Shows
Ride AIDisrupting the Car (with Horace Dediu)This week’s episode of the Ride AI podcast is a mind-meld between automotive analyst Ed Niedermeyer and tech-innovation scholar Horace Dediu about why the car industry is ripe for disruption. Their conversation is a reflection on the transformative power of past innovations like computers and phones, and the need to imagine a better future for mobility. Together they discuss:
The concept of unbundling the car for different trip types and purposes, similar to computing devices
Observation that the world seeks to improve cars, but they are already highly optimized
Critique of current appr...2024-04-1756 minRide AIHorace Dediu: Is Apple Done With Mobility?Apple is reportedly exiting the car industry, focusing instead on software and mobility services. The company's decision is driven by the challenges and complexities of the automotive industry, including high costs, long product cycles, and difficulty in making significant contributions. Apple's future in mobility may lie in micromobility and smart accessories for vehicles.
🚗 Apple's decision to exit the car industry is not surprising given the challenges and complexities associated with building and selling cars. The company's strengths lie in software and user experience, which may be better applied to mobility services and smart accessories for vehicles.
📱 The smartp...2024-03-0656 minRide AIThe Story of Upway and Their Plan to Help You Sell or Buy a Used Electric BikeOliver Bruce is back for this episode!
Upway is an innovative company in the e-bike marketplace, specializing in the refurbishment and resale of electric bikes. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Paris, France, Upway has made significant strides in the e-bike industry. Toussaint Wattinne, the CEO and co-founder of Upway, along with co-founder Stéphane Ficaja, have backgrounds in leading roles at Uber Eats, bringing their expertise in tech-driven business models to the e-bike industry.
The company is notable for refurbishing and certifying a vast array of electric bikes, offering customers a wide selection of over 400 brands. As o...2023-12-2055 minRide AI190: The exploding world of micromobility-first freight with Finmile CEO Rich PleethThis week Oliver managed to catch up with Rich Pleeth while he was passing through London.
Rich is the founder of Finmile, a micromobility first freight company in London using four wheeler cargo e-bikes to deliver for companies such as HelloFresh and some very large global companies that unfortunately we can’t name but who Oliver was very impressed with.
They are expanding very quickly and have a relevant and replicable model for a lot of cities around the world. We encourage you to particularly listen to the section wh...2023-07-0648 minRide AI187: Spatial computing and what it means for micromobility with Horace DediuThis week we have been in Amsterdam at our Micromobility Europe conference and Oliver had the chance to sit down with Horace who had just flown in from seeing the Apple vision pro at the WWDC unveil.
We have talked on the show for years about how augmented reality would benefit micromobility, and so we wanted to take this opportunity to unpack a little bit more about what he saw, the idea of special computing, and how it could impact how we think about Mobility.
We had an amazing...2023-06-161h 00Ride AI186: The story of premium two wheeler Cake Motorbikes with founder Stefan YtterbornThis week Oliver interviewed Stefan Ytterborn, founder and CEO of Cake Motorcycles from Sweden. They’ve emerged as one of the worlds leading motorbike manufacturers, solidly occupying the premium end of the market with very Scandinavian designed versions of electric motorbikes, and a strong focus on both commuters as well as backcountry use cases.
Oliver had a chance to ride some of these bikes around Santa Monica when he was doing the tour of Southern California and was really impressed with the pickup and handling of these bikes, especially for someone like him who’s new-ish to moto...2023-06-0837 minRide AI185: Subscription-as-a-Service - unpacking a new micromobility business model with Micro OG and Tempo founder Michael KeatingThis week we release a discussion with Michael Keating that was recorded when Oliver was passing through San Francisco on the launch day of his new company Tempo.
For those who are in the know, Michael Keating is an OG of the Micromobility space, having founded Scoot back in 2012, which was one of the first moped sharing companies before selling it to Bird.
Tempo is Michael's latest venture and one we're very excited about, having followed the journey along for a while. We are honoured that he would share this with us...2023-06-0153 minRide AI184: The story of Onyx Motorbikes with founder Tim Seward and CEO James KhatiblouWe're really excited to share this episode with the team from Onyx Motorbikes who are based in Los Angeles. Oliver visited Onyx in Southern California in January as part of the So Cal Micromobility Tour. They are the winners of this years Rider's Choice Awards for Best Moped. It was great to hear about the story of how they got started and have manage to ship more than 5000 bikes – We have a deep respect for anybody who just manages to ship and get vehicles out. The build a real cult following and I am excited to see where they ge...2023-05-2553 minRide AI182: A microcar (some of the time!) - the story of City Transformer with founder Udi MeridorThis week Oliver interviews Udi Meridor from City Transformer. You may have come across City Transformer as it was on the recent Top Gear episode of microcars in Paris. Obviously, we’ve done two microcar episodes week on week so this is an area that we're definitely thinking about, as are McKenzie who I had on the week prior talking about mini mobility. It feels like such a burgeoning area and we have been really excited to explore this topic.
If you enjoy this conversation, you will definitely enjoy Micromobility Europe – We would really enco...2023-05-1154 minRide AI181: Building iconic micro-cars with Microlino founder, Oliver OuboterThis week Oliver interviews Oliver Ouboter, one of the founders of MicroLino, who are producing one of the most beautiful cars that we have seen in the neighbourhood electric vehicle space – the thing is an electric version of the iconic BMW Ysetta from the mid 1950s.
We really loved this interview for a few reasons - firstly, because the operators – Oliver and his father Whim were the OGs of the Micromobility space – setting up a company literally called Micromobility back in the early 2000s and producing the first kick scooters and then subsequently some of the...2023-05-0454 minRide AI180: Exploring public-private Shared Micromobility with Caroline Sampanaro, head of micromobility and transit policy at LyftThis week Oliver interviews Caroline Sampanaro, Head of Micromobility and Transit Policy at Lyft, about her role and opportunities for micromobility to participate in conversations about better transport systems and cities. They also talk a lot about the shared business model, and why PPP feels like the most logical endpoint for a lot of the shared use cases for micromobility. We have continually been struck by the great team that Lyft has built - check out our earlier conversations with Laura Fox, GM of Citibike in NY for reference - and we really enjoyed this conversation with Caroline. Also...2023-04-2749 minRide AI179: Exploring the Future of Micromobility with Kersten Heineke, of the McKinsey Center for Future MobilityThis week Oliver interviews Kersten Heineke, a partner at McKinsey, and lead of the McKinsey Centre For Future Mobility, based in Germany. We discuss the role and scope of the Center for Future Mobility, the rising interest in micro vehicles, and the potential impact of mini-mobility on the transportation landscape.
