When it comes to sustainable mobility startups, New York City finds itself in a peculiar position. Blessed with a legacy of strong public transit infrastructure, local politicos have crafted an ecosystem that encourages all sorts of clean transport and logistics innovation: bikesharing and cargo bikes, waterborne freight and delivery lockers, to name a few.
And while these urban conditions spawn all sorts of fascinating startups that work in the Tri-state, those same companies then struggle when they try to scale up and serve other parts of the country. Equally vexing: many concepts that work well in Europe or Asia might want to use NYC as a beachhead for a U.S. launch, but are then stymied by the fact that U.S. regulations or other localization factors might be too byzantine to navigate.
NYC leaders set out to solve this problem with launch of BATWorks, teaming up with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and Cambridge Innovation Center, effectively pairing the nation’s three biggest tech hubs outside of the SF Bay Area in a shared mission to incubate, pilot and commercialize clean technologies.
In today’s episode of Zag Talk, I sat down with Alex Mitchell, Senior Vice President of LACI BATWorks, to talk about the mission, how startups can better work with governments, and his unique background in the mobility ecosystem. Plus, Sela, Greg and I dig into the latest Waymo news, Egypt’s fast-growing delivery startup, gambling on traffic, and the Citrini report that temporarily popped the stock market. Listen in!
EVENTS | Cutting Edge Mobility Heads to Curbivore: April 16 & 17
Our annual conference focused on the future of delivery, mobility and autonomy is just around the corner: Curbivore returns to Downtown LA on April 16 & 17. We’re pleased to announce our latest partners — true innovators driving the industry forward. Meet Bot Auto, Robotis, Indigo Tech, Rideshare Carz, RoboDock and Neubility: and join them in person in April to see the technologies reshaping our streets.
HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
Hot bot: Los Angeles-based Coco Robotics just unveiled its new Coco 2 next-gen autonomous delivery bot. The new robot’s improved hardware aims to increase the amount of time operating fully autonomously, while also allowing for operations in bike lanes and on roads. (I’ll be at Coco’s launch party tonight — expect more pics of the hardware soon!)
Most literal curb news: City of Boston introduces its Curb Lab, an initiative of the Office of Emerging Technology. City of Seattle is hiring for a Temporary Curb Technology Strategist. OMF releases Shared Learning for Smarter Curbs report. Washington State debuts the first statewide pedestrian network map, displaying sidewalks, curbs and crossings for 90% of the state’s population areas.
The future of retail is all IKEA? Ikea continues its march to retail dominance, as its launching its 11th California location, in SoCal’s Helms Bakery furniture district. This will be one of the Swedish chain’s smallest US. stores, coming in at around 40,000 feet, built into a historic building on a bustling shopping street near light rail. Greater Los Angeles has always been a place for Ikea to test new concepts, the chain also operates its largest North American location (456,000 sq. ft.) in nearby Burbank. Real heads will recall that Ikea first grew to Golden State dominance when it took over erstwhile imitator STØR, which Ikea acquired the same year as it was mocked in The Simpsons. Also worth noting is that over 35% of Ikea’s sales now come via ecommerce channels.
Oh Elon… Eight months into Tesla’s launch of “Robotaxi” service in Austin, the service has around 42 cars, with sub 20% availability, a far cry from Musk’s promise of 500+ cars and coverage for half the U.S. population. Meanwhile, Tesla just built its first steering wheel-free Cybercab, while its cars continue to try to drive people into lakes.
In happier AV news: Waymo hit 200 million autonomous miles, as it began welcoming riders in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando, while also beginning tests in Chicago. Aurora Innovation’s AV trucks are about to hit the highways between AZ and TX. Wayve raised $1.2 billion, one of the largest venture rounds in British history. Newark Airport is planning to pilot autonomous buses from Oceaneering, Ohmio and Glydways.
Ride the D: LA Metro has officially announced the D Line extension is set to open on May 8th (which is juuuust slightly past its most recent promise of “winter.”) Service on the 3.9 mile section links Koreatown, Mid-Wilshire and the edge of Beverly Hills, a diverse and dense stretch of offices, residential and cultural destinations. Part of this line was originally meant to open in the ‘90s, before an explosion at a Ross Dress for Less temporarily scared voters out of tunneling near methane.
You can just hallucinate your entire vacation! Congrats to my friends at Turo on launching a partnership with OpenAI, allowing travelers to search for rental cars in ChatGPT. Like many of OpenAI’s collaborations, there’s still a bit of work to be done: a bit of testing finds that the chat bot will hallucinate availability in markets that Turo doesn’t serve, and repeatedly link to cars that are unavailable.
Big cities need fast trains: New Delhi just opened the final segment of the first line of its Namo Bharat Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), logging an impressive 100k riders on inauguration day. The system is a rapid-metro of sorts, engineered to run at around 110 MPH, with subway system-like frequency, with stations a good three to four miles apart. Seoul is working on a similar system, which is key to making transit time-competitive in sprawling mega cities.
A few good links: Walmart to pay $100M over deceptive Spark Driver pay. Einride raises over-subscribed $113M PIPE. Does the release of new music result in more distracted driving, causing more accidents? (Yes.) CA Gov. Newsom signs legislation to loan Bay Area transit operators $590M. (Remember my podcast with Sen. Scott Wiener, who championed this bill?) Boston extends free fare pilot on three bus routes. Uber debuts Autonomous Solutions division. New report finds that 44% of LA County’s pavement is unnecessary (but disappointing to see no mention of Measure W, a recent parcel tax that discourages impermeable surfaces.) Traffic enforcement cameras help SF improve ticketing rate. ZaiNar raises $100M for AI-powered GPS alternative. NYC Court unmasks fraudulent car accident crime ring. Even in a blizzard, NYC’s courier warriors go out to deliver food (hope you tip!) Meanwhile, the storm also highlighted pedestrians’ favorite desire paths. Uber snaps up SpotHero. FedEx sues U.S. for tariff refunds. Amazon hits 100M sustainable deliveries in Europe. It’s Electric launches in D.C. Singaporean ridehailer Tada eyes growth in U.S., Africa. Trump Admin looks to kill Tremont Ave busway in the Bronx. Plano agrees to drop DART withdrawal election, after regional transit agency agrees to kick back some taxes to city (looks like the hostage takers won, expect more munis to try this…)
Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew
