Micromobility

In this episode, Horace and Oliver talk though the flood of news post-Berlin, and how the micromobility is being circulated around by the giants of automotive and large tech, as they work out how to best participate. 

We also explore: 

- the parallels between feature phone experimentation and the extensive discussions over form factor experimentation we’re seeing in lightweight electric vehicles (ie. the rise of the Scoot/Bird Cruiser)

- why that has the potential to lead to unifying operating systems that unite the fragmentation, and who the most likely contenders are to lead this.

- How implausible the rise of social media influencers seemed when looking at phones in the early 2000’s, and why and how micromobility could also drive such a change

- The potential and risks that we have of ‘squandering abundance’ when the cost of movement trends towards zero

- How movement towards a transport ‘experience’ requires multiple layers of integrations, and what those will need to be

- Why just winning the ‘utility’ argument isn’t enough for Horace

It’s a great conceptual episode and follow up to how Horace’s thinking is evolving.

In today’s episode, Oliver interviews Mark Frohnmayer, CEO of Arcimoto, a new 1100lb+ electric trike that has just gone into production in Eugene, Oregon. Arcimoto is aiming to a hit a US$12k production price point for a vehicle with 70+ miles of range and able to conform to all roading infrastructure, including highways. We unpack why this is a disruptive solution to the market.

Specifically we dig into:

- The origin story for Arcimoto and why Mark launched the company

- The specifics of the vehicle, including their design tradeoffs and benefits and what ‘rockstar parking’ means

- Their planned routes to market, including rentals and enterprise customers

- The challenges of getting to production, and where they’ve learnt lessons

- How and why they’re interested in adding autonomy to their design platform

- Why their manufacturing strategy is disruptive compared to existing vehicle manufacturing techniques today

- Their plans for expansion globally

- What the capital markets have been like for them as they went from concept to production

Thanks to this week’s sponsor Particle. Particle provides an end-to-end IoT platform, from device management to connectivity to hardware for connecting micromobility vehicles to networks and reducing complexity as operations scale. For operators that I’ve talked to, they’re a godsend in the world of highly complex and competitive operations. 

Visit Particle.io/micromobility to learn more and request a free IoT development kit. All podcast listeners will also receive a free consultation. Visit Particle.io/micromobility today.

In this episode, Oliver interviews David Hyman, CEO of Unagi Scooters about the market for premium, lightweight owned micromobility. David’s background is in software and marketing, having previously been the CEO of Beats by Dre. Unagi has really nailed the owned scooter brand experience, and it’s a great discussion.

Specifically we dig into:

- Features and tradeoffs that they made in order to deliver the best ownership experience

- The origin story for the Unagi Scooter

- The overall market potential for the space and how they’re thinking about it

- The importance of quality and signalling for something that is personally owned, and how that differs from shared services

- What he sees happening for the micromobility space, both owned and shared, in the coming few years

- Their recent raise of $3m, who it came from and what they intend to do with it.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor Particle. Particle provides an end-to-end IoT platform, from device management to connectivity to hardware for connecting micromobility vehicles to networks and reducing complexity as operations scale. For operators that I’ve talked to, they’re a godsend in the world of highly complex and competitive operations.

Visit Particle.io/micromobility to learn more and request a free IoT development kit. All podcast listeners will also receive a free consultation. Visit Particle.io/micromobility today.

In today's packed episode, Oliver interviews Dmitry Shevelenko, CEO of Tortoise, an autonomous scooter software company about the potential of self driving scooters in clearing clutter, improving economics and unlocking the suburbs for shared micromobility.

Specifically we dig into:

- Dmitry's background at Uber leading business development in micromobility, and how that led him to coming across his co-founder.

- The promise and potential of self rebalancing micromobility networks, and how that is appealing to operators and regulators.

- Why they're pursuing a horizontal strategy in the space, and why that's required based on the industry structure.

- Why the simplicity of the tech stack/operations, low cost and high levels of vehicle replacement make this a well suited space for the rapid iteration of the tech space.

- What the discussions with regulators has been like, and the key considerations that they have.

- The competitive landscape for autonomous micromobility and where Dmitry sees the threats in the space.

- Their go to market strategy using teleops first, moving towards increased levels of autonomy over time.

- What are the KPI's that are important for them, especially around operations.

