Ride AI

Jame Gross interviews Edward Niedermeyer, the author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. Nathan Robinson has suggested that there is "probably no greater expert on the career of Elon Musk and the development of Tesla [than Niedermeyer]." His insights regarding Tesla Autopilot in particular have been cited repeatedly.

Win a lectric XP 3.0, enter the contest here: https://ridereview.com/giveaway/lectric-xp-3-0-giveaway-

James Gross and Micah Toll discuss Micah's latest article on Electrek:

The 'New York Times' attacks e-bikes while ignoring the real danger all around us 

The New York Times published a pair of articles this weekend highlighting the rising number of deaths of cyclists riding electric bikes. However, in one of the most impressive feats of victim-blaming I’ve seen from the publication in some time, the NYT lays the onus on e-bikes instead of on the things killing their law abiding riders: cars.

By all accounts, the e-bike rider was correctly and legally using the roadway in the only way he could. In fact, according to eye-witnesses of the car crash that killed the e-bike rider, he “did everything right,” including signaling his turn. 

The article goes on to detail how just three days later another teenage e-bike rider was pulled out from under a BMW – thankfully still alive – and taken to the same emergency room where the previous boy had been pronounced dead. Apparent praise is lauded on Encinitas for soon afterward declaring “a state of emergency for e-bikes,” which is a bit like saying we could just solve the school shootings crisis if kids would stop walking into all of those damn bullets.

Two other points that the NYT didn't do research on: 

El Camino is the most dangerous road in Encinitas.

We also had a pedestrian fatality this year of a young man at another area of high crash count in Encinitas.

The Encinitas City Council in 2020 voted out speed cameras on El Camino Real, which is one of the biggest deterrents to speeding and distracted driving. It also set a terrible precedent that we don't believe in enforcing traffic laws and using technology to help create a consistent standard that we won't tolerate dangerous and illegal driving in our city.  https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/encinitas/story/2020-05-10/encinitas-pulls-the-plug-on-red-light-camera-program 

This quote should have led the NYT piece with some more research: “Nothing has changed, and hundreds of people are still getting these ridiculous fines,” Mosca said, referring to the $490 court-set cost of a ticket.

Credit to Mayor Kranz and Councilmember Hinze for both voting against taking out the speeding/RL cameras. 

Finally, a 56 year old woman was killed and a 32 old man is in critical condition from car violence while on bikes this week in San Diego. One was hit by a Chevy Silverago and the other a F-150. Can you guess which two cars are responsible for killing the most Americans every year? Imagine if we looked to regulate safety for those vehicles? I know that is not going to happen anytime soon, in the meantime we can make our streets safer through slower speeds, traffic enforcement and safety education for riders (and drivers) and not through victim blaming. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/e-biker-dies-after-collision-with-pickup-in-gaslamp-quarter-san-diego-police/3272854/ 

Micah on Electrek: https://electrek.co/author/micahltoll/

Micah's ebike school channel: https://www.youtube.com/@EbikeSchool

We announced the Ride Expo in the San Francisco Bay Area on October 20th! Register now for a $5 ticket. https://lu.ma/yvv4158o

Meet Linus Bikes

We are giving away a Vela 2, comment on this video, subscribe and enter your email here: https://ridereview.com/giveaway/vela-2-giveway

We are giving away a Vela 2. To enter to win, subscribe to our channel, comment below, and submit your email here: https://ridereview.com/giveaway/vela-2-giveway

Vanmoof goes Poof.

Cult ebike brand VanMoof has paused sales and some of its top execs are departing or taking lower roles. The company has yet to release an official statement on the abrupt changes, but sources say that they are trying to secure a bridge round to keep the business afloat.

After several bouts of layoffs and lawsuits, US-based D2C ebike seller Rad Power has announced that it will be pulling out of the European market by 2024, opting to focus its efforts entirely on North America.

Lectric might have overcome market share in the US…but RadPower does better with accessories and customer repair centers.

A comeback in Shared?

“We are aiming for sales of $100 million this year.” How Swing's franchise model allowed it to become one of the few profitable shared micromobility companies in the world, with over 100,000 vehicles in South Korea.

By contrast, CEO Wayne Ting says Lime’s pathway to profitability involved investing in more durable, modular scooters as well as better technology for operational crews. Won tenders 90% of the time.