Kersten provides an extensive overview of his research, including the emergence of direct-to-consumer electric vehicles brands like Lectric and Ride1Up, and the innovative hardware-as-a-service models offered by companies such as Lug and Carrie/Whee! They also delve into the promising growth of the...2023-04-2052 minRide AI178: Creating Premium Owned Scooters - the story of Apollo with founders Maciek Piskorz and Chris Heathcote-ReyWe're really excited to bring this episode to you. Apollo Scooters are one of those companies that quietly works away in the background and ships without being loud and overly public about it – We have been following them since they first unveiled the Apollo Pro at Micromobility Europe last year.
Last year, they shipped 30,000 scooters – which is a pretty decent amount for a company that has never raised outside capital at all. In this conversation we run through the founding of the company, the opportunities that exist in the space, their journey with being dire...2023-04-1356 minRide AI177: Horace Dediu on the Next Billion Cars PodcastThis week we chose to resyndicate a recent episode of a podcast called The Next Billion Seconds, for their series called The Next Billion Cars, where they look at the future of the transportation industry and how tech will help enable the next billion vehicles to get around.
In this episode, Drew Smith interviews Horace, exploring the origins and future of micromobility. Per their description, “Horace offers a blistering critique of the failure of the automotive sector to embody the new design possibilities offered by micromobility: transportation choice in our urban centres, and a po...2023-04-061h 02
Ride AI176: The power and potential of E-bike subsidies with Grace Rink - Chief Climate Officer of Denver CityThis week Oliver interviews Grace Rink, Chief Climate Officer for the City and County of Denver. Grace leads the Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency. She’s more well known in micromobility as the head of the Denver e-bike subsidy programme, which has captured the imagination of regulators all over the world with the latest program iterations selling out in mere minutes. Today we talk about how she ended up in Denver, why the programme was formed and it’s objectives and the implications of what they’re finding.
This felt like an import...2023-03-3052 minRide AI175: Micromobility fires, standards and transport equity with Melinda HansonThis week Oliver interviews Melinda Hansen, founder of consulting firm Brightside and formerly the head of sustainability at Bird. They talk about the recent spate of Micromobility/ebike battery fires in New York and the response there as well as the wider conversation about equitable transport options, from her work with the equitable commute project.
Like we’ve discussed many times on the show, we think that there is a real opportunity for Micromobility to contribute to the conversation. We really love Melinda‘s take on the whole space – she has a wealth of indust...2023-03-2348 minRide AI174: Building award-winning e-moped and e-bike subscriptions in Sweden: Rickard Bröms of VässlaThis week Oliver interviews Rickard Bröms from Sweden, who is the founder of Vässla, who won the Rider Choice Award at the recent 2023 Micromobility Riders Awards for best subscription company.
We’ve been following along with what they’ve been doing for a while and really love the new pedal Ebike that they are bringing out, along with the standard throttle bike and moped that they've been offering. They have really nailed the subscription services for micromobility, lowering the barriers to entry.
We really loved the conversation with Rickard - he’s very mission-dr...2023-03-1754 minRide AI173: The U.S politics of micromobility with Matt Yglesias and Julia Thayne DeMordauntThis week we are releasing another talk from our recent Micromobility World - this one with Matthew Yglesias, pioneering political blogger and self-described "ebike dad," on why electric bikes and other small vehicles offer a compelling alternative to the solve the urban mobility dilemma.
Matt has a wealth of knowledge about the interplay of politics, Transport and land use and Julia is an excellent host to ask him about it. This was a really compelling and interesting 50 minutes. We hope you enjoy it!
They dig into:
- His journey to be...2023-03-0956 minRide AI172: The Apple Car Conundrum with Horace DediuThis week on the podcast, we welcome back Horace for the first time in a while, to discuss the recent Mastodon storm on Apple's fabled car efforts and why they may fail, especially in the face of smaller, more modular vehicle solutions. We’ve linked to it below, but as quick context, the overall arc is that cars have a very long development and use lifespan, and that computers, the thing that Apple is best at, have far shorter timespans, and that there’s a mismatch there around how these two dynamics would interplay.
As we’ve talked...2023-03-0248 minRide AI171: Building the most popular ebike in America - The crazy story of Lectric Ebikes with founder Levi Conlow (also - launch of their XPedition cargo bike!)This week Oliver interviews Levi Conlow who is the founder of Lectric Ebikes. This really is one of the most incredible stories of Micromobility in the last few years. Back in 2019 when they were just starting out, they started with an Ebike that they struggled to sell and no-one wanted to buy. Last year they had the most popular model of a bike in America shipping over 150,000 units, all while being profitable.
It’s stories like this that we love from Micromobility – companies that have really just nailed the product market fit by focusing on the bits that...2023-02-2153 minRide AI170: Talking micro EV’s with Gabe Klein, head of the US Joint Office of Energy and TransportationThis week we are releasing another episode from the Micromobility world catalogue – this one is a conversation between Gabe Klein, the first person to head the newly formed Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, and Julia Thayne, our Micromobility world Cohost.
Gabes' job is to break down barriers to electrifying transportation. We’ve had him on the podcast before for episode 122 for what was one of the top episodes of the year. Before he took his current role, he has held a number of really interesting roles as a Zipcar exec and chief of the W...2023-02-1623 minRide AI169: What Tech has got right and wrong about mobility with Kara Swisher, Horace Dediu and Julia ThayneThis week, we are releasing one of the talks that we had at the recent Micromobility World event early this year . A discussion between Horace, Julia Thayne, one of our co hosts and the famed journalist Kara Swisher, this was a particularly energising section, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Specifically they tackle:
- The intersection of tech and transport
- The micromobility thesis and is it correct or not?
- Which cities are best for micromobility
- What Elon got w...2023-02-0900 minRide AI168: The story of the distinctive E-bike - Super73 with founder LeGrand CrewseThis week we're releasing another interview from Oliver's tour of micromobility companies in Southern California.
This episode is with LeGrand Crewse, founder of Super73, on the growth of his very distinctive brand. Ever since Oliver first saw the first image of the electrified mini taco bike, he thought that Super73 were on to something - they clearly understood what electrification buys you in terms of bike design, and they had focused on knobbly tyres, aesthetics and the likelihood that riders would end up using the throttle over really peddling to create something that was a substantial departure f...2023-02-0247 minRide AI167: ‘Etility’ - what electric bikes offer with Benno Baenziger, the founder of Benno BikesThis week we're excited to bring you an interview from Oliver's recent tour of Southern California ahead of our Micromobility World online event. Oliver flew up from NZ to be with James, Julia and the team to produce the event but while he was there also took the chance to visit a whole heap of companies working in micromobility, either as vehicle makers or peripherally. He learnt a huge amount - especially from those who have been in the industry for a while.
