Waymo partner with Uber, Ford partner with Tesla, Ola Electric raises $300M, Flink raises €150M stops talks with Getir, and tele-driven cars in the UK

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT  🚙🚐

Chalo raised $45M and secured $12M in debt to digitise buses in India, bringing total funding to $119M. Chalo, a bus digitalisation platform, addresses the underserved bus segment; with only 3 buses for every 10,000 residents, there is a huge market opportunity. Operating across 50 markets (cities) Chalo offers city, corporate and last mile buses, tracking and ticketing, and also e-bikes. 

FlixBus expands to India. Expected to launch in 2024, the company will focus on intercity travel, the same it does in Europe and the Americas, offering a premium travel solution. In H2/23, the company will expand to Chile. 

Lukas Foljanty’s Q2/23 report on the state of the On-Demand Transit market. Highlights: steady market growth with Q1 record-high of 56 new services launched. The on-demand market has been busy, with Via acquiring Citymapper, door2door (acquired by SWVL) closing down, Shotl founders buying back their company from SWVL, and ioki giving up on Clever Shuttle. For the full (and as always highly recommended) report. 

Russian-founded InDrive completes withdrawal from its home market to focus on emerging markets and investing via its own VC arm. The company recently expanded to Jordan, Zimbabwe and Cyprus and in addition to core ride-hailing also offers intercity, city cargo and last mile delivery. InDrive is operational in 47 countries, and differentiates via its ‘haggle’ mechanism, where riders and drivers can haggle over ride price. From talking to operators in Latin America, I understand this to be a ‘killer’ feature in certain cultures. 

And in Lebanon, Uber launches a ‘flex’ offer, allowing riders and drivers to haggle over prices. Lebanon’s currency has lost 90% of its value, leading to pricing challenges, so it makes sense for the feature to be implemented in the country. See video. We will now wait to see if this feature is implemented elsewhere. 

Uber drops the 5% ride discount on its ‘Uber One’ subscription service, switching to a 6% ‘Uber cash back’ scheme, to be used in Uber and UberEats. Note that ‘Lyft Pink’ membership still offers 5% off on rides, so it will be interesting to see if the move helps Lyft gain more subscribers. 

Gett to pay 6M NIS (±$1.6M) in a settlement over a class-action discrimination case involving the company’s ‘Mehadrin’ service which has operated since 2015. The service, which allowed riders to ride only with Shabbat observant drivers, was said to discriminate against Arab drivers, and as part of the settlement the service will be discontinued. 

Goldman Sachs invests in Go, Japan’s biggest taxi app, at a $1 billion valuation. Independent contractors/drivers aren’t allowed in Japan, making it a taxi-driver only market for ride-hailing. The company plans to use the funds to expand service offering. 

Yango launches ride-hailing service in Windhoek, Namibia, working with both taxi and gig drivers. For now a cash only service, the algorithm calculates pay in advance. Yango launched in Dubai in September and now accounts for 4-8% of all ride-hailing journeys. Yango introduces new ‘Comfort’ tariff in Namibia. 

Uride launches in Penticton, celebrates anniversary in Kamloops, and braces for a fight versus Uber in Kelowna. Lyft now operates in Edmonton and Calgary. 

Grab co-founder Tan Hooi Ling to step down from operational roles and will leave the board. She will transition to an advisory role

Grab revives a carpool offer, under the JustSave brand name. The service is expected to be 20% cheaper than ride-hailing, but will allow drivers to earn more if multiple (up to 2 at a time) riders share a ride. In the past Grab experimented with GrabHitch in 2016 and GrabShare in 2017.

Tesla Uber drivers can now receive rides based on their EVs remaining battery charge. The Uber algorithm will leave drivers with a small buffer to allow you to find a Supercharger. Ford offering flexible EV leases to Uber drivers, starting in California. 

Careem launches ‘Careem Plus’, its subscription program, in Jordan. Grab Philippines partners with Chubb to offer travel insurance. In Israel, only Gett submitted for the national airport tender, with Uber and Yango choosing not to, due to ‘impossible’ tender requirements making profits unattainable. Amadeus and Didi partner, allowing Didi users to book hospitality via the app. FlixBus and Stagecoach battle in Aberdeen, with the latter blocking FlixBus’s access to the local bus station over health and safety claims. FlixTrain applies for a Netherlands-Germany service. This will be the company’s first service in the Netherlands, expected in 2024. 

