Ride AI

In today’s episode Oliver interviews Assaf Biderman, CEO of [SuperPedestrian](https://superpedestrian.com/), about his background founding the MIT Senseable Cities Lab and then Superpedestrian. Assaf has been thinking about micromobility longer than most anyone we’ve had on the podcast - this was a fun and very illuminating interview. This conversation convinced Oliver that the ‘intelligence’ that can be infused into micromobility devices has far deeper implications than first thought, especially for driving down operational costs and improving vehicle longevity. Specifically we dig into: - The context for why micromobility is such a boon compared to the other transport options that cities can consider for moving people. - His history founding the Senseable Cities Lab and their early work - How that led to founding SuperPedestrian, and the early lessons with the amazing Copenhagen Wheel - The pivot they've made into scooters, the important variables for the next generation of scooter hardware and why they believe that these need - Why Assaf believes that Superpedestrian's intelligent 'nervous system' combines with mechanical improvements will drop operational costs by over 50% for operators. - The implications of their approach on thinking of their product as a 'computing platform' and why they see their model as a hardware + SaaS business. - Their supply chain structure and costs, and why their entirely proprietary approach can actually make componentry cheaper. - Their recent $20m raise, and what they're planning to do with the money. It's one of the densest and most interesting discussions to date - hope you enjoy!

In today’s episode, Taco Carlier, CEO of Vanmoof joins Oliver to talk about building beautiful e-bikes, the role of design and how to get the next billion people on bikes in our cities across the world. It’s a great discussion with someone who’s been in the space for a long time (Vanmoof was founded 10 years ago!). Taco is also the first Dutch guest we have had, and so we also dig into Amsterdam and it’s transport system. Specifically, we dig into: * Vanmoof’s story from the early stages through to today, including how being based in Amsterdam influenced the company. * The company's mission 'to build the next billion bikes' - how does this permeate the company and what they choose to focus on. * We run through their business operations - the design/sales/ops in Amsterdam, manufacturing in Taiwan, where they have their company stores and metrics from their business. * The move Vanmoof have made into micromobility/electrified and the lessons learnt there from a product/hardware experience. * We unpack how customers are using the vehicles, including this quote: "Normal bike commuters travel an average of 3km to work, but with an e-bike that figure jumps to 20km. It opens up biking to a much wider demographic of city-dwellers, creating an enormous new opportunity. Almost 70% of people who purchased the S2 & X2 are now using the Electrified as their primary mode of transport." * Taco’s design inspirations, why they only have two bike types, and who he considered competition. * How they protect themselves from the traditional ‘red ocean’ dynamics of the Bike hardware industry, with it’s low margins and barriers to entry. We explore what are the things that have kept them out of that trap. * We discuss the subscription model, and the postponed launch of the upcoming electric models on that business model, including why and how is it higher margin and what they think about the 'job to be done' in this business model? * We unpack the primary barriers to adoption of higher end e-bikes and why that underpinned their ‘Bike Hunters’ model. * Their experience with fundraising - why they chose to go for a crowdfunded round in the last raise, who they look to for funding, and why they’ve pursued a hybrid financing model. It’s a great interview!

In today’s episode, Felix Jakobsen and Enrico Howe from Unu Motors join Oliver to talk about the Global Scooter Sharing Market Report (for clarity, we’re talking mopeds), a recent publication on the state of the shared moped market globally. It’s a great discussion about the expansion of a space that often gets overlooked compared to it’s more well funded kick scooter cousin. Specifically, we dig into: * The history of Unu Motors, and how they came to be tracking the shared moped market.
 * The crazy + 164% in moped numbers over the last year, where that growth has taken place, and where they see it coming from in the future.
 * The Indian micromobility market, and why it’s uniquely different compared to other markets.
 * The KPI’s that they track (fleet utilisation, usage duration, fleet availability)
 * How they see business models evolving, and what are the adjacent verticals that could potentially get into this space
 * The regulatory approaches that they see around the world, and what that implies for users, operators and regulators.
 * The funding environment and why they think there is still far more capital to be deployed in this space
 * Why this sector is more capital efficient than other micromobility sectors
 If you’re interested in reading the report, please check it out here (share.unumotors.com)

On today’s podcast, Oliver interviews Bharath Devanathan, SVP, Growth at Bounce Mobility, about their moped sharing business in India. They recently raised a $150m round to expand their operations across India. It’s an amazing conversation - one of the best so far about the potential of shared micromobility to change transport systems for good in fast growing and highly constrained urban environments in the developing world. Specifically we dig into: - The history of how Bharath came to Bounce, and the story of how it morphed into moped sharing. - The biggest operational challenges that they have in Bangalore and other cities they operate in - How the governments in the cities they operate in India regulate and view them, including incredible statistics about how much they’re contributing to first/last mile connections in Bangalore - The rise of Micromobility in the context of the overburdened transport systems in Indian metropolises that need to more 10m+ people a day - Their plans for growth across India - We dig into their KPI’s and how the perform relative to international benchmarks for moped sharing - Their expansion into electric moped sharing and the unique challenges that they’ve faced in user education I found this an amazing interview, that validated Horace’s thesis that the biggest growth in Micromobility will come in developing markets.

On today’s podcast, Oliver interviews Sam Baker, COO of Wunder Mobility, about their software platform that underpins a number of carshare, carpool, Micromobility and other services players in Europe, and is about to expand to the US. Specifically we dig into: - Wunder’s early success in carpooling, and how their strategy differed from Oliver’s experience watching commuting products being built at Uber. - Sam’s thesis around ‘digitizing the 99%’ of transport operators, so that they can connect in to the forthcoming Mobility As a Service platforms - Why Sam disagrees that there will be ‘one app to rule them all’, and instead that the future of Mobility As A Service will involve lots of interoperable components. - What traditional fleet operators can bring to the new world of venture capital funded mobility - His take on data standardisation for mobility operators - The potential for examples of full end to end Mobility as a Service platform such as the one that Sixt has rolled out in Europe to replace car ownership. I found this a great interview - Wunder hadn’t been on my radar, but they are now.

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.