Best of LinkedIn: Future Mobility & Market Evolution CW 27/ 28

00:00:00: Brought to you by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus, this edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on future mobility in market evolution in weeks twenty-seven and twenty eight.

00:00:09: Frenness supports tier one automotive suppliers with early stage market validation for their R&D efforts by combining secondary research direct OEM expert interviews and facilitated customer meetings.

00:00:20: You can find more info.

00:00:21: the description

00:00:22: Alright, so welcome to another deep dive.

00:00:24: Yeah

00:00:24: Welcome.

00:00:25: today We are looking at the top future mobility trends seen across LinkedIn and you know we really want To set some expectations right up front for you.

00:00:32: Right if you work in a mobility sector You've probably seen enough of those Glossy computer-generated render

00:00:39: site.

00:00:39: Absolutely the completely silent glowing autonomous pods.

00:00:43: Yeah gliding down these pristine sunlit streets with

00:00:46: no potholes

00:00:47: anywhere exactly not a single double part delivery van in sight.

00:00:51: It's this beautiful utopian vision, but it just completely ignores the actual asphalt.

00:00:57: yeah The real world is messy

00:00:59: Very messy highly regulated super politically charged.

00:01:02: getting hardware to work in a lab is like maybe ten percent of the actual battle

00:01:06: right.

00:01:07: and that tension between The shiny tech promise, and the gritty operational reality That's basically our mission for this deep dive.

00:01:14: Yeah, we're skipping the fluff today.

00:01:15: definitely We've curated insights from the professionals.

00:01:17: actually building and regulating this stuff were getting into autonomous scaling The brutal operational side of shared mobility.

00:01:26: And why?

00:01:27: The ultimate weapon in urban mobility is actually just parking data.

00:01:31: it really is whole industry shifting right now from Just testing isolated tech to figuring out how you know, physically integrated into breathing cities.

00:01:40: Okay let's unpack this!

00:01:42: Let's start with a sector that is really aggressively trying to drag those glossy renders into everyday reality.

00:01:49: Autonomous mobility?

00:01:50: Yep

00:01:50: it is officially clawing its way out of the pilot phase.

00:01:54: so Alex Ilgen pointed out this staggering milestone on LinkedIn.

00:01:58: Waymo has now surpassed twenty million paid robot taxi trips.

00:02:01: Twenty million...that's huge.

00:02:03: Yeah, it's massive.

00:02:04: They're operating roughly three thousand driverless vehicles across eleven US cities now and they are aiming for a million trips per week by the end of twenty-twenty

00:02:15: six

00:02:15: all alongside one hundred and twenty six billion dollar valuation.

00:02:20: I mean numbers just staggering.

00:02:22: but what is much more telling about their strategy?

00:02:26: What Waymo is doing quietly behind the scenes in Europe.

00:02:29: Oh

00:02:30: right, The European Expansion!

00:02:31: Yeah Daniel LeBrio Marquis highlighted this fascinating timeline that honestly kind of flew under their radar.

00:02:37: In just a three-week window Waymo registered new corporate entities in Spain, the Netherlands Germany and France.

00:02:43: Four

00:02:44: major European markets.

00:02:45: three weeks with

00:02:46: like zero press releases absolutely

00:02:48: zero.

00:02:48: it's kind of like watching a military lay down supply lines at night.

00:02:51: yeah you don't need to hear The Grand Announcement know an invasion is coming.

00:02:55: You just look at the logistics

00:02:56: right?

00:02:57: And as Daniel noted paperwork Is really the honest signal In this industry

00:03:01: Exactly.

00:03:02: Flashy renders get walked back all the time, but when you register entities and commit share capital You're building the hard corporate structure required to actually scale operations.

00:03:11: Yeah have to hire a local legal teams manage liability

00:03:14: exactly.

00:03:15: And they executed this.

00:03:17: The exact same week They ended their middleman partnership with uber in phoenix.

00:03:21: wait really?

00:03:22: They pulled off the uber app.

00:03:23: Yep, they pulled their vehicles off the app There basically signaling that they want to own the customer relationship the data and the deployment directly on a global scale.

00:03:33: Wait,

00:03:33: isn't Europe too fragmented and slow with regulations to catch up?

00:03:37: To the USAV market

00:03:39: I mean that is those super valid skepticism.

00:03:41: It's the standard industry narrative.

00:03:42: right.

00:03:43: US moves fast and breaks things.

00:03:45: you're get stuck in committees

00:03:46: exactly.