Benno Baenziger is an OG of the bike space, founding Electra Bikes back in 1993 a...2023-01-2651 minRide AI166: Ryvid - an electric motorbikes for the masses - with founder Dong TranThis week, Oliver interviews Dong Tran, founder of Ryvid, who make electric motorbikes in California. We’ve not covered heaps of motorbikes on the show so far, but that’s changing and we will have a bunch more next year. There’s a few really interesting things about Ryvid...
Firstly, they’ve got a pretty unique new metal folding technique for frame design which, if you listen to Horace and how he talks about how manufacturing techniques dictate how products evolve, has a lot of potential in offering lower cost, more innovative vehicle designs and compa...2023-01-191h 08Ride AI165: The marketplace for mobility - the largest shared mobility aggregator app in Europe with Robin Eriksson from Cogo AppThis week Oliver interviews Robin Eriksson from Cogo app which is the largest shared micromobility aggregator in Europe. Horace and Oliver have long had a theory that the world of micromobility will mature to be more like the public transport or airline industry over time. So it’s no surprise to us to see the rise of Cogo, which allows for discovery to be handled in a single app for all micromobility providers in a city.
We were excited to hear that they’ve recently added payments, and so wanted to have them on to run through their...2023-01-1250 minRide AI164: What is Micromobility and why does it matter (2022 edition) RereleaseAs we tick over from 2022 to 2023 we wanted to reshare our most popular episode from 2022.
Our recent Spotify Wrapped and general analytics we get from our podcast platform gave us a few really cool stats about the podcast. We’re in the top 5% of followed and shared podcasts shared globally, with listeners from 61 countries and the majority of you being new listeners who only found us in the last year.
Exciting times!
We're excited to rerelease what was our most listened to episode from 2022. What is Micromobility and Why does it matter (2022 edition) that H...2023-01-051h 24Ride AI163: The crazy story of self balancing enclosed motorbikes and their potential for micromobility - Danny Kim from Lit MotorsThis week Oliver interviews Danny Kim from Lit Motors. Danny is an OG of the micromobility space. He was thinking about the impact of electric and what it’d enable in vehicle architectures well before pretty much anybody else, evidenced by both the Kubo and their C1. The C1 is an enclosed gyro balanced electric motorbike that in our view has amazing potential in terms of providing something that is as performance, weather protection and safety of a car, but in the package of a motorbike. We think that what Lit motors are trying to build is not without ve...2022-12-291h 11Ride AI162: A true smartphone on wheels? What happens when you think of bikes as computers with David Hansen of Weel.This week Oliver interviews David Hansen from Weel Bike based in Seattle. Oliver has known David since the early days of Micromobility Industries, and indeed, Weel was one of the companies that the Microbility VC syndicate invested in back in 2019 when we were running it, so full disclosure, Oliver does have some skin in the game.
We love what they’re doing - they really have taken to heart what Horace talked about early on with the concept of what a smartphone on wheels would look like, rather than being a bike with phone bits stuck on. Wit...2022-12-221h 00Ride AI161: Building premium utility ebikes for families and more with Tern Team Captain Josh HonThis week Oliver got to interview Josh Hon from Tern bikes. If you’ve not come across the Tern brand before, they’re now a mid-size bike company, but have really found a strong niche providing high quality utility bikes like their best selling mid-drive short tail compact cargo bike the GSD.
Tern is different from a lot of the other micromobility companies that we've had on the Micromobility Podcast in that it’s definitely more of a traditional bike company, using bike shops etc to sell and service their bikes in what has now grown to be 61 c...2022-12-151h 00Ride AI160: The RAD world of Micromobility with Mike Radenbaugh, founder of Rad Power BikesThis week Oliver interviews Mike Radenbaugh from RAD Power Bikes. RAD is the largest maker of the bikes in the US and this is a conversation we have wanted to have for a really long time.
They discuss the new bike that they have just unveiled (skip ahead to around minute 13 if you want to know more about that!) They've been so excited to let you know about what is happening! Besides that, they also talk all about how he got to starting the company, the vehicles that he's built and why he still sees micro as such an exciting a...2022-12-0646 minRide AI159: How Micromobility wins last mile package delivery with HIVED founder Murvah IqbalThis Week Oliver interviews Murvah Iqbal from HIVED. Every so often we come across entrepreneurs where we come away thinking that they’re going to own a segment in a way that the incumbents are going to struggle to respond to.
Murvah is one of those. We loved this interview. We got into the backstory for HIVED, what they’re building and why micro is core to their strategy. The world of package delivery is one that is here and real. We're super excited to follow her career and see them succeed.
In th...2022-12-0152 minRide AI158: 5 Billion Riders - Why Horace Dediu thinks micro will be the biggest transport story of the next 20 years.This week Oliver interviews Horace about the talk he did at Micromobility America on the Total Addressable Market for micromobility, and the opportunity of the space.
This should really be listened to in context of the 5 Billion Riders talk that Horace gave at the conference, which is now on Youtube. Here, we dig into Horace’s thought pattern and the significance of mapping out addressable markets in informing the debate and opportunity for the space.
Specifically, they dig into:
The backstory for Total Addressable Markets and why these matter
What has changed since Horace’s ear...2022-11-2456 minRide AI157: The biggest ecargo bike consumer subscription business in the world - Ben and Dan Carr from Lug and CarrieEver since Oliver interviewed Karianne from Whee! earlier in the year, we’ve been excited to find more companies doing ebike subscription services to families. As Karianne says, there is a lot of money to be made by taking women and families seriously.
So it was awesome to more recently discover the team at Lug and Carrie, based in Australia, who are as far as we can tell, the largest e cargobike consumer subscription business globally (notwithstanding Dance and Swapfiets etc in Europe that do commuter bikes).
As you’ll hea...2022-11-171h 00Ride AI156: The inexorable rise of Micromobility in Kenya and West Africa - the story of Roam Motors with Albin WilsonThis week Oliver speaks with Albin Wilson from Roam Motors, who are building a electric motorbike manufacturer and battery stack out of Kenya. Oliver was particularly struck when talking to Albin about the size of the opportunity and how conforming to the theory of micromobility what they’re doing is.
We have long thought that the market for Micromobility would be most exciting in countries where automobility and electrification has yet to happen simply by nature of these vehicles being cheaper and the markets less attached to the past than OECD countries. It’s also the most excit...2022-11-1036 minRide AI155: Stilride's Metal Origami - The significance of new bike production methods with founder Jonas NyvangThis week Oliver interviews Jonas Nyvang, CEO and founder of Stilride, who are building a very novel electric motorbike out of Sweden.
