This Week in Mobility № 130
Seattle property owner builds a fence around car2go vehicle for illegally parking on his property. He’s demanding car2go pay $65 per day, $300 to build the fence and $500 for harassment. At first, the property owner tried to tow the car but 3 tow companies refused because he didn’t have a private property sign. LINK
- FLASHBACK: The founder of a local bike rental company starts a scooter towing company to remove scooters from private property. Bird and Lime must pay bike co towing and storage fees to get them back. LINK
Hertz is testing a subscription service for $999 per month in Atlanta and Austin. Subscribers can change cars two times a month and includes maintenance, roadside assistance, and some insurance coverage all within the monthly fee. Some on the Twitter question why they called the service “Hertz My Car” and not “My Car Hertz” LINK
- FLASHBACK: Enterprise is a testing subscription service for $1,499 per month in Nevada, Missouri, and Minnesota. Subscribers can change cars four times a month and includes physical damage and liability insurance, vehicle maintenance, and roadside assistance all within the monthly fee. LINK
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Swedish creative communications agency ODD Company launches an on-demand Pogo stick app in San Francisco. Kangaroo believes its product will be popular with millennials who are looking to combine transportation and exercise. LINK
- FLASHBACK: Swedish creative communications agency ODD Company launches Kickstarter for handmade mustache protector. LINK
Tony’s Take: Genius!! Launch 50 Pogo sticks to get global attention and a bunch of users. Then pivot to another micro-mobility scheme and leave San Fransisco. ??????Well played Sweden.
New York’s Firefly, which puts digital advertisements on top of taxis, food delivery, and ride-sharing cars, has raised $30 million, led by Google Ventures. FireFly has raised a total of $51.5m. LINK
- FLASHBACK: Firefly, which pays Uber and Lyft drivers about $300 a month to mount digital screens with ads on their vehicles, continues to ignore the Los Angeles City Attorney to stop operations because they are breaking a state and city law. Now a Los Angeles City Councilman has introduced a motion to the Los Angeles Police Department to enforce the law. LINK
Uber will now deactivate riders with low ratings. Those ratings come from Uber drivers. LINK
- FLASHBACK: The secret to getting a good Uber rider rating … tipping your Uber driver … in cash. LINK
Fewer kids are riding bicycles, and the industry is freaking out. The number of children ages 6 to 17 who rode bicycles more than 25 times a year decreased from 7.3 million in 2014 to 6.1 million in 2018. Youth fitness activists and sporting goods market analysts are in agreement about what’s been keeping kids off bikes… parents. LINK
- FLASHBACK: Health experts say parents need to drastically cut kids’ screen time. A 2018 study from the American Heart Association found kids and teens ages 8 to 18 averaged more than seven hours a day looking at screens. LINK
- FLASHBACK: In 1972, 1973, and 1974, more bicycles than automobiles were sold in the U.S. LINK
Apple’s CarPlay plays catch up and radically updates its design for the first time since 2014. Apple claims CarPlay is now in 90% of new cars sold in the U.S. LINK
A newly-revealed patent for a fully-actuated suspension system shows Apple has been working on ways for a Project Titan car to provide a smoother ride through hardware and software. This suspension patent is credited to Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner and Randol Aikin. The latter left Apple in 2017 to work first at Uber and is now at Ike, a San Francisco self-driving trucks co. LINK
Michelin has been working on a “Puncture-Proof” Airless Tire concept, dubbed the tweel, for several years. They are producing it with GM under the brand name Uptis (Unique Puncture-Proof Tire System). The tires will be tested first on the Chevrolet Bolt EV on roads in Michigan. But are these tires quiet? LINK
Bridgestone releases a quieter tire—an especially big concern as more drivers get into electric cars whose lack of revving engines makes the rubber’s sound more noticeable. LINK
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