Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast

GUESTS: Oz Choudhri, Enterprise Mobility and Oliver Mackprang, MILES Mobility

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

As regular listeners know, RIDE is not an automotive podcast. However, this episode is all about cars.

We all know the story: despite growing congestion on our roads, cars spend something like 95% of the day parked.

They’re also expensive to run and own. Indeed, for many people a car is famously the second-largest financial commitment after their house or home.

So what if we could use cars when we need them, leaving the ownership to someone else, that someone else being a car club or a car-sharing operator happy to assume the responsibility for the total cost of ownership of these high value assets.

In this episode of RIDE, we look at a clear example of usership rather than ownership, with two experts in car-sharing: Oz Choudhri, head of mobility solutions at Enterprise Mobility, and Oliver Mackprang, CEO of Berlin-based MILES Mobility.

In this episode we discuss:

• The differences between car club, car sharing, leasing, and rental
• The challenges and opportunities of free floating and station-based or back-to-base models
• How car sharing fits into the wider mobility ecosystem
• Why car-sharing may be an attractive option for businesses, taking away the burden of fleet management, and helping with metrics such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environment, social and governance (ESG).

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

GUESTS: Mark Preston, StreetDrone; Dan Goff, Kodiak Robotics; Lukas Neckermann, PAVE Europe & Neckermann Strategic Advisors

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Autonomous passenger cars are just one aspect of autonomous vehicle development. The autonomous vehicles we discuss in this episode are autonomous trucks pulling heavy loads.

Martin and guest co-host Lukas Neckermann chat to Dan Goff of Kodiak Robotics and Mark Preston from StreetDrone about the use of AV technology in first-mile, last-mile, and long-haul freight and logistics.

StreetDrone develops technology for autonomous logistics applications, with vehicles using its solutions for first- and last-mile short-distance heavy load haulage on private and off-highway roads in industrial compounds such as ports, notably the Port of Rotterdam, and factories, such as Nissan's Sunderland car factory.

It's from Kodiak Robotics that we get the 18,000-mile reference in the title; the "Kodiak Driver" enables autonomous long-haul highway driving for Class 8 trucks - that is, US big-rig 18-wheelers. And it does this on an 18,000-mile network of highways that covers almost a fifth of the US Interstate System, taking in 14 states and spanning four time zones.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Mark Preston is Co-Founder and CTO of autonomous truck systems supplier StreetDrone, and Director of Lola Cars Motorsport. He began his career in Formula 1, with stints as Head of R&D at Arrows, Principal Designer at McLaren Racing, and Founder & Technical Director of the Super Aguri Formula 1 team. After F1, he became the most decorated Team Principal in the history of Formula E.

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn

Dan Goff is Director of External Affairs at Kodiak Robotics. His career includes time at Accenture, the role of Deputy Director of the Illinois Department of Commerce, and the Board of the ACLU of Illinois.

Connect with Dan Goff on LinkedIn

Lukas Neckermann runs Neckermann Strategic Advisors, and is a co-founder of PAVE Europe.

Connect with Lukas on LinkedIn

Picture credit: Marcin Jozwiak

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

GUEST: Inderveer Singh, CEO, EVage Motors

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

EVage Motors pitches itself not as an electric commercial vehicle company, but as "a tech-driven, innovations-led, purpose-powered, new-age electric mobility solution company."

And the solution it's developing is to the problem of city pollution. EVage founders - who established the company in Chandigarh, northern India in 2014 - note that although cities occupy just 5% of the world's land mass, they are home to 50% of the world's population. They also struggle from poor air quality, and commercial vehicles alone are responsible for over a third of atmospheric pollution - hence EVage's focus on delivering sustainable commercial vehicles.

In this episode, you’ll hear co-founder & CEO Inderveer Singh talk about:

🇮🇳 Why an Indian company is bringing an all-new electric CV brand to market
✅ How to balance sustainability with vehicle performance
🚚 Why electrification is important not just for OEMs and fleets, but for the truck drivers themselves
✅ The EVage scalable skateboard platform
🏭 The company’s M3 modular manufacturing strategy
🔋 Innovative LTO Li-ion EV battery technology
🌍 Ambitions for overseas expansion

Connect with Inderveer on LinkedIn

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

Guest: Gunnar Froh, CEO, Wunder Mobility

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Wunder Mobility provides white label software-as-a-service (SAAS) and hardware for vehicle sharing operators with fleets of e-bikes, e-scooters, e-mopeds, and cars. Based in Hamburg, the company was founded almost a decade ago and has now provided solutions for over 200 cities around the world.