00:03:47: So how do they expect to just drop robo taxes into Paris or Munich And actually make a profit?

00:03:53: well Bojan Jukic offered a really short counterpoint on this exact issue.

00:03:57: He argues that Europe might actually absorb and scale robotaxes better, And faster.

00:04:03: Specifically because the rules of road are already settled?

00:04:05: Oh!

00:04:05: That's interesting... Because the friction has already happened.

00:04:09: Right Think about urban operating environment over there.

00:04:11: London Already has mature congestion pricing.

00:04:14: Stockholm scales access fees by time of day.

00:04:18: Milan restricts city center access based on emissions classes.

00:04:22: So restrictive boundaries are drawn in concrete.

00:04:25: Precisely When RoboTaxes arrive in these European cities, they basically just plug their routing algorithms into environmental and pricing rules that are already culturally accepted.

00:04:35: Right whereas the US...

00:04:36: In the

00:04:37: U.S.,

00:04:37: cities are desperately trying to write the rules while autonomous cars is on roads causing friction

00:04:42: like blocking fire trucks and stuff.

00:04:44: Exactly!

00:04:45: Settled rules actually make adoption stick because business model doesn't get upended by a sudden regulatory backlash.

00:04:53: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

00:04:55: And speaking of regulatory backlash we just saw a massive bottleneck get cleared on the global stage.

00:05:00: Oh!

00:05:01: The UNESCO regulation?

00:05:02: Yes.

00:05:03: Bass von Anhuvel and Laura Hertzig pointed out that the UNESCO just adopted the world's first Global Technical Regulation for Automated Driving Systems.

00:05:10: So if you're an engineer or product manager listening to this right now your total addressable market just unified overnight.

00:05:18: It's wild, and this is specifically for level four-and five systems right?

00:05:22: Yeah vehicles with no driver No steering wheel No pedals.

00:05:25: For the last decade The fundamental bottleneck was proving safety on a country by country basis.

00:05:31: But now forty countries including EU, US China And Japan have all agreed On single global safety benchmark.

00:05:39: The automated system must be at least as safe, as a competent careful human driver across all critical situations.

00:05:47: Meaning you designed one core safety logic and You can aim that logic All major markets

00:05:53: exactly.

00:05:54: but even with the global standard the actual physical shape of That deployment is going to look very different in Europe compared to say Phoenix.

00:06:02: Thibaut Castanio made a brilliant observation on this.

00:06:04: He argued that Europe's Robotaxi winner might not be a ride-hailing app at all, the winner may actually just be a bus?

00:06:10: A Transit Integrated Autonomous Bus?

00:06:13: Yeah Like while everyone is obsessing over App Based Private Robotaxis BVG and MOIA are currently integrating autonomous ID Buzz shuttles directly into a fifteen-square kilometer public transit network in Berlin.

00:06:27: Operating inside the public system?

00:06:29: Right, filling transit gaps rather than competing on the curb against it Which

00:06:33: makes perfect political sense right?

00:06:35: The above points out that In Europe municipalities award the transit routes Cities are going to deploy what they can actually govern.

00:06:42: Yeah if you're a deputy mayor You can't easily defend A rogue fleet of private app based taxis That gridlock an intersection?

00:06:49: No

00:06:49: definitely not.

00:06:50: but you can easily secure funding for an autonomous extension of your own municipal bus network.

00:06:55: What's fascinating here is how we classify this technology.

00:06:59: Timothy Papandre brought up a concept that completely shifts the paradigm, okay?

00:07:04: He says people in our industry get too caught-up on car aspect The vehicle itself.

00:07:08: it just modular container.

00:07:10: companies like Waymo aren't building ride hail services.

00:07:13: they are physical AI.

00:07:14: Physical AI, that is a heavy concept.

00:07:16: it

00:07:16: really is.

00:07:17: walk us

00:07:18: through how that actually functions mechanically

00:07:21: well.

00:07:21: think of it as the spatial economic operating system for the next century.

00:07:25: For the last twenty years we really mastered the digital layer moving data seamlessly across the globe

00:07:31: right?

00:07:32: Physical AI takes that massive computational power combines with edge computing on the vehicle and interacts with material world in real time.

00:07:41: Wow You're essentially licensing a highly advanced brain that can navigate physical friction to move anything, people freight municipal services.

00:07:52: So it shifts the value away from the metal box and toward the autonomous network access itself

00:07:57: exactly

00:07:57: which completely changes The real estate dynamics of a city.

00:08:00: if this brain Can efficiently route a vehicle?