We are always VERY interested in how micromobility will create and enable new production techniques for lightweight electric vehicles, and we think that what Stilride have built might offer something very interesting to the conversation.
As Horace has often laid out, the manufacturing technique determines so much about a product, and new vehicle manufacturing techniques like iStream from Gordon Murray or modularised microfactories that Stilride talk about, so goes new types of vehicles th...2022-11-0335 minRide AI154: Investing in B2B SaaS for micromobility - Sam Baker at Mobility FundThis week Oliver interviewed Sam Baker from Mobility Fund. We’ve had Sam on before, on episode 50, when he was still at Wunder Mobility, but since then, he’s headed off and is doing his own fund specifically focused on micromobility B2B businesses.
He’s been a real advocate for the space and it was great to reconnect at Micromobility America and to get into more depth about the opportunities that exist in micromobility around the edges and in niches that otherwise aren’t always covered.
We really enjoyed this conversation and hope you do too.2022-10-3057 minRide AI153: The Mega (and Profitable!) Micromobility Market of South Korea - the story of Swing with founder San KimThis week Oliver interviews San Kim, founder and CEO of Swing Scooters, the largest shared micromobility operator in South Korea.
South Korea is one of the worlds biggest shared micro markets and also one of the most underreported. This interview lifts the lid on the growth of the space and why the unique regulatory environment, high incomes, dense urban environment and other factors has contributed to one of the highest levels of penetration per capita for shared than anywhere else on the planet.
In this great first exclusive interview with San, they un...2022-10-251h 03Ride AI152: Introducing Ride Review - the premier vehicle ratings source - with James Gross of Micromobility IndustriesThis week Oliver interviews James Gross, one of the co-founders of Micromobility Industries (which host this very podcast and the conference) to talk about the launch of Ride Review, the new source of reviews and ratings for all vehicles in the micromobility universe, from Onewheels to escooters/bikes, to golf carts and pods. As this space undergoes a Cambrian explosion of new vehicle models and types, Ride Review seeks to cover them and provide help riders who are trying to find the best option for them.
Specifically they dig into:
- What i...2022-10-1344 minRide AI151: The Life of Lime - A conversation with Wayne Ting, CEO of LimeThis week we release another session from Micromobility America – this one is the interview with Wayne Ting, CEO of Lime being interviewed by Julia Thayne Demourdaunt. Wayne was impassioned and his call more recognition of Micromobility and the role that it can play in our transport systems. Being in the audience It was electric to watch. We hope you enjoy the session as much as we did.
Specifically they dig into:
The history of the space and how they’ve grown
What he sees as the opportunities for shared micromobility
The importance of city regulations
The injus...2022-10-0627 minRide AI150: Money for micromobility - the latest VC panel from MM America.This week we release a talk from our recent Micromobility America conference that we hosted in the Bay Area in mid September - this was one of the most popular panels of the event - the ‘Raising Money in Micromobility for Software VC’ panel that was run by our conference cohost, Julia Thayne Demourdant and featured a slew of the top mobility investors and incubators in the space. We loved this panel, because it covered all manner of topics, from funding to government regulation to total addressable market to more.
We’re going to be releasing a few of...2022-10-0343 minRide AI149: Building profitable shared Micromobility in the emerging world - With Alper Oktem of MartiThis week Oliver interviews Alper Oktem, CEO and founder of Marti, which as far as we can tell, is the largest Micromobility operator in Turkey. Oliver has long wanted to cover the Turkish Micromobility market, because it is such a large country, and they are proportionately so underserved.
Turkey is proportionately underserved with transport options in the cities – Istanbul is considered one of the most congested cities in the world. This was a great conversation and Alper is a real go-getter in the Micromobility space.
This was a great conversation, especially around funding and the impor...2022-09-1547 minRide AI147: Not Just Bikes: Why Many Cities Suck (But Dutch Cities Don't) With Jason SlaughterThis week we share another interview from Micromobility Europe - This time it is the timeless interview of Jason Slaughter, creator of the largest urban planning YouTube Channel - Not Just Bikes being interviewed by Julia Thayne DeMourdant from the Rocky Mountain Institute, about why many cities suck, but Dutch cities don’t.
Our host Oliver has often joked that if you spend enough time talking about Micromobility, you end up falling backwards into discussions about urbanism, space allocation and what makes for great cities. Jason nails why that is in this interview, and being in the Net...2022-09-0122 minRide AI146: A micromobility performing car - Marcus Li from EliThis week Oliver is joined by Marcus Li the founder of Eli who are building a lightweight electric vehicle similar to a Smart car but a bit smaller and selling into the European and American markets. This is possibly one of the most interesting interviews Oliver has done with an early stage founder of a hardware company – They get really into the nitty-gritty details of how Marcus has funded the company to date and the challenges and opportunities that exist in the space.
They also discuss the Chinese micro electric car industry to date which is an are...2022-08-2549 minRide AI145: A family focused micromobility offering - the wonderful story of Whee! with founder Kari Anne Solfjeld EidThis week Oliver interviews Kari Anne Solfjeld Eid from Whee!
Whee is a cargo bike subscription service based in Oslo Norway. Kari Anne won this years inaugural Micromobility accelerate pitch competition that we had at the Micromobility Europe conference in June. She was selected by a group of judges as the best presenter on the day for a new Micromobility service or product. The judges noted her quirky style but also a really solid business under it.
One thing not covered in this episode was Kari Anne's low cost of acquisition and very low levels of...2022-08-1842 minRide AI144: Azeem Azhar and Horace Dediu on Future of CitiesThis podcast was first published on our sister podcast, Infinite Block
This week we're releasing a talk from our recent Micromobility Europe Conference, with Horace interviewing Azeem Azhar.
Azeem is one of the great thinkers in the space of smart cities, the importance of exponential technologies like Micromobility and how they relate to governance and the social contract.
You may recall that we interviewed him earlier this year. Both Horace and Azeem are big fans of each other and at the recent conference they got to sit down and really...2022-08-1134 minRide AI143: The incredible economics of Last Mile Micromobility Delivery with Adam Barmby, founder of EAVThis week Oliver interviews Adam Barmby from EAV, the electric cargo bike manufacturer based in the UK.
When Amazon launched their 'micromobility hub' in the UK recently, an EAV bike was the pictured bike used in promotional material for the announcement.
Micromobility for freight hasn’t been discussed a lot on the podcast, and it was really exciting to unpack the implications of Micromobility and see how it conforms to the thesis that Horace and Oliver have been weighing out of the last couple of years.
