Ride AI

Today, Horace and Oliver talk about the newly released SAE Micromobility Standards, the Cybertruck announcement and Horace’s latest thoughts on the boondoggle of autonomy.

Specifically, they dig into:

- Why the new SAE Micromobility standards matter, what they’re competing against and why definitions like this default to lowest common denominators.

- The Cybertruck announcement, including discussion about what appears to be a new type of body manufacturing, and the implications of the radical design. Plus, Horace admits to liking it, even if he doesn’t think that the entire category of trucks should exist.

- We dig into why Horace believes that autonomy for cars is such a boondoggle, and the implications for wider mobility technology investment and talent.

If you’re interested in hearing Horace and Oliver talk in more detail about these issues on exclusive calls plus get discounts on the Micromobility Conference, swag and more, sign up to Triple M here: https://micromobility.io/triple-m

Show notes:

- SAE Micromobility Standards [https://www.sae.org/news/press-room/2019/11/sae-international-publishes-industry’s-first-standard-for-classification-and-definition-of-powered-micromobility-vehicles]

- Cybertruck Coefficient of Drag modelling [https://electrek.co/2019/11/25/tesla-cybertruck-aerodynamics-cfd-rendering/]

- Scooter supply chains with Michal Naka and Stephen Lambe [https://medium.com/mimomusings/on-the-origin-of-scooters-76f6a28d49d]

Thanks also to this week’s sponsor Twilio IoT. Shared micromobility is a deceptively hard business. Keep losing your connections to those vehicles and soon you’ll be out of business. That’s where Twilio IoT comes in - providing SIMs and a cellular connectivity platform to seamlessly connect in 180+ countries. Twilio helps companies like Lime, Skip, Spin and Beam to cost effectively scale faster, deploy further, and optimize their supply chain. Twilio is also the leader for SMS and phone verification APIs to reduce fraud and improve user experience. 

Are you looking for the right global cellular connectivity partner to scale with? Twilio is offering free SIMs and test credit to Micromobility Podcast listeners for a limited time.

Visit here to find out more - https://bit.ly/2XPctKC.

Today on the podcast, Oliver interviews William Henderson, CEO of Ride Report about micromobility data and mobility-as-a-service systems. Ride Report is the reporting dashboard for over 50 cities globally for their dockless shared micromobility operations, and William's team work very closely with regulators and operators globally to build trust among all the different parties. William also has a great historical context for urban transportation and what has/hasn't worked in the past. It's a great conversation!

Specifically we dig into:

- William's background at Square and how that skillset led him to start Ride Report.

- The role of data in building trust among operators and regulators, and why that needs to sit with a third party

- A run through of the Mobility Data Specification - an introduction for those unfamiliar, why it works and is problematic and why Uber is suing LADOT.

- The necessity of good quality data in building open mobility systems, and which cities are doing it well.

- The history of how bike share and public transport emerged and developed and the parallels to micromobility systems today.

- Which cities are adopting best practice for regulating shared scooters/bikes around the world, which ones are not doing it well and why.

- Why scooter/micromobility parking on street corners is a smart idea that serves multiple purposes.

- The parallels between payments systems vs. the interoperable mobility-as-a-service ecosystem.

Things referenced in the discussion:

- LA Department of Transport - https://ladot.io)

- Mobility Data Specification - https://ladot.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/What-is-MDS-Cities.pdf

- Open Mobility Foundation -https://www.openmobilityfoundation.org

Thanks also to this week’s sponsor Twilio IoT.

Shared micromobiltiy is a deceptively hard business. Keep losing your connections to those vehicles and soon you’ll be out of business. That’s where Twilio IoT comes in - providing SIMs and a cellular connectivity platform to seamlessly connect in 180+ countries. Twilio helps companies like Lime, Skip, Spin and Beam to cost effectively scale faster, deploy further, and optimize their supply chain. Twilio is also the leader for SMS and phone verification APIs to reduce fraud and improve user experience.

Are you looking for the right global cellular connectivity partner to scale with? Twilio is offering free SIMs and test credit to Micromobility Podcast listeners for a limited time.

Visit here to find out more (https://bit.ly/2XPctKC)

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.