From delivery bots, to cargo bikes, scooters and LEVs… our streets have become a hodgepodge of busy little machines, transporting goods and people to their last mile destinations. But keeping those devices charged, and those packages sorted, is no easy feat, especially in cities where real estate is at a premium and when officials are especially guarded about fire safety risks.
Tom Schreiber, Founder & CEO of Perch Mobility, has a solution in the form of his eye-catching, modular “Portal” shipping containers, strategically placed across cities like Los Angeles and NYC. But even with marquee customers like Lime and familiar delivery brands, fundraising for a capex-heavy business has proven a challenge. In today’s episode of Zag Talk, Tom and I get into the art of “seed strapping” a business so that it can outlast the boom-and-bust cycles of the past few years.
Greg and I are also joined by Zag’s Senior Correspondent Sela Musa, as we gab about new economic research on surge pricing, North America’s firsts shared dockless cargo bike, leadership shakeups at Uber and much more. Listen in!
NYC HAPPY HOUR — Tuesday, June 10th
It’s an East Coast — West Coast team-up for the ages! Curbivore and Electric Avenue are hosting a mobility & delivery tech happy hour. Join us on Tuesday, June 10th, from 5 to 8 PM, at Threes Brewing in Brooklyn, NY.
As anyone that’s attended our mixers before can attest, these are always a fun way to meet your fellow technologists, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and journalists shaping the future of urban movement.
HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
Tesla’s robotaxis approacheth: We’re just days away from Tesla’s robotaxi service finally launching in Austin, almost 10 years after Musk first promised the concept. But there are still scores of unanswered questions — will the service have its own app, will there be backup drivers — alongside longstanding safety concerns owing to the company’s lidar-free technology. And while Austin’s laissez faire approach to AVs has brought in other players like Avride and VW, expect that to change if Musk’s taxis start causing serious problems.
But what about maintenance? Even when a taxi can drive itself, it’s still going to take a human to keep the vehicle maintained, clean up after messy passengers, refresh the interior, etc… the unglamorous side of operating the business. Lyft is now making the case that this could be its special sauce in the AV economy, where it’s otherwise been playing catchup. If Flexdrive, its rental and maintenance subsidiary it bought in 2020 for $20M, can make a profitable business out of changing tires and wiping up barf, that might finally validate Lyft’s cautious approach.
The year of YIMBY, maybe? California’s Senate just passed SB 79, which would broadly upzone parcels near transit; it now heads to the Assembly and then the Governor’s desk. Gov. Newsom has praised a raft of pro-housing bills, as well as one that would limit the abuse of CEQA laws to oppose infill, which could give a bit of cheer for the state’s moribund housing construction market.
Nix the parking too! New PRN data shows just how much parking requirements drive up the cost of housing, especially in dense and already unaffordable cities. Unbundle that parking and let the people decide for themselves!
The all-seeing eye… cameras clean the curb: NYC’s City Council voted to consent to a new state bill that would allow street sweepers to issue alternate-side parking tickets to cars parked by the wrong curb. Camera-based enforcement has become popular for bus lanes and rush hour parking zones as of late, but this may be the first time it’s been applied to street cleaning.
You could say they were working Glovo in hando: The EU’s Commission just fined food deliverers Glovo and Delivery Hero €329 million ($377M) for antitrust violations, finding that the through the companies’ cross-ownership structure, the two colluded to drive up prices and not poach talent. Expect EU regulators to keep the scrutiny up, with Delivery Hero part-owner Prosus now looking to further consolidate 3PD players with its acquisition of Just Eat Takeaway.com.
The sad state of transit: In Illinois, legislators failed to pass a funding bill to save Chicago-area transit operators, leading CTA, Metra and Pace to start planning for 40% cuts to service. Over in DC, a very culty bill from Florida congressman Greg Steube would rename the region’s metro system to either the Trump Train or WMAGA (ok the latter at least made me chuckle.) And in LA, Metro updated its alternatives for the much-anticipated project to build rail alongside the eternally congested 405. Cost estimates have now risen to the $15.4 billion to $24.4 billion range, because this country has basically forgotten how to build things.
Is surge pricing good? Ever since Uber unveiled dynamic pricing, it’s been contentious among drivers and riders alike. Now new economic research suggests that surge pricing increases consumer welfare, as prices actually average out lower through the course of a week. But that means drivers who work the wheel all day long (a population that skews female) actually make less money; only those that specifically drive at peak times come out ahead. And speaking of Uber… a shakeup in the C-Suite has Andrew Macdonald moving up to COO, while Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty is stepping away from running the delivery biz after 13 years with the company.
Funky new delivery bot alert! Check out Whale Dynamic and Noodoe’s new partnership, aiming to bring together energy management with self-driving delivery van-lets. The hardware looks a bit like Nuro with a Kiwibot face slapped on it.
A few good links: Seattle rolls out dCAAMP to alert AVs to nearby emergency vehicles. LA-based GovTech player Silvus Technologies bought for $5 billion. London looks to up congestion charge by 18%. CARB opens up another round of e-bike subsidy vouchers. Zeekr delivered 46.5K EVs last month… the electrification revolution will continue without us. CA transit agencies rally to restore state funding. Montreal suburb Longueuil looks to lower all residential speed limits to 30 km/h (19 mph.) Non-bank lending accelerates Kenya’s e-moto transition. Cybernetix Ventures raising $100M fund for robotics.
See you at the happy hour!
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew
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