It is especially exciting to hear that EA...2022-08-0542 min
Ride AI140: What is Micromobility and why does it matter? (2022 edition) with Horace DediuThis week Horace and Oliver were together in person for the first time in nearly two and a half years as they got ready for the Micromobility Europe conference. One of the things that they love to do every so often is to revisit the Micromobilty thesis.
They want this to be the episode you share with everyone who is perhaps interested in what all the fuss is about. If you’re a first time listener, Horace Dediu is the creator of the term Micromobility, and this podcast was where he and Oliver first started talking about it.
They’ve now...2022-06-291h 23
Ride AI132: The story of Gogoro and Battery Swapping with CEO and founder Horace LukeThis week we’re releasing the interview of Rebecca Bellan from Techcrunch interviewing Gogoro CEO and cofounder Horace Luke at our recent Micromobility World event. Horace is an OG of Micromobility and very similar to our Horace Dediu in that he came from mobile as well, and then sought to apply the advancements in tech to transport.
Gogoro aspires to build a battery swapping infrastructure that will power millions of micromobility users from Berlin to Hangzhou everyday. Rebecca gets the inside story of the Taiwanese battery-swapping company in a depth hasn't been captured before—and conveniently, right on the eve of t...2022-03-0350 min
Ride AI131: The story of Bird with CEO Travis VanderZanden and Horace DediuThis week we release the interview that Horace did with Bird CEO/founder Travis VanderZanden at Micromobility World conference from January 2022. It was his first public appearance since Bird went public late last year and it is an instantly iconic exchange between two of the industry’s most important figures - Travis who catalyzed dockless electric scooters at Bird in California back in 2017 and Horace who coined the term micromobility. Travis and Horace discuss mega trends in micromobility and why, in their view, the industry still hasn’t produced a bike or scooter as impactful as the iPhone.
Specifically they dig...2022-02-2537 min
Ride AI129: A Modicum of Transport with Horace DediuThis week Oliver joins Horace to talk about his latest blogpost about his new transport metric - A Modicum of Transport. Developing new metrics is in some ways a provocation to remap how we thinks of new things, and change the framework for how the incumbents are viewed. This is no different. Like the horsepower before it, or the byte or Monthly Active User, we are trying to develop new nomenclature, metrics and ratios that sit around this phenomenon called Micromobility. They discuss the name, and would love your feedback on the concept, especially if there’s a name that yo...2021-12-2849 min
Ride AI128: What COP26 Missed with Horace DediuThis week Oliver interviews Horace about his latest research on climate and micromobility, and his reflections on the recent COP26 meeting in Glasgow. Specifically, they dig into why micromobility wasn’t more prominently featured in the potential solutions provided by groups like the IEA, and how that matches up to the disruptive innovation framework.
Specifically they get into:
- His new research and modelling into the climate action opportunity that micromobility presents
- The new IEA report and it’s reliance on new technology that they haven’t identified, and why Horace believes it will come from micromobility (link to summar...2021-12-1444 min
Ride AI119: Battery Systems and Business Models with Horace DediuThis week Oliver interviews Horace about his recent thoughts on the impact of lithium ion batteries on power tools and how the market and products have developed. He also spawns a new framework: batteries we carry, batteries that carry us and batteries that carry themselves. It’s Horace at his best - riffing and letting his brain do what it does.
In the meantime, make sure that you get your tickets for Micromobility America, the world’s largest summit devoted to small electric vehicles. It returns to the SF Bay Area on September 23, 2021 for an immersive, in-person gathering. The team are h...2021-09-0442 min
Ride AI114: Disrupting Telco Infrastructure with Amir Haleem, CEO of Helium and Horace DediuThis week, Oliver and Horace interview Amir Haleem, CEO of Helium, about the rise of distributed telco infrastructure. This was originally recorded for the Critical Path, but given that Amir has been a guest on the podcast in the past and there’s a direct link between what they’re building and low cost connectivity for micromobility, we wanted to share here as well.
If you’re interested in Helium and wondering how it sits within the telecommunication industry business model, this is a great episode.
Specifically they dig into:
- The Helium model for telco and what problem they were t...2021-06-0656 min
Ride AI112: How Micromobility Can Save The WorldIn celebration of Earth Day 2021, Oliver interviews Horace about his latest project - looking at the carbon emissions in the transport sector and modelling the pathways for the current options. You can probably imagine where they get to, but they don’t want to spoil the show.
This is still a work in progress, and they are putting this out as a primer so that folks may understand the narrative arc, and the background/context of why Horace is looking at this.
Specifically they look at:
- The math of emissions, and why transport is hard
- The lifecycles of ve...2021-04-231h 16
Ride AI109: How camera-based positioning changes micromobility with Jameson Detweiler from FantasmoThis week, Oliver interviews Jameson Dietweiler, CEO of Fantasmo.
Fantasmo has been around since 2014 to build maps for machines, and has been working specifically on micromobility since the earliest days in 2017. With the recent announcement that they’ve partnered with Tier to roll out an innovative phone based parking verification technology Oliver was excited to have a chance to bring them on the show. They use camera based positioning to better locate vehicles like scooters and ebikes in cities where often GPS is an insufficeint technology to provide highly accurate location data.
They talk about the pivots that the company ha...2021-04-0639 min
Ride AI106: The Trillion Dollar QuestionThis week, Oliver interviews Horace about the ‘Trillion Dollar Question’. With Arcimoto (who we’ve covered on episode 46) hitting a $1b market cap, and the recent article from RestofWorld covering the rise of low end Chinese micro-EV’s, we wanted to circle back to the question of what will heavy micromobility - those vehicles in the 50-500kg category - look like and why could they be where we find the defining vehicles of our time.
Specifically we cover:
- A quick summary of Horace’s research into carbon emission modelling for micromobility (more to come on this soon!)
- How Horace...2021-03-1646 min
Ride AI105: Benedict Evans and Horace Dediu discuss MicromobilityThis week, we release the first of the many incredible sessions from the 2021 Micromobility World conference, wherein Benedict Evans and Horace Dediu discussed the disruptive potential of micromobility. It was an incredible conversation between two people who clearly have a lot of time and are excited by each others ideas. We hope you enjoy it!
Specifically they dig into:
- Why Benedicts background as a historian makes him a great analyst.
- The micromobiltiy disruption thesis - low end, the asymmetric nature of unbundling trips (market for vehicles vs. market for miles), the role of fun/enjoyment, speed of interaction
...2021-02-0647 min
Ride AI104: Apple C(ar)mputer - why Apple should be thinking micromobility, not automobilityOn this episode, Horace joins Oliver on the show to talk about what an entry by Apple into the mobility market would look like, and why a car is perhaps the wrong form factor to be looking at. They talk through the growth prospects for micromobility, and why Apple’s entry into the market would be a meaningful contribution to the world of mobility.
