Ride AI

This week Oliver interviews Horace about his recent thoughts on the impact of lithium ion batteries on power tools and how the market and products have developed. He also spawns a new framework: batteries we carry, batteries that carry us and batteries that carry themselves. It’s Horace at his best - riffing and letting his brain do what it does.

In the meantime, make sure that you get your tickets for Micromobility America, the world’s largest summit devoted to small electric vehicles. It returns to the SF Bay Area on September 23, 2021 for an immersive, in-person gathering. The team are hellbent on breaking the old paradigm of car dependency and getting the world moving again, safely and sustainably. The event will be a jam-packed day of talks, demos, meetings, and test rides with micromobility’s top global founders, policymakers, investors, and influencers. Meet over 500 startups and established players, test the latest technology and vehicles for the first time in nearly two years. It’ll take advantage of the beautiful California weather, doing as much as possible outdoors and headliners include political upstart Andrew Yang, veteran tech reporter Lauren Goode, and e-scooter racing trailblazer Lucas Di Grassi, and dozens more. Check it out more at micromobility.io. 

The sponsor of the episode is Segway Commercial, the sharing business division of Segway-Ninebot. Their job is to help people and companies launch their own micro-mobility business. No matter the size or location of your scooter fleet, their mission is to make shared micro-mobility simpler and more accessible to all. They will be bringing a full line of electric vehicles to Micromobility America and encourage listeners to reserve their test ride. They’ll have their full range, such as Segway’s IoT-enabled e-Bike and e-Moped, and their full line of shared scooters featuring latest AI technologies, including T60 & T60 lite. 

To RSVP your test ride, please click on this link (https://b2b.segway.com/mma2021).

Today Oliver interviews Michael Dunne, founder of Zozogo, former VP of JD Power in China, GM of General Motors Indonesia and host of the Winning in Asia podcast which covers the auto sector in China. Mike has a huge depth of experience in China, which is an area that the team haven’t covered as much as we’d like on this show. The conversation gave rise to a lot of discussions about the lay of the land in the Chinese auto sector, the role of the Chinese auto sector in Micromobility and how micromobility will need to change to see adoption from those who are coming from poverty into wealth and are looking for highly performant and high status vehicles. It’s a great discussion and one that we think you’ll really enjoy.

Specifically they dig into:

- Mike’s background and how a kid from Detroit ended up in China in the 1990s.

- the Dynamics of the local Chinese car industry, including a breakdown of local vs joint ventures vs Tesla. 

- what (totally crazy!) excess capacity in the auto sector looks like and why that might matter for Micromobility 

- the top down vs bottom up nature of industry in China, and why the incentives matter.

- infrastructure in China - roading vs existing Micromobility

- the cultural enablers and disablers for Micromobility in China - and why Micromobility will struggle in the quest for status

In the meantime. The next Micromobility America conference is now scheduled for the 23rd of September. It’ll be at the Craneway in Richmond, across the bay from San Francisco and have more than 50 top speakers from the industry, more than 1000 global participants and 500+ startups and brands represented. If you love this space and want to find your tribe here, head to micromobility.io to find out more details.

Today Oliver interviews Kyle Doerksen, founder/CEO of Onewheel, about the companies journey. Kyle has been in the space since the very beginning and epitomises the builder mentality - having tinkered with lots of components back in the late 2000’s to build his first prototypes. They also talk a lot about funding and manufacturing as OneWheel has taken quite a different approach to others in the space in the USA. This video is also up as a Youtube video, complete with images of the vehicle as well.

Specifically, they dig into:

* The origins of Onewheel/Kyle’s background and motivation for starting the company

* The vehicles and where they're finding a market including the breakdown between commuters and recreational users.

* How Kyle thinks about community building, including Onewheel racing events.

* How they think about countering the learning curve for the vehicle and their target demographic.

* What the market for funding etc. has been like on your journey since the late 2000’s and why Kyle is a fan of bootstrapping.

* What Kyle’s excited about in the micromobility space

Today, Oliver interviews Erdem Ovacik, CEO of Donkey Republic, the first shared micromobility player to go public globally. Donkey Republic is listed on the Nasdaq First North exchange in the Nordics. It’s a great discussion about how the market has evolved, and why they see increasingly tight cooperation with governments being the next phase of shared market developments.

Specifically, they dig into:

- the backstory of Donkey, including where the name came from and the development of the bikeshare market in Europe

- Donkey’s unique approach of being both an operator and SaaS business and the economics of the varying parts of the business.

- Why they’ve pursued a ‘virtual dock’ solution rather than just straight free-float and what that’s enabled them as a business.

- Why they see the growth of the business being in publicly funded bike share systems in the EU.

- How their valuation compares to other companies in the shared space, and what the reception of investors has been like.

- what the listing has provided them in terms of options and what the costs have been

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Thanks to our sponsor for the episode, Ubiq, who is making shared mobility profitable with data-driven services to automate operations and ensure vehicles are in the right place, at the right time, to meet demand. Ubiq’s customers have increased revenue by 20% while also decreasing operational costs.

Ubiq offers services including Automated Rebalancing and Charging as a Service (ChaaS), using the power of the crowd to exploit the full potential fleets. The StreetCrowd also service matches vehicles requiring repositioning, or charging with crowd users, allowing shared mobility providers to automate operations. 

Ubiq is also increasing the efficiency of ops teams, by helping identify underutilized vehicles. With its plug-in forecasting models one can easily see where improvements can be made. Ubiq’s systems are plug and play and you can get started right away. Check them out at Ubiq.ai.

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The next Micromobility America conference is now scheduled for the 23rd of September. It’ll be in Pier 70 in San Francisco and have more than 50 top speakers from the industry, more than 1000 global participants and 500+ startups and brands represented. If you love this space and want to find your tribe here, head to micromobility.io to find out more details.

