🎙️Let's Talk. Yes, I Mean You. (Part 1 of 3)

Vol 78

This newsletter aims to separate the signal from the noise for investment in all things sustainable transportation: Electrification, mode shift, active and public transit, and mobility aggregation, across both people and goods movement.

With Su$tainable Mobility, I typically use a Deep Dive to cover current cleantech trends like the Tesla charger network, the maps wars, or emissions disclosures. This time, in this issue's Deep Dive, I invite you to take a look at topics I want to talk to you about. Not over email, not over text, but in real time (ideally in person, but I will settle for a Zoom).

---

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Aerovolt (United Kingdom): EV charging network for aviation

• Camber (California, USA): EV charging solution for fleets (hardware, software & service)

• ClearWatt (United Kingdom): Digital platform for buying and selling used EVs

• Currents (Oregon, USA): B2B marketplace for end-of-life EV batteries

• ENAPI (Germany): Infrastructure-layer software for connecting EV charging networks

• Inductive Robotics (California, USA): EV charging robots for parking lots

• Nivel (Norway): Urban mobility data provider

• OptimizeEV (Michigan, USA): EV charger operations and maintenance provider

• Solidec (Texas, USA): Carbon capture meets electrolyzers to create low-carbon fuels

• Ush (Belgium): Software for remote-controlled shared vehicles

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• BasiGo (Vol 32) raised $3M from CFAO and Mobility 54

• Amber Technologies (Vol 60) raised a $3.2M seed round from Era, Primer Sazze Partners, Virta Ventures*, Root and Shoot Ventures, Global Millennial Capital, and Alcove Investment Management

• Evoloh (Vol 63) raised a $20M Series A from The Engine, NextEra Energy Resources, 3M, and others

• DREV (Vol 68) raised a 700k EUR pre-seed round led by Unconventional Ventures

• Novus Bike (Vol 74) raised a round from 468 Capital (amount undisclosed)

• Moonware (Vol 77) raised a $7M seed round from Third Prime and Zero Infinity Partners, The House Fund, Lorimer Ventures, and others

Not yet a subscriber?

🎙️DEEP DIVE: Let’s Talk. Yes, I Mean You. (Part 1 of 3)

For those of you who don’t know me, my LinkedIn should give you a decent sense of who I am. I want to spend more of my working hours on innovative new projects or roles that matter to me in the climate/cleantech space.

I am passionate about:

1. Getting More Family Offices and Foundations Off the Climate Sidelines

2. Addressing The Micromobility Funding Paradox

3. Creating Novel Financing Structures for Climate Investing

I would like these topics to be some part of what my future work focuses on. It might be in a consulting project, or evolve into a full-time job opportunity. To get there, my ask is that you reach out to me (or forward this to someone who might have ideas).

Topic #1: Getting More Family Offices and Foundations Off the Climate Sidelines

There are more than 10,000 single-family offices and 5,000 multi-family offices worldwide, managing around $5.9 trillion in assets. We need them to be deploying capital into the climate crisis, via venture capital, private equity, real estate decarbonization, project finance, public equities, etc.

To be clear, there are family offices that have done tremendous work in the climate space, like Waltons and Bezos. And there are already entities in this space doing tremendous work, like CREO, Toniic, Impact Assets, and the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN).

But there are a lot of family offices who haven’t done much of anything: 79% of family offices have backed at least one impact investment¹. Is that success? 21% haven’t done any impact investing and the hurdle is just one impact investment?

How do we reach the thousands of family offices that haven’t (yet) gotten climate smart thanks to the work of the organizations I mentioned above? How do we get them deploying their assets with an understanding that climate investing is future proof and profitable?

The same goes for foundations, many of whom haven’t thought about how their mission needs to incorporate climate, for everything from their mission-related investments down to philanthropy.

If this is a topic where you have something to share (a hypothesis, a lead, etc.), please send me a few sentences so that we can talk.

I will address topics #2 and #3 in subsequent editions.

📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🥖 Paris has doubled the number of cyclists on its road in one year. On many major roads, bike traffic exceeds car traffic during rush hour.

🤧 As New York City gets closer to implementing congestion pricing, public comments are running 2-to-1 in favor of the scheme. Barring a last-minute legal snafu, the program should go live this summer.