Careem’s late deliveries cashback scheme is attracting criticism from Talabat and Deliveroo, who claim drivers are forced to drive faster and therefore dangerously. Careem claims that drivers are not affected and hits back claiming better captain (drivers) conditions and lack of on-time mentality with its competitors. 

Sharing/renting 🚗🛴

Fetch offers a car rental service - with the car arriving to the customer via remote driving. The service, by Imperium Drive, is teledriven from the company’s HQ, for now with a safety driver onboard. Offered in Milton Keynes with a fleet of 4 cars, the company wants to pilot it for the next 18 months and then transition to a fully remote-driving experience. 

Free2move launches car-on-demand subscription service in Detroit, Key West and La Porte. So far the company has been active in 5 markets (cities) only. Yandex starts testing car rental services In Dubai. Ride-hailing and delivery started back in September. Selfdrive launch ‘Corporate Fleet Subscription’ program in the UAE, offering 1 to 36 month long subscription plans, with zero penalty for early termination.

Micromobility 🚲🛴

Micromobiliy.inc (Helbiz) reports Q1/23: revenue up 18% to $3.9M, with media and kitchen business bringing more than 50% of revenue and micromobility ‘just’ ±40%; rides down 19% to 580K; operating expense $19.3M; net loss $19.5M. 

Bird, Lime and Superpedestrian awarded in Dallas, each deploying up to 500 vehicles at a time. Scooters and bikes were banned three years ago due to safety concerns. Now the city is implementing a 16 years old minimum age, 5am to 9pm operating time, no sidewalk riding and mandated use of helmets. Dott and Bird awarded a three-year permit in Rome, operating up to 4.500 vehicles each. In Rome, scooters have licence plates and rider IDs must be verified.

Tier launches 150 e-scooters in Arezzo, Italy, as the sole-operator for a one year pilot. Parking in designated spots with a picture-as-proof process, users must be older than 18 and maximum speed for e-scooters in the city centre will be reduced to 6 km/h on main roads.  Tier in Lille, France. The company completed a one year pilot with the city and will now deploy 1,250 e-scooters and 1,750 e-bikes in 68 municipalities in the metropolitan area. 

Bird in Bozeman, where riders must take a picture of their parking space. Bird in Charleston, where scooters can ride only on the street and not allowed in pedestrian zones. Voi to continue in Oxford up to May 2024. There are 750 Voi scooters in the city.  

Read an interview with Hoppy’s GM Spain. Hoppy is present in 13 cities in Spain, Belgium, Greece and Germany. The company expansion strategy is focused on smaller cities with high levels of tourism, easy regulation and lax competition, avoiding price-focused tenders.  

Delivery 🍽🧺

Meituan introduces KeeTa, a new food delivery brand in Hong Kong. The company announced plans to expand to HK in October 2022, and started recruiting couriers in February. It will compete against existing players Deliveroo and Foodpanda. And… Deliveroo and Foodpanda to amend exclusivity deals with Hong Kong restaurants after competition watchdog warns of possible legal breaches. The companies were restricting use of competitor platforms and mandating uniformed pricing across different channels, which will now stop. 

Meituan Q1/23 report: competing against rivals such as Alibaba-backed Ele.me and ByteDance unit Douyin, the company returned to net profit, making ±$470M, versus a loss of ±$800M YoY. The company has a 69% market share in China. 

Flink raised €150M and is halting talks with Getir. The round relied upon existing investors, with German supermarket giant Rewe at €50M and Doordash at €30M. I doubt this will be the end of this suggested acquisition. 

Getir completes acquisition of N11.com, an e-commerce platform that offers a wide range of apparel, electronics, and homeware products. In a statement, Getir founder Salur said “a new n11 is coming soon”, suggesting a wider e-commerce use case for the quick delivery service company. 

DoorDash sued over accusations of charging iOS users more than Android users. According to the class-action lawsuit, this was executed through the company’s ‘extended range’ fee, which was charged unfairly to iOS users. The lawsuit has a number of additional claims, one of those that DoorDash charged an ‘Express fee’, when the company really had no ability to hasten a specific order. 

Costa Coffee partners with Foodpanda for delivery in Pakistan. Jumbo ends partnership with Getir in the Netherlands.

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Autonomous 🤖

Waymo’s self-driving cars will be available on Uber’s app, starting in Phoenix. A set of (unknown number of) vehicles will be integrated into Uber, offering both ride-hailing and delivery services. These vehicles will not be exclusive to Uber, and will also be available via the ‘Waymo One’ app. 