This is on the back of Horace’s post ‘Apple Computer’ published on the Micromobility Industries blog recently. Check it out here: https://micromobility.io/blog/2021/1/11/apple-computer
Specifically they dig into:
- The parts of the upcoming...2021-01-2458 min
Ride AI102: Micromobility Supply Chains, Distribution and Maintenance with Puneeth Meruva of Trucks VCToday on the show, Oliver interviews Puneeth Meruva, Associate at Trucks VC about their latest report: The Three Axes of Micromobility: Supply Chains, Distribution and Maintenance about the often unseen world of getting Micromobility into the hands of consumers. This is a topic that hasn’t received much coverage to date, so it was a fascinating conversation fully of nitty-gritty and relatively technical details about the opportunities for development and investment in the micromobility ecosystem.
Specifically they dig into:
- a recap of Trucks VC, their thesis and other portfolio companies in the Micromobility space
- Puneeths background and how he...2021-01-0858 min
Ride AI100: A retrospectiveThis week, Horace joins Oliver for the podcasts 100th episode, and they run through what’s happened in the last 2 and a half years, and wonder aloud what will happen in the next two.
Specifically they dig into:
- Horace’s early theses
- The emergence of scooters and why they proved to be so challenging to Horace’s ideas about what vehicles would be most popular
- The biggest mistake that Horace thinks he made in his early theories
- What Oliver considers the biggest barriers, and where he over and underestimated progress over the last 2 years
- Where they e...2020-12-101h 08
Ride AI97: The magic of children, and why disruption has less to do with competence than business modelsToday Oliver interviews Horace for a fun review of the parallels between the smartphone revolution and what we’re seeing play out with the growth of lightweight electric vehicles trips. It’s also a hilarious chance to hear Horace talk about how we think about fostering children as a species and ask why the same thinking isn’t applied to how we run organisations and products.
Specifically they dig into:
- The history of the smartphone industry, and why business model rather than competence dictated the fall of Nokia.
- Discuss the importance of understanding the framing of job-to-be-done and why th...2020-11-201h 04
Ride AI93: Reviewing the Origins of Micromobility As a Disruptive ForceHorace rejoins Oliver on the podcast to revisit the original reasons that Horace started looking at micromobility, and identified it as a disruptive innovation. It covers the context of the research that he was doing at the time, and why it meets the theoretical and anecdotal indicators that it’s going to change the way that we think about transport.
Specifically we dig into:
⁃ Horace’s research into the auto market, and why he didn’t think that the shared, electric autonomy that was all hype in 2014-16 was going to deliver on it’s disruptive potential.
⁃ Why only when asking quest...2020-10-231h 09
Ride AI92: A Heavy Micromobility Update (plus, is Tesla actually disruptive?)This week Oliver is joined by Horace for an update and discussion on heavy micromobility, including a recent video interview of Sandy Munro, the automotive engineering guru, and Mark Frohnmayer, CEO of Arcimoto talking about their three wheeled electric auto-cycle [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC2Y6aA67Rk]. Mark has been a guest on the podcast in the past in episode 46 and Micromobility Industries are big fans of what they’re doing. Finally, they circle back on the age old question of whether Tesla is conforming to disruptive innovation theory.
Specifically, they dig into:
- How Arcimoto is co...2020-10-0856 min
Ride AI89: The fascinating, undiscovered world of the GBFS micromobility data formatsMicromobility data standards are the rails new micromobility juggernauts will be built on.
In this episode, Oliver interviews Sam Herr, Executive Director of North American Bikeshare Association (NABSA), and Heidi Gennin, Shared Mobility Product Manager at Mobility Data, about the Generalized Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS) data format.
Admittedly, it sounds dry, and yet, it’s a fascinating episode, with Heidi and Sam doing a great job explaining both what it is and why something as simple as a data format can supercharge the development of non-car transportation in our cities.
Specifically they dig into:
- What is a Data format an...2020-09-1048 min
Ride AI88: Revisiting High-End Shared Micromobility - The Bond Model with CEO, Raoul StöckleExciting episode today with Oliver interviewing Raoul Stöckle, CEO of Bond. Horace and Oliver originally interviewed Corinne Vogel, their COO on as one of the first interviews in 2018 when the company was Smide, but with the recent announcement of a partnership with FreeNow and launches in a number of new cities in Europe, it was time to have them on again to discuss how their approach of high end shared Micromobility is going and why it’s different.
Specifically:
- The Bond model of high end Micromobility and why they chose that strategy
- How and why they decided to...2020-09-0351 min
Ride AI86: Measuring Micromobility and Talking HypercarsThis week Horace returns with Oliver for a great discussion about why what we measure in micromobility, and transport in general, matters so much. They also dig into the recent announcement of the T50 supercar from Gordon Murray, and explain why they, two micromobiltiy nerds, got so excited about a preposterously expensive car.
Specifically they dig into:
- The history of the rise and fall of infrastructures
- Why what we measure about transport - be it track length, unit sales, passenger kilometres or trips - determine how we think about planning, infrastructure spending, and all of these second order...2020-08-201h 00
Ride AI81: Markets for Trust - why blockchains matter with Horace Dediu and Anders BrownworthSomething a bit different this week. Horace and Oliver host Anders Brownworth, co-host of the Critical Path, to talk about crypto, blockchains and markets for trust. Anders’ background working in telecom, finance and then crypto (developing USDC and now working at the Federal Reserve) give him a unique perspective. As Horace, Oliver and he break down what programmable trust can mean for markets, government and society.
This came out of a discussion following a Micromobility podcast recording talking about Apple was functioning as an arbiter of trust with all its new key and payment building blocks, and how ‘trust’ carries a mark...2020-07-161h 15
Ride AI78: Products vs Platforms: the end of the Segway and the start of Apple in MicromobilityThis week Horace joins Oliver to talk about the news that Segway has ended production of the PT and the new announcements from Apple and how they pertain to Micromobility. They also trial a news segment at the beginning of the show.
Specifically they dig into:
- What didn’t work about the Segway, and comparable failures in history
- The risks of over engineering products without feedback or specifically only asking for feedback from B2B customers when trying to build a general appeal product.
- The innovations required to take the promise of the Segway to what we se...2020-06-251h 04
Ride AI76: Ebikes, Maps and Adword DystopiaThis week Horace joins Oliver for a discussion about ebikes and the state of micromobility, including which potential other potential players might want to get into the industry. This leads to a discussion about the job-to-be-done of maps, and Horace’s dystopian warning that they will end up as the browser of the mobile era.