We sat down with Gunnar Froh, Wunder Mobility’s founder and CEO to talk about the evolution of shared mobility, the role of electrification and autonomous technology, ChatGPT and AI, carpooling and public transportation, the 15-minute city, and the need for solutions for extra-urban and rural mobility.

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

GUEST: Tristan Rousselle, Founder & CEO, Aryballe

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

What is digital nose technology? And what role could it play in future mobility?

Our guest on this episode is Tristan Rousselle, founder and CEO of Aryballe, a digital olfaction firm that uses biochemical sensors, advanced optics, and machine learning to detect odour and turn it into data. This data is worth little, however, without a database behind it, and Aryballe’s USP is a searchable digital library of smells.

In this episode, we talk about Aryballe’s digital nose technology, the origins of the company, how digital olfaction can be used in automotive and future mobility applications, domestic robots with noses in their fingers, and of course, cheese, wine, and fish odours.

Connect with Tristan on LinkedIn

SHOW NOTES

Humans Can Identify More Than 1 Trillion Smells
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/humans-can-identify-more-1-trillion-smells

European Union-funded Rose project, in which Aryballe is a lead participant (Restoring Odorant detection and recognition in Smell dEficits)
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/964529

Moorfields patient receives world’s first 3D printed eye
https://www.moorfields.nhs.uk/news/moorfields-patient-receives-world-s-first-3d-printed-eye?

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2004 awarded jointly to Richard Axel and Linda Buck for their discoveries of “odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system.”
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2004/press-release/  

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

GUEST: Professor Carlos Moreno

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

When we first conceived the Ride podcast, one of the topics at the top of the list was the 15-minute city. This episode features an interview with Professor Carlos Moreno of the Pantheon-Sorbonne in Paris, the man credited with conceiving the 15-minute city.

Until just a few years ago, the 15-minute city was a compelling urban planning theory around which new and future mobility solutions would be developed. It was only really known about by mobility nerds.

The idea of the 15-minute city is ambitious, yet simple: citizens and communities should have everything they need in daily life - such as work, recreation, shops, public services - within a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride from home or any point in the city.

But in the last couple of years, the 15-minute city has gone on to become mainstream news, a highly controversial issue which has divided communities, with views often unsurprisingly matching political affiliation - and it’s attracted the ire of conspiracy theorists and tabloid media in particular.

But it’s a concept that’s widely misunderstood, by the public and by urban planners alike, and it’s frequently bundled into, or confused with often unpopular or poorly conceived traffic and transport policies. As a result, the term 15-minute city has become a synonym for a so-called war on motorists.

This interview has been rescheduled a couple of times, and our interest in speaking to Professor Moreno has changed from initially wanting to find out more about the concept, to asking why he thinks it’s become so controversial, and to give him the opportunity to present his side of the story.

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

• Dr Chris Borroni-Bird, founder of Afreecar LLC
• Prodip Chatterjee, co-founder of Nunam
• Sukhjeevan Uppal, Chief Technology Officer at eTukTuk

• Next-generation tuktuks - and more, including bicycles and handcarts;
• Electrifying mobility in emerging markets;
• Developing affordable vehicles;
• New mobility business models - including the use of blockchain;
• And the role that could be played by used electric vehicle batteries.

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

GUESTS: Dan Sturges and Lukas Neckermann

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Lifelong car fan and vehicle designer Dan Sturges discusses his new book, ‘Near to Far: A design for a new equitable and sustainable transportation system’. The book is both the culmination of a life in vehicle design and the automotive industry, and something a manifesto for the future of mobility.

You’ll note the reference to Dan being a car fan, but not a petrolhead, for reasons that will become clear.

The list of organisations which he has worked is long; a transportation designer, entrepreneur, and educator, his career started as an automobile designer at General Motors, and has since included time at, among others, ITS at UC Davis, GEM cars, Segway, Calstart, IntraGO, Local Motors, Acorn Delivery, and the US Transportation Research Board committee for New Public Transportation Systems and Technology.