- What is the funding environment like now that scooter companies are in the trough of disillusionment, and how investors are thinking about the bet on them.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor Particle. Particle provides an end-to-end IoT platform, from device management to connectivity to hardware for connecting micromobility vehicles to networks and reducing complexity as operations scale. For operators that I’ve talked to, they’re a godsend in the world of highly complex and competitive operations.

Visit Particle.io/micromobility to learn more and request a free IoT development kit. All podcast listeners will also receive a free consultation. Visit Particle.io/micromobility today.

In this episode, Oliver interviews Frank Reig, CEO of Revel, an e-moped sharing system in NYC/DC that has just announced a $27.6m raise to expand to 10 new cities.

It’s a fascinating interview as shared e-mopeds have a number of key operational improvements over the more popular kick scooter/electric bike shared systems that we’ve seen.

Specifically we discuss:

- Their recent raise and plans for the next 12-18 months.

- Their origin story from Frank’s experiences in Argentina and his background in the electric vehicle space

- The financial, infrastructural and operational advantages of using e-mopeds over normal kick scooters, and how that drives them to consider themselves more like a parallel to the carshare industry than the kick scooter industry.

- Their fleets in NYC and DC, and the experiences they’ve had working with regulators in both.

- How they deal with parking, and why they believe that is part of Revel’s ‘special sauce’.

- A deeper dive on both their vehicle longevity and their swappable battery advantages.

- Why they’re able to finance all their vehicle, and how that improves the capital efficiency of the operations.

- How they think about competition, especially from larger players.

- How their full time labor model changes regulatory conversations with cities.

- How their vehicle type lends itself to longer trips, and the role that they play as a transport option in a suburb with relatively low connectivity options.

- How they’re able to end up being a cheaper operator than both Bird and Lime in some markets.

- How they were able to learn from Scoot and it’s lessons from San Francisco

- Reflections on their safety and insurance practices

- Other form factors that would make sense for them to expand into in the future

Thanks to this week’s sponsor Particle. Particle provides an end-to-end IoT platform, from device management to connectivity to hardware for connecting micromobility vehicles to networks and reducing complexity as operations scale. For operators that I’ve talked to, they’re a godsend in the world of highly complex and competitive operations.

Visit Particle.io/micromobility to learn more and request a free IoT development kit. All podcast listeners will also receive a free consultation. Visit Particle.io/micromobility today.

In this episode, Horace and Oliver host a live podcast recording at The Drivery, an incubator in Berlin in front of an audience. They discuss the upcoming Micromobility Europe conference, disruption of the German car industry and what will disrupt micromobility itself in the future. It was a great conversation!

This week we discuss:

- Germany’s micromobility explosion and why it’s different from other countries

- Why we chose Berlin for the Micromobility Conference in Berlin

- Why the intellectual interest in micromobility from the car OEM’s is a textbook disruption response

- How automakers will eventually be forced to flee cities

- What can we see coming along that will disrupt Micromobility in the future

- What would businesses built on micromobility platforms look like?

- What form factors we see emerging for colder climates

- What the impact of new motors will be on vehicles

- Why a marketplace for rides is coming, and what the impacts of these low cost rides will be.

“A bit transfer cost has gone to zero. When a human transfer cost goes to zero, then what?’

Thanks to this week’s sponsor Particle. Particle provides an end-to-end IoT platform, from device management to connectivity to hardware for connecting micromobility vehicles to networks and reducing complexity as operations scale. For operators that I've talked to, they're a godsend in the world of highly complex and competitive operations.

Visit Particle.io/micromobility to learn more and request a free IoT development kit. All podcast listeners will also receive a free consultation. Visit Particle.io/micromobility today.

In this episode, Oliver and Horace talk about cost-per-mile calculations for micromobility, and the implications of the recent blogpost that Horace published on the Micromobility.io blog (https://micromobility.io/blog/2019/9/9/the-cost-of-a-mile).

In short - what happens when the marginal cost per additional km collapses towards zero with Micromobility. We think there are lots of lessons we can take from the telecom industry.

Specifically, we cover:

- The cost-per-mile calculations from New York for both Citi-Bike and taxis and how they compare to private owned cars

- The comparison of shared vs. owned micromobility, and why Horace is far more bullish than Oliver on shared platforms

- The jobs-to-be-done of shared vs owned micromobility, and why they’re in many ways different markets

- What new behaviours and business opportunities we’re seeing emerge on shared platforms and why scooter trains validate our early thesis about why micromobility is disruptive.