Specifically they dig into:
- How e-bike sales have been doing during COVID
- The current structure of the industry for standard bikes and ebikes, including where the margins are
- How this mom-and-pop style industry parallels the early days of the PC industry
- A...2020-06-121h 02
Ride AI72: Micromobility, pricing, politics and Friedrich HayekHorace and Oliver have a great discussion on the philosophical underpinnings of price signals going back to Freidrich Hayek and how price works to coordinate activity in society. They discuss how micromobility suffers from market manipulation for its infrastructure and manufacturing and how road space allocation is currently misaligned to how it’s valued as real estate.
It’s Horace at his best - philosophical, paring theory to reality, and giving us all new frameworks to think about how the world works and will change.
Specifically, they dig into:
- The concept of using price signals to allocate resources in soci...2020-05-1452 min
Ride AI68: The connection between antifragility, disuptive innovation and micromobilityThis week Horace joins Oliver to talk about the work of Nassim Taleb - namely, antifragility and asymmetric risk - and what connections there are to disruptive innovation theory and Micromobility. Oliver has wanted to record this episode for a while and it doesn’t disappoint.
Specifically we dig into:
- Taleb’s work and background, explaining concepts such as Black Swans, antifragility, Fat Tony, Skin in the Game, Extremistan vs Mediocristan and intellectual-yet-idiots
- The attraction and danger of polemical thinking
- The importance of understanding if you’re dealing with bounded or unbounded risk probabilities
- How traditional MBA ed...2020-04-161h 01
Ride AI67: Micromobility Infrastructure - challenges and opportunities with The Transportist, Professor David LevinsonThis week Oliver interviews David Levinson, professor at the University of Sydney and popular blogger at transportist.org. David is not new to the world of talking about transport and disruptive innovation, having joined Horace on Asymcar many years ago. He brings a tempered view to the benefits and challenges of micromobility, including around infrastructure and the decision making timeframes that it typically has.
Specifically, we dig into:
- David’s background and research into toll roads, travel behaviour and urban form.
- Whether David considers micromobilty a substantial new innovation in transport.
- Constraints around deployment of larger vehicle fl...2020-04-1058 min
Ride AI65: Viral Nature: thinking about the impact of coronavirus on micromobility with HoraceThis week, Horace joins Oliver for a discussion about the impact of COVID19 on the world of micromobility, as well as taking questions from Twitter.
Specifically, we cover:
- Horace discusses the work of Nassim Taleb on anti fragility and tail risks, and how that applies to micromobility’s low-end disruption
- Why financial stress, shorter distances being travelled in quarantine areas and the low-cost nature of micromobility position it to do well in the face of this crisis.
- Examining this pandemic in the face of historical challenges like WW2 and earlier pandemics
- The impacts and opportunities faced by...2020-03-2656 min
Ride AI64: Getting to a Better Place with mobility - Michael Granoff from Maniv MobilityThis week, Oliver interviews Michael Granoff, partner at Maniv Mobility, an early stage investment firm specialising in transport technologies including micromobility. Michael has been around the mobility space a long time, and we had a great discussion about the boom and bust nature of new transport tech.
Specifically, we talk about:
- Michael’s background, his journey through energy security and getting into electrification of mobility, involvement with Better Place, and subsequent founding of Maniv Mobility
- How his thesis has changed over time from electric, to autonomous to micromobility
- Discussion about their existing investments, including Phantom Auto, Bolt Bik...2020-03-1936 min
Ride AI63: Escalators, Elevators and Stairs, and the Job-to-be-done of micromobilityThis week Horace joins Oliver to riff on a recent mental model for thinking about the job to be done of micromobility, involving escalators, elevators and stairs. It’s Horace at his best - conceptual, funny, insightful as always.
Specifically we cover:
- Which customers pick escalators vs elevators vs stairs, and what insight that might provide to the job to be done of micromobility.
- The importance of ‘earning’ an experience
- Why Horace thinks that customers who climb escalators are the best customers.
- The importance of escalators in the architecture that they enabled.
- How the impact of regul...2020-03-1255 min
Ride AI60: How does micromobility conform to disruptive innovation theory?This week we have a timely episode with Horace being interviewed by Katie Zandbergen on The Disruptive Voice - a podcast produced by The Forum for Growth & Innovation at Harvard business School a few days after the passing of Clay Christensen.
Horace strikes a reflective tone - it’s a great episode that goes into the core of why micromobility is really disruptive assessed against the theory that Clay proposed. For those who are more into the theoretical, this is a wonderful episode.
Specifically, they cover:
- The impact that Clay had on how Horace viewed the world.
- How Ho...2020-02-2047 min
Ride AI58: Micromobility from the beginning - a conversation with Sanjay Dastoor, CEO of Skip and co-founder of Boosted BoardsThis week Oliver interviews Sanjay Dastoor, one of the founders of Boosted Boards and subsequently Skip, who operate a shared scooter service in DC. Sanjay has been around this space longer than pretty much anyone, and has a wealth of insight and experience that were a joy to unpack.
Unfortunately, the audio cut a little for Sanjay right at the beginning but we kick off right where it picks up.
Specifically we cover:
- Sanjay's journey as a Micromobility OG starting Boosted Boards and then on to Skip - his original motivations, how your thinking has evolved, and lessons learned...2020-02-061h 00
Ride AI57: The Trough of Disillusionment - unpacking hype, adoption and fundingThis week, Horace joins Oliver on the podcast to talk about hype cycles, capital formation and transport funding patterns historically, and what we can learn from them about the micromobility space now.
Specifically:
The parallels between the hype cycles for MP3 players, the internet and personal computers vs. micromobility.
The perils of ‘being early’ in large scale technology adoptions.
The history of funding for the auto, railway and canal sectors transport systems, and parallels to micromobility and the infrastructure required.
Why pioneers for traditional transport innovations largely end up with arrows in their back.
Why we’re unlikely to see large scal...2020-01-3046 min
Ride AI51: Micromobility in India - the story of Bounce with SVP, Growth, Bharath DevanathanOn today’s podcast, Oliver interviews Bharath Devanathan, SVP, Growth at Bounce Mobility, about their moped sharing business in India. They recently raised a $150m round to expand their operations across India. It’s an amazing conversation - one of the best so far about the potential of shared micromobility to change transport systems for good in fast growing and highly constrained urban environments in the developing world.
Specifically we dig into:
- The history of how Bharath came to Bounce, and the story of how it morphed into moped sharing.
- The biggest operational challenges that they have in Bang...2019-12-1340 min
Ride AI49: Hardware Standards, Cybertruck and The Autonomy BoondoggleToday, Horace and Oliver talk about the newly released SAE Micromobility Standards, the Cybertruck announcement and Horace’s latest thoughts on the boondoggle of autonomy.
