🏞️Mobility hotels, Zion, and postal trucks
Vol 90
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.
If you’ll be in NYC for Climate Week, newsletter reader Sammie Hasen is hosting an E-Mobility Happy Hour on Tuesday Sept 24 from 5-8pm along with Curo (Vol 72), itselectric (Vol 26), Voltpost (Vol 7), Evolectric (Vol 27) and others.
🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on
Bluemethane (United Kingdom): Capturing methane from water
eBliss (Texas, USA): Micromobility manufacturer
Capte (Netherlands): IoT solutions for transit operators
Dreamstar Lines (California, USA): Overnight train service
Enigma Aerospace (Massachusetts, USA): Manufacturer of autonomous electric aviation
Ganaio (California, USA): Hardware using vehicle shocks to extend EV range
Naycel (Florida, USA): Transforms carbon gases into battery graphite materials
OhmEV (California, USA): ChargerHelp! competitor
Specter (Belgium): Manufacturer of e-bikes
Tether EV (Spain): Vehicle-to-grid software platform
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💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch
BiB Batteries (Vol 40) raised a $2.2M Seed round led by Family Ventures
Signol (Vol 49) raised a 2.5M GBP round from East Innovate, MOL Plus, TMV, and Ultranav
SirenOpt (Vol 80) scored a $275K SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant from the US National Science Foundation
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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks
👩🏽⚖️Government, Policies & Cities
🗽New York City’s first court date on congestion pricing will be Sept 27. NY Governor Hochul is pushing to settle the issue with the voters, not via the judicial branch, while advocates note the plan was already approved by elected officials.
🚲 Can NYC learn from Paris’ fast pivot towards bikes? One key difference was COVID: temporary pandemic infrastructure in Paris (e.g., bike lanes) became permanent while temporary pandemic infrastructure in NYC (e.g., sidewalk dining) was mostly phased out.
🏞️ Zion became the first US national park with an all-electric shuttle bus service. You love to see it.
📨 The US Postal Service has finally taken delivery of its first custom EV trucks. They’re odd looking, to put it nicely, but drivers love them.
🇮🇹 Italy wants the EU to reconsider its 2035 sales ban on internal combustion engine vehicles. These days, Italy often finds itself at odds with Germany and France, as well as with the only manufacturer of scale in the country, Stellantis.
🔬Markets & Research
🚕 Researchers at UC Davis have found that half of ridehail trips replace more sustainable options. The sustainability promises of ridehail will require deeper cooperation between operators and public transit agencies.
🏭 Corporates & Later Stage
🚗 China’s SAIC, owner of MG, plans on launching its first EV with a solid-state battery next year. Not good for the legacy Western carmakers if China’s EV players dominate the next evolution of the battery.
🤨 Geely’s Volvo Car unit walked back its plan to sell only EVs by 2030. It now aims for 90%-100% of its sales in 2030 to be plug-ins.
💸 Ford and Southern California Edison (SCE) have teamed up to pay Ford drivers for modifying charging patterns at peak times. Smart charging at scale will open up incredible business opportunities.
🧽 GM’s Chevrolet unit is absorbing the Brightdrop electric truck brand. The original vision around logistics services has now been pared back to making trucks, where Chevy’s network helps.
🚗VW is threatening a first: closing factories in Germany. The company’s bloated cost structure makes it particularly susceptible to cost-efficient Chinese EV competitors.
🤖 Alphabet’s Waymo is now doing 100,000 autonomous rides each week. Waymo has no rivals anymore for robotaxi dominance in the US.
🧑💼ATIC, New York City’s biggest transit insurer is on the verge of bankruptcy. The company insures about 60% of the city’s taxis and ridehail vehicles.
🤖 Intel may sell part of its ownership in autonomous company Mobileye. Intel is in a world of trouble right now, so selling assets makes sense.
🏍️ Honda and Yamaha, long-time motorcycle rivals, announced a partnership in electric motorcycles. The partnership is a good step, but most of the electric 2-wheeler innovation is happening from challengers in India, Southeast Asia, and East Africa.
🚲 Lyft is restructuring its bike share unit, focusing on docked systems like its Citibike unit and drop free-floating share systems. There’s lots of untapped potential for Lyft, not Uber, to become the mobility partner of choice for American cities.
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🐣 Startups & Early Stage
🚵♂️ Belgian e-bike darling Cowboy secured another $5M investment. While it outlasted rival Vanmoof, Cowboy is no investment success story either; it’s raised about $155M and is now valued at about $45M.
↘️ Northvolt announced plans to cut its workforce and sell some of its businesses. The battery startup, once a high-flying European success story, is currently a cautionary tale.
👾 TuSimple, the Chinese autonomous trucking startup, is pivoting into AI animation. The startup’s cash is mostly tied up in its imperiled US subsidiary.
🇳🇴 Norway’s Mobility Solutions has opened its first “mobility hotel.” It serves as a single hub for bike-based urban logistics in the city center.
♻️ GreenZen Solutions, a manufacturer of last-mile climate-controlled micromobility, has partnered with battery swap startup Swobbee. Always good to see more battery swap innovation.
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