In this episode, Oliver and Horace discuss a recent trip that Horace made around Continental Europe and reflect on the changing dynamics of shared micromobility business models. Specifically: - The core product, regulatory and operational challenges that are constraining shared mimo companies - The differences between being anti-car and pro-micromobility - The parallels in this market to the mistakes made by the Chinese bikeshare operators, and more historically, the clean tech boom of the late ...
Jul 02, 2019•54 min
This week Oliver interviews journalist David Zipper about the quietly brewing war over mobility data that is being played out between cities and shared micromobility operators. David is a Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a Partner in the 1776 Venture Fund, where he oversees investments in smart cities and mobility ventures. Following his tenure as director of NYC Business Solutions in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration in New York City he served as director of Business Devel...
Jun 23, 2019•46 min
In this episode, we release the content from a recent MM Meetup call with Horace where he unpacks 'What makes Micromobility Disruptive?'. This was recorded from a call for our paid subscribers via the Substack newsletter, and grants exclusive access to Horace to ask questions on a monthly basis. It helps support the work that Horace, myself, James, Chase and Luke do to generate content for you guys, and grants you exclusive benefits like discounts to Summits, exclusive swag, early access to cont...
Jun 07, 2019•59 min
In this episode, Oliver interviews Nick Lovett (@nicklovettnz), Transport Policy Planner at the Christchurch City Council in New Zealand. Nick runs the scooter trial with Lime, and has recently expanded the programme to Beam (Singapore) and Flamingo (a local competitor). As noted in earlier episodes, Christchurch has been widely praised for his progressive stance embracing micromobility. In this episode, we dig into the wider lessons both entrepreneurs and regulators can take from Christchurch’s...
May 29, 2019•40 min
In this episode, we publish the Software for Micromobility panel from the Micromobility California Summit. In this panel, Stacey Randecker Bartlett (Co-Host, The Flying Car) hosts a conversation with William Henderson (CEO, Ride Report), Tiffany Chu (COO, Remix), Alex Kirn (CEO, INVERS), Jake Sion (COO, Transit App), Victor Pontis (CEO, ScooterMap) about how software is enabling and empowering micromobility to be adopted into cities. Specifically they cover: - Whether they see the emergence of o...
May 14, 2019•39 min
In this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss Horace's visit to Christchurch, New Zealand for the ITSNZ T-Tech 19 conference. For those that don't know, Christchurch suffered a massive earthquake in 2011, levelling most of downtown and killing 181 people. The city has been rebuilt with great cycle/micromobility infrastructure, which has led to Lime Scooters and cycling as a modal being incredibly popular in the city. In this episode, we unpack: - why the concentration of political power in cities m...
May 09, 2019•1 hr 3 min
In this episode, we publish a panel discussion from the Micromobility California Summit in January. Derrick Ko (CEO, Spin), Michael Keating (CEO, Scoot), Sanjay Dastoor (CEO, Skip) and Sergio Romo (CEO, Grin) are interviewed by Cory Weinberg from The Information. They cover: - The scooter landscape as it was in January, and lessons learnt so far - The challenges they've faced ins scaling, and what they foresee ahead - Their changing relationships with cities - Which competitor company they respe...
Apr 30, 2019•48 min
In this episode, Horace and Oliver unpack the Uber S-1 filing, noting, among other things: - The parallels between Uber's assessment of total addressable market and that which we've talked about on the Micromobility podcast. - The economics of short trips, and how these skew towards Micromobility vs Uber's existing rideshare business. - The strategy that makes the most sense for Uber to scale micromobility over the short to mid term. - We discuss the recent Barclays Bank report on micromobility ...
Apr 23, 2019•47 min
New to micromobility? This episode is for you. Been with us all year? There is still plenty of depth and breadth being addressed. In this special episode, Horace and Oliver revisit many of the ideas of the first 20+. It is a great episode for both solidifying one’s understanding and introducing one’s friends and family. Specifically, they cover: - How Horace came to micromobility and why it was so initially captivating - The primary requirement of the micromobility definition (500kg) and the sec...
Apr 02, 2019•1 hr 37 min
In this episode, Oliver and Horace discuss the Micromobility FAQ's and their significance. Specifically, they cover: - how it's categorised and why this is important - whether autonomous cars will make Micromobility irrelevant - Infrastructure and why and how this is an important question - How should we think about measuring success. The sponsor of the episode is Joyride, a software platform that lets you launch your own bike or scooter share system under your brand, with full consumer facing a...
Mar 25, 2019•56 min
In this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss the new Micromobility book that is up on Kickstarter. This is the first book from Horace in the space, and outlines why and how micromobility will take over the world. Get your copy here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2092675260/micromobility-the-first-year?ref=27ap2v. Next up, Oliver and Michal discuss the latest news including the first Bird Platform launch globally in New Zealand, Voi's recent raise and Jump's latest data from Sacramento. Fin...