🚗 The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled new emissions standards for cars, as well as heavy-duty trucks. Ambitious but should be achievable.

🛩️ The Biden administration is aiming to revise the tax policy for private jet use. A 5X increase in the private jet fuel tax would accelerate the shift of private jets toward electric.

🛳️ The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has come to a preliminary net-zero emissions framework for ocean shipping. The negotiations punted the question of accounting for well-to-tank emissions down the line.

🔬Markets & Research

🚲 This was one of the biggest two-week periods for climate meets mobility research that I’ve ever seen: Chinese data on real-world usage of battery-electric heavy-duty trucks shows 35% lower total cost of ownership than diesel. New maritime research on bulk vessels concludes that decarbonization will be via dual-fuel engines, carbon-neutral fuels, and air emission control measures. e-bike sales may have fallen last year in Germany. A new European Commission report calls into question the real-world emissions of plug-in hybrid vehicles. A surprising study on land-use policies indicates that effective property tax rates decline as apartments' share of the housing stock rises. In the US, EV prices are inching ever closer to gasoline-powered cars. Electrifying trucking in the US could cost $1 trillion (which, by the way, is fairly close to how much the US spent on rail over the last 4 decades, so it shouldn’t scare us).

Enjoying this issue? Share it with three people who might also enjoy it!

🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🍔 DoorDash has begun piloting drone delivery in the US in partnership with Wing. While limited to one Wendy’s in Virginia, the company hopes to scale rapidly to other cities.

✈️ A Dutch court has ruled that airline KLM engaged in “greenwashing.” While the penalty is minimal, it highlights the consumer marketing challenge for airlines given how hard aviation decarbonization is.

🪲 Fresh off its historic new contract win, the United Auto Workers (UAW) has its sights set on organizing VW. Organizing foreign automakers has long been an elusive goal for the UAW, but the union’s new president Shawn Fain is proving to be a changemaker.

⚛️ Tesla is inching closer to launching wireless charging, likely via its Cybertruck. Wireless charging isn’t a panacea but will still be a welcome addition in certain use cases.

🏳️ Stellantis waived the white flag in coming to an emissions agreement with the California Air Resources Board (CARB). As I said in Vol 71 last year, “Don’t bet against CARB.”

🛟 Renault’s CEO is asking for a Marshall plan to save the European car industry from Chinese EV makers. For now, Chinese EV makers are much more of a threat to mainstream makers like Renault and Stellantis than they are to premium makers like BMW and Mercedes.

🔌 Uber is changing the terms of how it compensates EV drivers. As evidenced by grumblings on Reddit and YouTube, not all drivers are happy with the change.

🚙 Walmart and Unilever are finding success in cutting scope 3 supplier emissions. In both cases, the companies have leaned in to genuinely helping suppliers make the transition.

🐚 Shell is closing 1,000 gas stations as it shifts towards EV charging. The European oil & gas majors like Shell, Total, and BP continue to take decarbonization more seriously than their US counterparts.

🧯Hertz fired its CEO, in part over their EV challenges. That’s four CEOs in four years.

⛴️ ABB will supply the first megawatt-level maritime charger in Auckland, New Zealand. The ferry market continues to tip towards electric as it decarbonizes.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

⚠️ EV maker Fisker is teetering closer to bankruptcy. It’s hard to see this saga ending well.

📲 Finnish mobility-as-a-service pioneer MaaS Global has filed for bankruptcy. We’re still far from finding scaleable app that lets users successfully navigate and pay for multi-modal solutions.

🛫 Supersonic aviation startup Boom successfully completed its first test flight. Boom has raised over $700M to resurrect the idea of the Concorde, but still has a long way to go, including addressing supersized fuel consumption.

🚄 US high-speed rail startup Brightline claims that demand exceeds supply on certain routes. Like any new network operator, Brightline is adapting to variable demand on a quasi-fixed supply; the company is enacting ticketing changes that prioritize long trips (Miami-to-Orlando) over lower profit commuter-length trips.

I got to spend last Friday afternoon being MC at Curbivore 2024. It was great to see innovations in mobility, delivery, zero emissions and curb management.

* Disclosure: I am an advisor to Virta Ventures

Not yet a subscriber?

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2024/01/11/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-family-office-an-analysis/?sh=7cd395cd12ed