Specifically, they dig into:
- Why the new SAE Micromobility standards matter, what they’re competing against and why definitions like this default to lowest common denominators.
- The Cybertruck announcement, including discussion about what appears to be a new type of body manufacturing, and the implications of the radical design. Plus, Horace admits to liking it, even if he doesn’t think that the entire category of trucks should exist.
- We dig into why Ho...2019-12-0149 min
Ride AI47: The Potential of Abundance - the parallels of Nokia-to-influencers in micromobilityIn this episode, Horace and Oliver talk though the flood of news post-Berlin, and how the micromobility is being circulated around by the giants of automotive and large tech, as they work out how to best participate.
We also explore:
- the parallels between feature phone experimentation and the extensive discussions over form factor experimentation we’re seeing in lightweight electric vehicles (ie. the rise of the Scoot/Bird Cruiser)
- why that has the potential to lead to unifying operating systems that unite the fragmentation, and who the most likely contenders are to lead this.
- How implausible the rise...2019-11-1558 min
Ride AI42: Micromobility Podcast Live from Berlin! - Micromobility in Germany and OEM disruptionIn this episode, Horace and Oliver host a live podcast recording at The Drivery, an incubator in Berlin in front of an audience. They discuss the upcoming Micromobility Europe conference, disruption of the German car industry and what will disrupt micromobility itself in the future. It was a great conversation!
This week we discuss:
- Germany’s micromobility explosion and why it’s different from other countries
- Why we chose Berlin for the Micromobility Conference in Berlin
- Why the intellectual interest in micromobility from the car OEM’s is a textbook disruption response
- How automakers will eventually be for...2019-10-0749 min
Ride AI41: Implications of a Zero $ per Mile Marginal CostIn this episode, Oliver and Horace talk about cost-per-mile calculations for micromobility, and the implications of the recent blogpost that Horace published on the Micromobility.io blog (https://micromobility.io/blog/2019/9/9/the-cost-of-a-mile).
In short - what happens when the marginal cost per additional km collapses towards zero with Micromobility. We think there are lots of lessons we can take from the telecom industry.
Specifically, we cover:
- The cost-per-mile calculations from New York for both Citi-Bike and taxis and how they compare to private owned cars
- The comparison of shared vs. owned micromobility, and why Horace is far more...2019-09-2441 min
Ride AI39: The Market for Owned Micromobility :: Jeff Russakow, CEO of BoostedIn this episode, Oliver interviews Jeff Russakow, CEO of Boosted Boards, makers of the famous electric skateboards and now scooter. Boosted focuses on vehicle-grade owned micromobility, which provides a refreshing counter to the hype around shared models. It’s one of our best episodes to date--highly recommend checking it out!
Specifically we cover:
- the origins of the company, and how it proves out Horace’s early thesis on the disruptive potential of modularized componentry.
- Jeff’s history with lightweight electric vehicles and his eventual coming to Boosted
- How they think through their role as manufacturing ‘vehicle grade’ vehicles i...2019-09-0950 min
Ride AI38: Assessing the Market for Micromobility in African and Asian citiesIn this episode, Horace and Oliver run over Horace’s insights from his recent research using UN data into city-level potential for micromobility markets globally. We run through the most interesting growth trends in 1800+ cities.
Specifically we look at:
- Contextualising the rapid growth in car-based urbanisation as part of a 5000 year trend
- Why Africa is one of the most interesting potential markets between now and 2035.
- The cities positioned for both the fastest growth and largest increase.
- How the low-income demographics of new migrants to these emerging mega-cities necessitates the need for cheap micromobility transport
- Why we...2019-08-1743 min
Ride AI36: Micromobility and Car ParkingIn this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss Donald Shoup’s work, The High Cost of Free Parking, and why micromobility offers such a compelling counter to the dominant mindset that has existed around parking for the last 70 years.
Specifically, we cover:
- the financial and spatial impact of parking minimums in the US
- The Catch-22 of parking legislation - parking creates sprawled landscapes that increases the need for them to move around.
- The importance of pricing parking appropriately
- The odd behaviour that our misplacing of car parks has created in Japan and the US
- the logical us...2019-08-0143 min
Ride AI33: Creative Destruction: an update on shared micromobility business modelsIn 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 ‘00s.
- Why Bird launching the Cruiser was predictable, what the likely next steps will be in terms of product design and how this tracks th...2019-07-0254 min
Ride AI31: mMeetup - What makes Micromobility Disruptive?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 content and a community of other micromobility enthusiasts. See more details below.
On the call, they cover:
...2019-06-0758 min
Ride AI28: Micromobility and Disaster Resilient Cities — the Christchurch, NZ case studyIn 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 makes them more likely to be able to quickly adapt to micromobility changes
- how the earthquake parallels the expected increase in volatility...2019-05-091h 03
Ride AI26: The Uber S-1In 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 that also further validates Horace's and Uber's analysis of the market potential.
We also discuss the Micromobility book, the...2019-04-2346 min
Ride AI25: The Case For Micromobility - A Recap SummaryNew 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 secondary requirements — motor and utility
- Recent growth in global production ability and the China bikeshare bubble
- The...2019-04-021h 37
Ride AI24: The Micromobility FAQ'sIn 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 apps, and backend fleet management and integrations. Check them out at Joyride.city2019-03-2555 min
Ride AI23: Micromobility Venture Capital Panel, the new book, and the latest newsIn 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.
Finally, we release the Venture Capital panel from the recent Micromobility Summit in California. We have Greg Lindsay, Director of Strategy...2019-03-1455 min
Ride AI22: Micromobility StandardsIn 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 micromobility vehicles, and what are the likely implications of this
- What variables regulators should be thinking about when...2019-02-2855 min
Ride AI20: Investing in Micromobility with Reilly Brennan of Trucks VCOn 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 Transportation](http://www.tinyletter.com/transportation) is a radar for what’s happening in transportation. Prior to Trucks, Reilly was Executive Director for Stanford’s automotive...2019-02-0849 min
Ride AI17: On VandalismOn 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.2019-01-1654 min
Ride AI16: Tokenizing the Micromobility Business ModelOn 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 shift of trips from pre-paid product to service.
- The dynamics of vehicle fleets, and why scooter/e-bike fleets are likely to...2018-12-221h 10
Ride AI14: Dediu's Law and Franchising MicromobilityIn 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/) that has emerged in Vancouver and whether this is likely to catch on.2018-12-0446 min
Ride AI11: The Democratization of Mobility: How Micromobility Addresses Mobility PovertyOn 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, impact it.
- How the homogeneity of suburbs is accelerating their infrastructural decline.
- Which cities/built environments will benefit the most fro...2018-11-1350 min