This week Oliver interviews Richard Thorpe, CEO of Gocycle. Gocycle are the world’s premier electric folding bike manufacturer, and Richard has been at the game longer than most, starting to work on the project back in the early 2000’s. In this episode, they dig into the history of the company, why folding matters in a multimodal future, and the importance of vehicle weight.

Specifically:

- Richard’s background at Mclaren and how that informed his view on weight

- The challenge of building an electric bike company in the 2000s

- What matters for consumers, and how that informs how they bring their bikes to market

- The new G4 range, and what that offers over prior models

- What has helped and hindered with marketing

Also, the next Micromobility America conference is now scheduled for the 23rd of September. It’ll be in Pier 70 in San Francisco and have more than 50 top speakers from the industry, more than 1000 global participants and 500ish startups and brands represented. If you love this space and want to find your tribe here, head to micromobility.io to find out more details.

This week, Oliver and Horace interview Amir Haleem, CEO of Helium, about the rise of distributed telco infrastructure. This was originally recorded for the Critical Path, but given that Amir has been a guest on the podcast in the past and there’s a direct link between what they’re building and low cost connectivity for micromobility, we wanted to share here as well.

If you’re interested in Helium and wondering how it sits within the telecommunication industry business model, this is a great episode.

Specifically they dig into:

- The Helium model for telco and what problem they were trying to solve.

- Why Horace calls this the first 'useful crypto' he's found.

- Horace talks about the traps of infrastructure financing, and ponders whether the Helium model invalidate these challenges.

- Horace and Amir break down whether/how the model is disruptive to existing infrastructure.

- They talk about the future challenges they can foresee, and how Helium will potentially react.

Also, the next Micromobility America conference is now scheduled for the 23rd of September. It’ll be in Pier 70 in San Francisco and have more than 50 top speakers from the industry, more than 1000 global participants and 500ish startups and brands represented. If you love this space and want to find your tribe here, head to micromobility.io to find out more details.

This week we’re releasing an audio version of the recent Micromobility Membership webinar on low end micromobility that Oliver did with reporter Lavender Au and Nat Bullard, Head of Content at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. They discuss Lavender’s lauded RestofWorld article on low end micromobility in China. In lieu of full-size cars, Chinese commuters are flocking to tiny alternatives that look and perform more like golf carts or rickshaws than Teslas. In 2019, these low-cost, low-speed vehicles actually outsold traditional electric cars by 2 to 1.

It’s a great discussion about how the sector these lightweight electric vehicles in China have emerged, and where they might fit into a global transport future going forward. It is an incredibly illuminating discussion about a topic that receives far too little press.

Also, the next Micromobility America conference is now scheduled for the 23rd of September. It’ll be in Pier 70 in San Francisco and have more than 50 top speakers from the industry, more than 1000 global participants and 500ish startups and brands represented. If you love this space and want to find your tribe here, head to micromobility.io to find out more details.

In celebration of Earth Day 2021, Oliver interviews Horace about his latest project - looking at the carbon emissions in the transport sector and modelling the pathways for the current options. You can probably imagine where they get to, but they don’t want to spoil the show.

This is still a work in progress, and they are putting this out as a primer so that folks may understand the narrative arc, and the background/context of why Horace is looking at this.

Specifically they look at:

- The math of emissions, and why transport is hard

- The lifecycles of vehicles and why the shift to electric cars will take a long time

- The ‘gap’ that exists between existing emissions reduction plans and reality

- Where micromobility might contribute

Also, the next Micromobility America conference is now scheduled for the 23rd of September. It’ll be in Pier 70 in San Francisco and have more than 50 top speakers from the industry, more than 1000 global participants and 500ish startups and brands represented. If you love this space and want to find your tribe here, head to miicromobility.io to find out more details.

Between COVID work stoppages, a massive stock surge, a strategic tech acquisition, partnering with legendary automotive engineer Sandy Munro, and the general fits and starts of pre-production, Arcimoto, maker of semi-enclosed electric three-wheelers, has had an eventful year. This week Oliver interviews their CEO, Mark Frohnmayer, to shed light on the company’s manufacturing progress and long-term ambitions—and why he believes heavy micromobility is vital to the future of electric vehicles.

This is the audio version of the video from the Micromobility Show on Youtube. Check out the link to the video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTzO9wekyiA).

If you like this, you will also likely like the interview we did with Mark back in November 2019 on Episode 46.

Specifically, they dig into:

- What is Arcimoto and the FUV?

- How Mark got into lightweight electric vehicles

- The no man’s land between bikes and cars

- Arcimoto’s coming "Platform 2"

- The regulatory situation for 3-wheeled vehicles

- Licensing requirements to drive

- Sandy Munro’s influence

- Technical debt of Arcimoto

- Arcimoto’s mini delivery vehicle, the Deliverator

- How Arcimoto sees competition

This week Oliver brings you an exclusive interview with Salvatore Palella, CEO of Helbiz, which is about to list on the NASDAQ as the first shared micromobility player to go public globally. It’s a fascinating conversation about the current state of the market, how valuations are reached in the SPAC space, and what possibilities are enabled for micromobility by the public markets.

Specifically, they dig into:

- Salvatore’s background, including as one of the youngest professional football club owners in Europe.

- The origin story through to the current state of Helbiz, including where they started, how they operate and how many vehicles they have.

- They talk through the SPAC fundraising journey, and how Salvatore raised early capital for the company.

- They talk through the post-public market plans for the company including thoughts on mergers and acquisitions strategy.

- How they have viewed hardware.

- A discussion of their early forays into cryptocurrencies, and what Salvatore thinks the future will look like for advertising-driven micromobility.

- A discussion about the operational and behavioural differences between US & EU markets