Ride AI

In this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss vehicle standards and classifications based on Horace's recent discussions with the Society of Automotive Engineers. Specifically, the cover: - What are automotive standards, why are they important, and how does this change how we look at the world? - The history of the term 'microcomputing' and how the significance of this faded away over time, and what parallels we might be able to see with mobility. - How is the SAE thinking about classifying micromobility vehicles, and what are the likely implications of this - What variables regulators should be thinking about when looking at vehicles, and which they should avoid (hint: speed) - What value the German system for classifying low-powered electric vehicles could offer globally - The parallels to Horace's time at Nokia, and how he foresaw the rise of the battle of iOS and Android.

On today’s episode, Oliver runs over recent news in the scooter/micromobility space with Michal Naka (@michalnaka) and we release the government regulator panel from the recent Micromobility California Summit talking about the experiences from LA, Portland, Oakland and Claremont in regulating scooter operators. In the news section, we discuss: - The emergence of Grin in South America, and what this means for scooters in LatAm. - Lime’s recent $310m raise and how this reflects the consolidation of the rest of the industry. Next, we have the panel from the recent Summit where Katie Fehrenbacher from Greenbiz hosts a panel with: - Seleta Reynolds from the LADOT - Ryan Russo from Oakland DOT - Briana Orr who managed Portland’s Shared Electric Scooter Pilot - Julie Medero, Chair of the Traffic and Transportation Commission from the City of Claremont They cover: - How cities are viewing the rise of micromobility operations as a means of providing access to low-cost mobility and benefitting their citizens. - What cities have learnt from the rise of Uber/Lyft and how that is influencing their regulatory stances with new operators and business models. - How they’re using their ability to regulate to influence data standards and how this will affect operators/entrepreneurs in this space. - The variables that they, as regulators, need to consider as part of rollouts. - How cities are thinking about infrastructure and deployment, and the challenges that they face in rolling out safe infrastructure for micromobility.

On today’s episode we do a very quick recap of the inaugural 2019 Micromobility Summit and then turn our attention to talk through what early stage investment in micromobility looks like with Reilly Brennan of Trucks Venture Capital (@reillybrennan). He is a founding general partner at Trucks (trucks.vc), a seed-stage venture capital fund for entrepreneurs changing the future of transportation. Reilly holds a teaching appointment at Stanford University and is influential newsletter [Future of Transportation](http://www.tinyletter.com/transportation) is a radar for what’s happening in transportation. Prior to Trucks, Reilly was Executive Director for Stanford’s automotive research program, Revs. He is very well known in the transport technology space. In this episode we discuss: - Trucks VC and how it’s adjusted it’s thinking about micromobility in its search for the companies that will power the future of transportation. - How he thinks about the evolution of the supply chain in the micromobility sector, and who will be looking to get involved. - Where he sees parallels between the existing early stages of micromobility and the autonomous vehicle space a few years ago. - What opportunities he is looking for in the space, and his thesis of where value will accrue. We also discuss the new Micromobility VC syndicate on AngelList that will be syndicating interesting deals in the micromobility space out to early stage investors. If you are an accredited investor and would like to hear about the deals that Horace, Oliver and others are coming across and backing, please find us on [AngelList](http://5by5.tv/micromobility/angel.co) and apply.

On today’s show we have Boyd Cohen, CEO of Iomob, to discuss building a marketplace operating system for city transportation, and what is enabled having all modes of transport interoperable and discoverable. Specifically, we dig into: - What the benefits to customers and operators are for an open marketplace for mobility. - Why micromobility is specifically well suited to open marketplaces/interoperability. - Why Boyd doesn’t think the current scooter/micromobility operators will survive in their current form. - The benefits and pitfalls of having system wide integrations for all transport options. - How this will scale in the face of competition from Uber, Google Maps and others.

In this episode, we have Steve Anderson (@Rashomon2) as a guest on the podcast. Steve has a long history in motorcycle safety and engineering forensics, and more recently has been working on low powered electric vehicles. He will be speaking at the upcoming Micromobility Summit in California on the 31st of January. We cover: - The role of vehicle design, infrastructure and speed in micromobility safety. - The coming emergence of different form factors, including cabin motorcycles and enclosed cargo trikes - Different avoidance and damage mitigation options for micromobility. - Helmets — their impact and how their role in micromobility. Be sure to check out the Danish airbag helmet, the [Hovding](http://hovding.com/). - The role of fun and joy in micromobility’s appeal.

On today’s show, Horace and Oliver talk through the challenges that vandalism poses to the shared micromobility model. Specifically we cover: - The core drivers of vandalism of such fleets, and how this compares to historical parallels. - The implications for capex vs. opex - The calculations that operators are making to ensure that the services still function well.

On today’s episode, Horace and Oliver dig deep into the evolution of business models in transport, and how micromobility lays the foundation for the next great shift of interoperable, efficient, low-cost transport services powered by blockchain. I think we just hit peak hype words, but bear with us! We cover: - How the car was the first great bundling of transport ‘jobs-to-be-done’ into a single option — kickstarting the first major productization of transport. - The emergence of Uber, and the shift of trips from pre-paid product to service. - The dynamics of vehicle fleets, and why scooter/e-bike fleets are likely to move off-balance sheet for most large operators in the near future. - How multimodality, especially that underpinned by micromobility, lends itself to open transport systems, and how this will give rise to token marketplaces for trips (similar to Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn’s tradenet proposal ). - The impact that decentralized token marketplaces will have on cities. It’s a conceptually dense episode as we explore the Productization-Servitization-Securitization-Tokenization (Pro-Se-Sec-To Framework?).

On today’s episode, Oliver talks with Regina Clewlow (@reginaclewlow), CEO of Populus.ai about her insights gained from building micromobility data dashboards for city officials. We discuss what matters to cities, and why the rise of micromobility data will drive the changes in streetscapes across the world. We also discuss: - The new data standards emerging for operators in cities, and how this will help both operators and cities better manage fleets, and cities to develop more appropriate infrastructure. - The new partnership they’ve developed with Lime to monitor their LimePod car sharing in Seattle, and how that lays the foundation for fixing the tragedy of the commons problems with scooter parking. - The report that Populus has produced for DC looking at equity of access to dockless mobility services vs more traditional docked services and why this matters to cities.

In this episode we discuss the recent Bird Platform announcement, why this was predictable given the dynamics of the market, and how franchising might evolve in the future. We also cover: - Dediu’s Law: Horace’s thesis that we’ll see 10x growth annually for the next 5–6 years in micromobility trip numbers. - How challenges related to social technologies like local bureaucracy/current scooter caps will be overcome. - The [VeloMetro/Veemo shared covered trike system](https://www.velometro.com/) that has emerged in Vancouver and whether this is likely to catch on.

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Dr Chris Cherry (@drchrischerry), Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Tennessee and Director of Light Electric Vehicle Education and Research (LEVER) Initiative, an international academic/industry research consortium on lightweight and low speed EV’s about the environmental and social implications of micromobility. We discuss: - How China’s electric micromobility sector has grown to lead the world, and how Chris and his colleagues have worked to understand it. - The framework that they use to understand the benefits that lightweight electric utility vehicles offer users — notably low cost, point to point, low emission transport. - The emission and energy use of micromobility vehicles compared to other options. - How to think about whether micromobility is additive or substitutive trips vs. incumbent modes of transport. - What the role of fun plays in micromobility adoption. - Which cities will benefit the most from the ride of micromobility and why.