- Why Lime and Bird are likely to become the equivalent of Vodafone or Verizon over time

- A discussion about whether the social layer for micromobility transport will sit on the vehicle or on the phone of the user.

It’s a great discussion with lots of sparring. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did making it!

In this episode, Oliver interviews Martin Mignot, a general partner at Index Ventures and panelist on our ‘Capital in Micromobility’ panel at the upcoming Micromobility Europe conference in Berlin. Index Ventures were early investors in Bird, and have a long history of investing in the micro and macro mobility space over the last 15 years.

Specifically, we dug into:

- His thesis around investing in mobility companies, and why the smartphone/internet has proved so transformational

- Index’s investment in Bird, and why their focus on design and brand differentiates them starkly from the competition

- His investment in Cowboy, his bullishness on high end owned micromobility, and how software/hardware integration can create outsized value.

- The evolving funding landscape for shared scooters, and how he sees that progressing over the two years.

- Why Paris has been a model laboratory for how the market for shared operations will develop over time.

- How the pointy end of micromobility tech has started to hit the hard concrete of infrastructure, and how it’s increasingly dragging him into debates about infrastructure.

It’s a really fun interview - one of our best so far! Well worth a listen.

In this episode, Oliver interviews Jeff Russakow, CEO of Boosted Boards, makers of the famous electric skateboards and now scooter. Boosted focuses on vehicle-grade owned micromobility, which provides a refreshing counter to the hype around shared models. It’s one of our best episodes to date--highly recommend checking it out!

Specifically we cover:

- the origins of the company, and how it proves out Horace’s early thesis on the disruptive potential of modularized componentry.

- Jeff’s history with lightweight electric vehicles and his eventual coming to Boosted

- How they think through their role as manufacturing ‘vehicle grade’ vehicles in the micromobility space, and how this differentiates them from other manufacturers

- how their customers use their products - hint: 82% of their customers use them for their commute.

- How they think through shared services vs. the owned micromobility market, solving the job-to-be-done of travel and why they’re doubling down on personally owned vehicles

- Why they consider their competition the car and not other scooter or board manufacturers.

- How they think about safety, why shared scooters have given a lot of people the wrong impression about what micromobility safety can be, and the standards that they build their vehicles to.

- How they think about infrastructure for these lightweight vehicles, and where the opportunities are for regulators to harness the benefits.

- The challenges that they’ve faced scaling to being a global, growth stage electric vehicle company.

- How the venture capital community have viewed them vs the hyped space of shared micromobility.

- Hints at their product pipeline and what they find interesting.

Key quotes:

“What are your options? You can buy a vehicle like ours and you're down to two dollars a day for unlimited mileage and no parking. You can pay $2 a mile for scooter or car share, or you can take your car - it's 40/50 cents a mile between insurance and depreciation and then parking could be $30 a day. So quite literally buying a premium scooter is the cheapest thing you can do.”

“It’s been fun for us with the scooter shares because somebody is spending a billion dollars of somebody else's money to put free demos on every street corner on the planet and educate people to the value of these vehicles. There's a bunch of people say, ‘this is great.’ I'm going to use sharing and that's awesome, and then there's a bunch of people who say I like this so much, I’m going to buy one. If they want a vehicle grade one, there's only one. So we're in an interesting market spot.”

In this episode, Horace and Oliver run over Horace’s insights from his recent research using UN data into city-level potential for micromobility markets globally. We run through the most interesting growth trends in 1800+ cities.

Specifically we look at:

- Contextualising the rapid growth in car-based urbanisation as part of a 5000 year trend

- Why Africa is one of the most interesting potential markets between now and 2035.

- The cities positioned for both the fastest growth and largest increase.

- How the low-income demographics of new migrants to these emerging mega-cities necessitates the need for cheap micromobility transport

- Why we should look at auto-ownership rates to understand the 'low-end' potential of micromobility.

- The likely business models we'll see emerge with the confluence of autonomy, networking and new propulsion options.

- How these vehicles will beat the current incumbents of petrol powered scooters in Asia

The things mentioned in the episode are:

- The blogpost that Horace has written on the micromobility markets by city.

- The talk by Jeremy Grantham re: the majority of increase in global population coming from Africa between now and 2100 - https://youtu.be/cPCblFpqrkI?t=1635

As requested, if anyone has a suggestion for an interview guest for micromobility in India or Africa, please message me on Twitter @oliverbruce. Thanks!