autonomous shuttles, opportunities all around in smart commute, new MEA regional micromobility player and 69 autonomous Apple cars in California.

Bus-Sharing & DRT?

VIA is expanding to operate buses. Transportation agencies in Austin and Winnipeg had local newspapers reporting a new on-demand service, with buses, not vans, in the article’s text and pictures. What do both have in common? Powered by VIA. Not that meaningful to riders themselves, but achieving optimisation with buses is a big deal for VIA’s algorithms.?

Also VIA partnered with May Mobility to power autonomous shuttles in the US. This time with cars.?

An opinion piece of Bangladesh’s rise in Bus-Sharing illustrates the opportunity in emerging markets. Traffic is a mess; governments are ill-equipped and underfunded to cope; the whole thing is just getting worse and worse. The pandemic didn’t help either; in the short term people avoid public transport. In comes private Bus-Sharing using tech tools to save the day. In Bangladesh’s case, Jatri (which the writer is a seed investor in) is connecting demand & supply on the commute journeys, and, in the future, expected to act as part of the public transport system, assisting with the daily commute.?

Another opinion piece - this time by the founder & CEO of Hip - about how hybrid work will change commute, cough, create opportunity, in the developed world. With most companies returning to some type of hybrid work, companies will put a further emphasis on flexibility, efficiency and health.?

Miles raised a round A $12.5M to develop their ground travel reward platform. The company has grown its reward program, adding functionalities (charity contribution, weekly challenges) and partners (Lego, HP, Disney+) and is also data sharing with cities and transit agencies. Read what the founder and CEO has to say about their journey.?

Ride-hailing

Back in June NYC blocked Revel’s new ride-hailing service, but now the company has launched its all-Tesla-electric-cars all-drivers-are-employees service. With circa 50 cars the service will not move the needle for NYC transportation, but might give Revel some insights on the use of electric vehicles as taxis, on the ‘employee drivers’ business model and on the willingness-to-pay of NYC residents.?

The question of the employment status of the people driving ride-hailing cars - employees or individual contractors - has now reached Massachusetts by the gig-economy “LUPID” (Lyft, Uber, Postmates, Instacart, Doordash and local others) coalition that won prop 22 in California. Local state laws define gig-workers as employees, but LUPID has been able to change that in California and create an IC+ (Independent contractor plus) model. Are we going towards a ‘servant economy’?

Africa: Uber’s financing partner, Moove, has raised another $23M bringing the total to ±$70M. The company finances cars for ride-hailing and logistic drivers, and is Uber’s exclusive partner. More on QZ and Techcrunch.?

Micromobility

Abu-Dhabi Fenix acquires Turkish Palm, allowing Felix’s expansion into Turkey. What’s so unique about this acquisition? (1) that Palm was bought for exactly the amount it so-far raised and (2) Fenix, who has not yet raised a series A, had to call on existing investors to make the deal happen. Fenix is now the #1 micromobility operator in the region with a foothold in what is perhaps the largest regional market.?

Scooter wars are expected to continue on the stock market.?

Voi raised $45M to improve safety and keep users from riding on sidewalks, with the aid of computer vision. Bird is adding community safe zones, in which scooter speed will be automatically reduced. Bird is piloting with municipalities in Miami, Madrid and Marseillies, with the first zones being schools. Meanwhile in Milwaukee, the city has banned scooters for too much sidewalk riding.??

Autonomous

Apple car? Yes. The company has 69 test vehicles in California, the 3rd largest autonomous fleet after Google’s Waymo and GM Cruise. Apple has yet to test its vehicles on open roads, which is probably why there is still no media hysteria around the subject. Motional, an Aptic & Hyundai company, is also expanding its California presence.?

Diamler and Bosch are giving up on their joint autonomous project “Athena”. Are robotaxis, i.e. autonomous cars in urban environments, on the road to nowhere? Roger is making a compelling argument.??

Bytes

Joby Aviation went public. The company plans to commercialize in 2024, and has $1.6bn in case to do so. Two weeks ago the company performed the longest eVTOL flight - 150 miles in an hour and 17 minutes - on a single charge. NYSE: JOBY started at $10.62, and now (mid-day Aug. 17th in the UK) it is at $9.98 and going up. Some say it could get worse for Joby, as the market is bubbling (overvaluation), excitement from eVTOLS has faded and there is a possibility of future dilution.?

Hydrogen - what is it good for? An easy to understand analysis of Hydrogen’s future uses makes it clear who wins where in the electricity-hydrogen wars (disclosure: the author is Zeelo’s Chairman).

Arrival published its Q2/21 financial report. The company has 59,000 vehicle orders. Non-binding orders for now, but the company sees a bright >$1bn revenue future. By the end of the year the company plans to test its first bus in the UK. More on TechCrunch.?

Karshare (P2P renting) raised €3.54 to continue expansion across the UK.??

Read the script The Boring Company is giving their employees. Travis Kalanick secret cloud hitchens.