On this episode of the Micromobility Podcast, we publish an episode from the recent Micromobility Membership call where we had Axios Reporter Felix Salmon interview Kara Swisher, Editor at Recode about her pledge to go car-free for a year, and her thoughts about the development of the micromobility space. It’s a great discussion.

Specifically, they dig into:

- Her choice to get rid of a car, and how that’s gone over the last year.

- The challenges of using Micromobility with a young child, and what options she’s considering

- ‘I like to write about directional stuff and I think car ownership is over eventually.’ And how she thinks about autonomy and micromobility in that context.

- The inevitability of new urban transport modes as cities evolve and grow.

- Why e-bikes are attractive in the suburbs.

- In the discussion about COVID-induced changes to urban design how much does it happen at a local level vs. state vs. national?

- The technology of security for bikes and other micromobility vehicles.

- How Kara thinks about the rebound of transit and car use, and how it’ll accelerate trends that were already happening.

- Why Uber and Lyft enable the convenience of a car without the headache.

- How the modularity of Micromobility competes against the incumbent car manufacturers.

- Urban form in the majority of the US isn’t like SF, NYC or DC, which were all designed pre-car. Where is the capitalist incentive to reengineer the the majority of the US (and world’s) cities away from the car?

- Why Kara thinks cars aren’t actually as sticky as everything thinks they are.

- How do cities work with micromobility operators and whether Kara thinks that cities will end up subsidising them.

- Why Kara would start with a network of tunnels if she started to rebuild a city from scratch.

- Why Kara doesn’t think that the speed of streetscape adaptation is actually that slow.

- A discussion with Horace about the nature of software in both micromobility and automotive vehicles.

- A discussion about universal basic mobility, and why Kara is for it.

- Why Kara is pro congestion pricing.

Transcript of the call is available here: https://micromobility.io/blog/2020/5/3/kara-swisher-felix-salmon-end-of-car-ownership

If you like this discussion, you can get regular access to this by signing up to TripleM at micromobilio.io. For $100/year you get access to exclusive calls with Horace and guests, discounts on conference tickets and access to the Slack community building the future of micromobility. Get your first month free when you sign up now.