00:08:03: To you anywhere pure location matters A little less and curb access matters a whole lot

00:08:08: more.

00:08:08: absolutely the curve is everything

00:08:09: And that brings us to the sector.

00:08:11: That has already been fighting this brutal, bloody battle for the last ten feet of The Last Mile shared micromobility.

00:08:18: If you want to know how autonomous pods will survive on the street look at the scooters and shared cars that are already there.

00:08:25: This sector is entering a much more mature and frankly ruthless market phase.

00:08:31: It's

00:08:31: finally growing up Focusing on unit economics rather than just top-line user growth.

00:08:36: Just look at the financial milestones we saw recently.

00:08:39: Brendan Wallace posted about Lyme's upcoming NASDAQ IPO, they generated eight hundred and eighty six million dollars in revenue last year

00:08:47: with a hundred million of free cash flow right?

00:08:49: Exactly!

00:08:49: And Sayla Musa shared that Bolt has reached profitability for the first time.

00:08:54: They posted a net profit with Revenue Rising fourteen percent year-over-year.

00:08:58: That is huge shift from The Cash Burning Days

00:09:00: It Is.

00:09:00: But Brennan Wallace made a point that completely flips how we view these companies.

00:09:04: He argued that micro-mobility is not actually a transportation play.

00:09:08: What?

00:09:08: Is it then?

00:09:09: It's real estate play hidden inside of the transportation company?

00:09:12: Oh,

00:09:13: monetizing the curb.

00:09:14: Yes Every single trip whether its an e-scooter or autonomous pod has to end somewhere A curb, doorway and loading dock.

00:09:24: That physical access point is most constrained in any modern city

00:09:29: And these companies are building the infrastructure to rent it by the minute.

00:09:32: Here's where it gets really interesting for the operators listening.

00:09:35: when we talk about scale and profitability in shared mobility, The industry press loves to focus on the software.

00:09:42: always the dynamic routing algorithms the sleek app interface

00:09:46: gamified payment gateways yeah.

00:09:48: But the actual mechanism of profitability is found in deeply unglamorous operations happening behind.

00:10:09: We don't think about the thousands of vehicle damages that have to be processed every single year.

00:10:14: Right, he described cars coming in dented dirty or just needing immediate maintenance.

00:10:19: you're constantly fighting this brutal logistical war Of balancing fleet downtime against peak hour utilization rights

00:10:26: because Every hour a car sits in that garage waiting for apart it is bleeding potential revenue.

00:10:33: yep

00:10:33: They have to inspect them, put them on lifts run through wash tunnels rebrand and get back out onto the street as fast physically possible.

00:10:41: Because if a user taps Unlock on their phone and car smells like smoke you know has flat tire

00:10:47: That user deletes the app

00:10:48: instantly.

00:10:49: As Gregory said when operation works perfectly it is completely invisible

00:10:55: And that invisibility is exactly what Sandra Phillips highlighted regarding Moto Car Share.

00:11:00: She pointed out that tech companies think innovation is about pushing flashy new app features.

00:11:05: Right, like a new dark mode or whatever?

00:11:07: Yeah

00:11:07: but for a shared physical fleet, innovation is pure reliability.

00:11:11: she gave it great example of the logistical nightmare That happens when a city construction project suddenly closes one of Moto's seven hundred parking locations

00:11:19: Or private property owner just abruptly changes their access codes

00:11:24: Which happens all the time!

00:11:25: In a traditional rental model, you just towed cars.

00:11:28: But in shared mobility users book specific cars on specific locations days and advance.

00:11:34: Right...you can't send them push notifications that say sorry figure it out

00:11:38: Exactly You have to update entire user architecture dynamically.

00:11:42: Modo's team physically moves vehicle updates telemetry location in back end automatically reroutes user mapping feature within app

00:11:52: So they aren't left stranded looking for a car behind the chain link fence.

00:11:55: Exactly, that hidden operational grind... quietly removing physical friction behind the scenes, is what actually builds long-term trust.

00:12:05: And you know that hidden operational reliability is the exact missing link That it's finally making cities trust micro mobility enough to plug directly into their legacy bus and train networks.

00:12:15: It's a huge transition.

00:12:16: We're

00:12:16: seeing micro mobility evolve from a novelty Into core multimodal infrastructure

00:12:21: Which is funny because for years city planners assumed east scooters were just cannibalizing bus ridership.

00:12:27: Right, people taking a scooter instead of paying a bus fare.

00:12:29: But new data completely flips that narrative!