Mar 14, 2019•55 min
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 micromo...
Feb 28, 2019•56 min
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 o...
Feb 20, 2019•49 min
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 Tr...
Feb 08, 2019•50 min
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 thei...
Jan 29, 2019•41 min
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 ca...
Jan 24, 2019•1 hr 5 min
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.
Jan 16, 2019•55 min
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 s...
Dec 22, 2018•1 hr 11 min
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 infr...
Dec 13, 2018•41 min
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/) th...
Dec 04, 2018•46 min
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 collea...
Nov 28, 2018•47 min
In today’s episode, we’re joined by Twitter micromobility celebrity Michal Naka (@michalnaka), to talk about scooters, how they’re evolving in hardware and their interactions with cities and what the future might look like. It’s a packed episode. Specifically we cover: - How Michal ended up in micromobility through his skepticism of autonomous cars. (5:50->) - How the most valuable miles travelled are likely to be addressed by micromobility and not autonomous. (9:20->) - The history of the...
Nov 21, 2018•43 min
On today’s episode Horace and Oliver are joined by Winston Kwon, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Social Innovation at the University of Edinburgh Business School. We discuss mobility poverty, why it matters and the role that micromobility could play in improving access to opportunities. We also touch on: - The concept of Universal Basic Mobility (as put forward by Alex Roy) and how micromobility might enable it - The importance of social inclusion — and how transport, specifically cars, impa...
Nov 13, 2018•51 min
In today’s episode we unpack more about the latest data on micromobility adoption, what this implies for the total addressable market of micromobility and then run over the details of the upcoming Micromobility California event. Specifically, we touch on: - The speed of adoption curves for scooters compared to other technology platforms in the past. - The environmental impacts that we might be able to imply from using lightweight electric vehicles - Who will be attending the Micromobility Califo...
Nov 08, 2018•41 min
In today’s show, we examine the role of platforms in micromobility’s rise, and what role they might play in furthering adoption. Specifically, we cover: - What an entry into the micromobility space might look like for Apple, and how their experience in interface stepchanges puts them at a unique advantage - How autonomous cars are analogous to wormholes vs. a more tactile engaging experience of the world with micromobility. - What a platform built on a micromobiltiy fleet might look like, and wh...
Oct 31, 2018•48 min
Micromobility has an addressable market of more than $1.4 trillion dollars annually in the US alone, a figure that makes it more valuable than longer distance transport addressable by cars ($1.1 trillion). That’s the message in this episode where we run through the talk ‘When Micromobility Attacks’ that Horace gave at the recent Micromobility Summit in Copenhagen. Be sure to check out the slides — have also included the relevant ones below. We look at: - How US trip data typically exhibits log-n...
Oct 17, 2018•52 min
In this episode, we look at the history of the Dutch cycle infrastructure, the symbiotic tension that we'll see between micromobility and autonomous vehicles, and the intangible quality of cities with vibrant micromobility ecosystems. We also cover: - the recent spate of news re: the dawning scooter wars (Bird, Lime, Jump) - San Francisco's highway history - the cost comparisons for cycling infrastructure vs. car infrastructure, especially when compared to modal share vs. land-use in European ci...
Oct 08, 2018•54 min
On today's episode Horace and Oliver are joined by Corinne Vogel, head of operations at Smide bikeshare based in Zurich, Switzerland. Smide is a high-end e-bike share system, with speed pedelec bikes that travel up to 30mph/45kph. It's using a completely different approach to the rapid blanket approach from e-scooter rollouts we're seeing elsewhere. It's a fascinating discussion. Specifically, we touch on: - who and what their customers are, why they choose Smide over other options and how this ...
Oct 02, 2018•40 min
In today’s show we cover the rise of scooter sharing and how different localized constraints result in different micromobility solutions blooming. Specifically: - The scooter sharing model that Bird pioneered, why it emerged in Santa Monica and why it might not apply to other contexts. - The history from the Segway to the hoverboard, Boosted Board and on to the current scooter form factor. - The local variables that need to be considered for micromobility fleet operators. - The parallels of the ...
Sep 25, 2018•59 min
In this episode, we look at Marchetti's constant and why commute times tend to aggregate at under 1 hour per day. In this episode we also cover: - How the 1 hour daily commute has been a constant across time, and how that affects how our cities form. - What the Marchetti's constant is, and how it has driven the explosion in shared scooters and bikes. - The Segway, why it failed and what it can teach us about the emergent micromobility phenomena. - The problems with traditional bikeshare systems,...
Sep 17, 2018•59 min