Amsterdam’s city leaders say they want to see more shared cargo bikes, mopeds, and cars on the street in an effort to reduce car usage.

The Truth and Lies About Driverless Cars in SF Garry Tan exposes some wild accusations against the city of San Francisco MTA that appear to be true!

Launches

Last month on Ride On! We talked to Chris Rey of Apollo Scooters about the fast and powerful Apollo Pro. The innovative new two-wheeler has since launched on Indiegogo, and is receiving rave reviews- check out some here

Parkour! BMW just released their new CE 02 electric two-wheeler, which they say is neither an emotorbike or emoped - it's an “eParkourer.” Despite the confusing semantics, its performance capabilities are clear: the CE 02 tops out at respectable 59 mph and claims 55 miles of range. ​

The Brits at The Little Car Company typically deal in downsizing famous cars into small electric vehicles (see Bughatti Baby II). Now they’ve done something of the opposite, taking inspiration from the 1980s Tamiya Wild One RC car and turning the toy into a full-sized 37 horsepower electric dune buggy.

The new Ago T ebike is now available from Tenways, which features a comfortable step-through frame as well as an Enviolo Stepless Shifting Hub, a cool feature which allows riders to shift gears while at a stand still.

Eli Electric

We have Marcus Li, CEO and Founder of Eli Electric Vehilces with us

This week we release another session from the recent Micromobility Europe conference - this one on Electrifying the Workplace - e-bikes as an employee benefit, hosted by none other than podcast superfan and overall mensch Roman Meliska.

Roman was joined on stage by folks from the Walmart, the European Cycling Federation, Safran and Zenride to talk about how e-bike as an employee benefit works in different markets, what models exist to incentivise them, the players in the market, and the impact on employees and on the wider company. It’s a great session.

Of course, if you like this material, you’ll love Micromobility America, which is coming up on October 19-20th in Richmond in the Bay Area. We’re expecting hundreds of the top thinkers and builders in the space. Please come and join us, and check it out!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

This is this week we are releasing another session from the recent Micromobility Europe which we had in June.

This one is the ebike revolution which was hosted by Micah Toll from Electrek who is in our minds one of the best micromobility journalists out there.

Please go and check his stuff out if you haven’t already. He was joined on stage by former guests of the podcast Taco Carlier from Vanmoof and Tanguy Goretti from Cowboy, as well as folks from ebike brands Lekker, Cannondale and Ampler which have coverage across Australia, Europe and the US.

They talk a lot about the global market and what hasn’t hasn’t worked, especially in the owned bike space. We thought it was a really good discussion and we're stoked to be able to share it.

If you like the session you also really like our Micromobility America, which is coming up on the 19th/20th in Richmond in the Bay Area. Come and join the top thinkers and builders in the micromobility space in North America and further afield.

And with that, here’s Micah and the team!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

This week Oliver managed to catch up with Rich Pleeth while he was passing through London.

Rich is the founder of Finmile, a micromobility first freight company in London using four wheeler cargo e-bikes to deliver for companies such as HelloFresh and some very large global companies that unfortunately we can’t name but who Oliver was very impressed with.

They are expanding very quickly and have a relevant and replicable model for a lot of cities around the world. We encourage you to particularly listen to the section where we talked about what the model offers in terms of labour and increasing the throughput of deliveries relative to existing encumbrance.

It feels to us, very disruptive to the existing freight delivery incumbents. So! Enjoy!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

This week we release another episode from the recent Micromobility Europe event.

This one is the shared scooter CEO’s talking about the state of their business which was a very popular session on the Friday.

Ben Hubbard From Zag Daily had the leaders from some of the top operators from all over the globe on the stage – we had Henri Moissinac, Dott in Europe, Tomás Martin from Tembici in Latin America, San Kim from Swing in South Korea and Jaideep Dhanoa from Fenix in the Middle East.

So! Quite a global coverage, and lots of really interesting parallels between all operators.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Catch us on Twitter ⁠⁠@MicromobilityCo⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Horace⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Oliver⁠⁠ are also active on their personal accounts and would love to hear from you.

Our ⁠https://micromobility.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ is completely free, and you can subscribe to have it in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

We’re also on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.