Dan has become increasingly disillusioned by the increase not just in the number of vehicles on the road, but also the size of those vehicles, many of which are disproportionately large for everyday use. And it’s that term, everyday use, which Dan seeks to address in his book. The references to vehicle size here lean towards what’s offered to North American buyers, but even in Europe, it's difficult to think of a vehicle that got smaller from one generation to the next.

In this episode, Dan talks about how you can be a mobility advocate and a car fan – they’re not mutually exclusive; how car designers can help in the transition from ownership to usership; and why the transition is impossible without a holistic mobility ecosystem that incorporates new vehicles, new infrastructure, and new business models.

Also on this episode is Lukas Neckermann, of Neckermann Strategic Advisors – Lukas is, as many listeners will know, a major advocate of urban mobility, and like Dan, has a background in the automotive industry.

EPISODE NOTES

You can learn more about Dan's book - Near to Far: A design for a new equitable and sustainable transportation system - by following this link, and by checking local Amazon stores for availability.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Dan Sturges

Dan is a mobility designer, educator, and entrepreneur. Learn more about Dan here - and connect with him on LinkedIn

Lukas Neckermann

Lukas is a consultant, speaker, mobility advocate and the author of several books on the future of mobility.

Learn more about Neckermann Associates here

Connect with Lukas on LinkedIn

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

GUESTS: Sandra Witzel, CMO SkedGo, and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

"Mobility for all" is an oft-used and well-intentioned phrase – but images of urban mobility and new mobility solutions rarely feature people with impaired mobility, or anyone living with a disability, raising questions about the concept of mobility for all.

People living with disabilities face any number of challenges in the quest to get around, whether that’s related to urban planning, physical barriers and obstructions, infrastructure issues, ageing transport networks, poorly designed solutions, untrained transit support staff, or personal safety – to name but a few...

According to UN data, around a billion people worldwide live with disabilities - nearly 15% of the global population, and that rises to nearly 20% in low- and middle-income countries. The World Health Organization says around 75 million people worldwide need a wheelchair, but only 5-15% have access to one.

But accessibility in mobility is about so much more than wheelchairs – it’s about the many more hidden disabilities; it’s about reduced mobility, impaired vision and hearing, provisions for the elderly and infirm - and about planning for inclusive mobility, rather than making it an afterthought.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Prior to taking up a seat in the House of Lords, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson represented Great Britain as a wheelchair racer at five Paralympic Games, winning a total of 16 medals: 11 gold, four silver and a bronze; at the World Championships, she won six gold, five silver and two bronze; and she won the London Marathon six times.

Connect with Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson on LinkedIn

Sandra Witzel is an advocate for mobility as a service; she’s the co-founder of Women in Mobility UK; and she’s a frustrated public transport user, with impaired mobility caused by life with Musculo-skeletal issues. Chief Marketing Officer and board member at mobility app SkedGo, she’s also a certified and award-winning health coach.

Connect with Sandra Witzel on LinkedIn

SHOW NOTES

Up Down London
Lift status at Transport for London stations
https://www.updownlondon.com/

Step-Free London
Step-free map and future access
https://stepfreelondon.uk/map/

Briometrix Mobility Maps
Effort-based Mobility Maps which display colour-coded footpath networks, indicating the degree of difficulty for a person in a wheelchair to traverse the pathway.
https://briometrix.com/

Handimap
Route planning app that takes into account the accessibility of sidewalks, crossings and paths, as well as obstacles (urban furniture, works...)
https://www.handimap.fr/

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

GUEST: Stefan Krause, CEO, B-ON

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Stefan Krause returns to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast for a more in-depth discussion about B-ON, the challenges and opportunities of last mile delivery and fleet electrification, and the importance on zero emission strategies of regional policy such as Europe’s regulation on combustion engines, and the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

B-ON has over 20,000 vehicles on the road, delivering everything from milk and groceries, to post and packages - and it has a fascinating backstory, growing out of dedicated electric last mile delivery vehicle maker StreetScooter.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE'S GUEST

Stefan Krause’s CV includes seven years at BMW, where he was Chief Finance Officer, and a driving force behind the launch of BMW’s all electric i3, and eight years at Deutsche Bank, where he was the global Chief Finance Officer and a member of the board of management. He’s also been CFO and COO of Faraday Future; CEO of Canoo, a company he founded; and President and COO of Fisker.

Connect with Stefan on LinkedIn

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.