San Francisco supervisors voted against Waymo converting an industrial space into 44 parking lots for its employees. Unions were against the deal, with delivery unions afraid to be replaced by autonomous vehicles and garbage unions fearing to be obstructed by these vehicles, which “are stopping in the middle of the road, no rhyme or reason”. Supervisors, fearing future delivery service from the spot, unanimously rejected the proposal. 

Applied Intuition to buy autonomous trucking Embark for $71M. Applied Intuition is a simulation and software provider for autonomous vehicle development, working with “17 of the top 20 global automotive OEMs”. Embark’s tech will be absorbed into the company. At its peak, Embark was valued at $5.2bn.

Kakao Mobility start 2nd year of autonomous operations, as part of a larger consortium. The 1st year saw testing of first/last mile operations (2km distance rides), this year will focus on delivery services. Lyft seeks patent over method to determine autonomous rides matching. Apex.AI operating system to run Volkswagen’s MOIA’s robotaxi operations. TuSimple to restructure US business, lays off 30% staff.  

Flying cars 🚁

Wisk becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing after acquiring Kitty Hawk’s shares in the company. Even before the deal, Boeing was one of the two owners of Wisk. 

Vertical Aerospace partners with Kakao Mobility to launch eVTOL aircraft in South Korea, with Kakao pre-ordering 50 aircrafts. The two companies will also work together on route to commercialisation. Also Vertical Aerospace pushes back service launch to 2026. 

Lilium signs an agreement with Air-Dynamic, a Switzerland-based private jet and helicopter company, to serve Switzerland and Italy. The deal sees Air-Dynamic committing to up to five aircrafts. 

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Ford and Tesla partner on charging infrastructure. Starting next year, Ford EVs will use Tesla’s charging plug, and owners of Ford’s electric cars will be able to fast-charge using Tesla’s Supercharger network. Tesla looks for additional OEM partnerships, which are pressured (cough, GM) by the deal. The deal is a ‘win-win’, with Ford allowing customers access to a wider charging network, and Tesla achieving higher utilisation and profitability on its current infrastructure. 

Tesla Model Y is now (Q1/23) the world’s best-selling car, first EV to do so. Model Y had 267,200 sales in Q1, ahead of the Toyota Corolla at 256,400 unit sales. 

Ola Electric raises $300M at a $6bn valuation. Funds will be used to improve EV 2-wheeler production capabilities, setting up more experience centres, setting up an advanced cell chemistry plant and venturing into EV cars. The company looks to IPO by the end of 2023, working with Goldman Sachs and domestic bank Kota for that end. 

Einride signed an MOU with the UAE to set up an electric and autonomous truck freight corridor over a period of five years. 

Gig economy 💰

Minnesota passes bill seeking to ensure minimum wage for gig workers - and it is vetoed by the Governor. The bill introduced pay-per-mile and pay-per-minute wages, and is strongly opposed by Uber and Lyft who threatened to offer only specific premium services or pull out from the state. In a letter to lawmakers, the Governor writes: “This bill could make Minnesota one of the most expensive states in the country for rideshare” and is setting up a committee to make legislation recommendations. 

Gig workers in California to receive millions for unpaid vehicle expenses. This is a part of Proposition 22, providing gig employees with a minimum earnings guarantee. Proposition 22 itself is still in appeals, with the courts approving and disapproving the law. 

In France, VTC drivers are negotiating a minimum hourly rate. The gross minimum hourly wage for private employees in the country is €11.52; VTC representatives aim for €15 per hour, as drivers have additional costs such as fuel and insurance. The move is expected to decrease cancel-rate and increase price, as it will compensate drivers on ‘approach times’, i.e. driving to the rider. 

The share of Uber European rides that is served via taxi drivers has risen to 10% today from 5% a year ago. Partnerships with taxis are expected to grow as independent contractor regulation gets tighter. 

In other news 📰

Cargoroo concludes a successful crowdfunding investment campaign, raising just over €1.1M. 

A Tesla whistleblower has leaked information containing thousands of customer complaints that raise serious concerns about the safety of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) features. The data contains over 4,000 complaints from 2015 to March 2022. Potentially violating GDPR rules (the leak itself), Tesla could be liable to a fine of up to 4% of sales, or $3.5bn. 

France bans short-haul flights, prohibiting public internal flights between French destinations when a train journey of under 2 hours and 30 minutes is available. In the making since 2021, the law was approved last week. 

Virgin Galactic flew to the edge of space for the first time in two years.