00:12:32: Tomas Beloso shared a breakdown on an ETH Zurich study in Hanover.

00:12:36: They analyzed two-point-two million GPS tracked e-scooter trips.

00:12:41: Two

00:12:41: point two million is massive sample size.

00:12:43: It IS and the findings are wild.

00:12:45: Fifty six percent of shared e-scooter trips actively connect to public transport.

00:12:50: Wow over half

00:12:51: Yeah And only two point five percent actually compete with it.

00:12:54: it completely validates the first mile, last-mile hypothesis.

00:12:58: It's like the capillaries feeding oxygen into main arteries of a human body.

00:13:02: The scooters handle fine grain decentralized distribution moving people from their front doors to high capacity transit lines.

00:13:10: And now that operators have data to prove this cities are aggressively engineering behavior.

00:13:15: Lars Christian Grittum Olsen shared a fascinating case study on how Oslo managed to double its scooter fleet, to sixteen thousand vehicles.

00:13:23: Sixteen thousand and they didn't do it by just dumping more scooters into the downtown court right?

00:13:28: Which is what operators usually want to do to maximize density in turnover

00:13:31: Right!

00:13:32: Oslo raised vehicle caps specifically in outskirts The peripheral residential areas where natural demand is much lower.

00:13:40: Okay so pushing the fleet outward

00:13:42: Yeah, it prevented downtown parking chaos but more importantly It gave residents in the outskirts a reliable heavily subsidized feeder route to the subway.

00:13:51: It proves that for neighborhoods without strong bus links A scooter isn't a joyride!

00:13:57: It is literally The only way a commuter can reliably catch the train on time

00:14:02: absolutely.

00:14:03: But this immediately brings up the eternal friction point with micro mobility.

00:14:07: yeah

00:14:07: let me guess Parking compliance.

00:14:10: You

00:14:10: got it.

00:14:10: It remains the number one complaint from city councils and residents people tripping over scooters on this sidewalk.

00:14:15: Yes, huge issue but

00:14:17: Lonnie Stern highlighted a study from The University of Oregon that fundamentally reframes This issue.

00:14:22: oh?

00:14:23: This insight is crucial for any urban planner listening right now.

00:14:26: Yeah studies show that scooter parking compliance Is not an enforcement problem.

00:14:30: nope you cannot find your way to a clean sidewalk.

00:14:33: it is strictly An infrastructure problem.

00:14:36: It all comes down to density of access.

00:14:38: The researchers identified a really clear mechanical threshold.

00:14:42: if the city provides roughly twenty-to-thirty dedicated parking corrals per square kilometer, compliance skyrockets.

00:14:49: Wait!

00:14:50: Twenty-to thirty per square kilometers?

00:14:51: Yeah and the mechanism is simple.

00:14:53: at that specific density our rider is mathematically never more than one minute walk from.

00:15:00: It's just human behavioral economics.

00:15:02: People respond to convenience,

00:15:04: exactly if you eliminate

00:15:05: those parking deserts and make it frictionless To do the right thing users Just do it.

00:15:10: And we have to remember that infrastructure isn't just physical paint on the ground Right?

00:15:14: That is also communication.

00:15:17: Manuel Herzog shared a brilliant incredibly simple example from Düsseldorf

00:15:21: in their little Tokyo district.

00:15:22: Yeah The city didn't just paint corrals they added Japanese translations to this scooter parking signs.

00:15:27: I love that approach so much.

00:15:29: Rather than relying on blunt bans or threatening fines, they used inclusive communication

00:15:34: because infrastructure only functions if it's understood by the people using it.

00:15:39: If you want culturally compliant behavior You have to speak the language of that specific neighborhood right?

00:15:45: It shows appreciation.

00:15:46: It gently nudges users instead of sanctioning them and it turns a profane boring traffic sign into A tool for urban integration.

00:15:54: It's a great reminder that the most advanced mobility app in the world is utterly useless if communication fails at the physical point of parking.

00:16:02: Exactly!

00:16:03: Which transitions us perfectly to the ultimate behavioral lever of urban space.

00:16:08: To man it all this, The autonomous Waymo shuttles, the thousands of e-scooters connecting to transit... ...the legacy buses.

00:16:15: cities need a new brain A very

00:16:17: big brain

00:16:17: And that brain requires massive amounts data to control one thing that dictates all mobility behavior Parking

00:16:24: Yeah.

00:16:25: John Pinker had made a statement that should be printed on the wall of every DOT, he said parking policy is transport policy.

00:16:32: it quietly shapes travel behavior every single day

00:16:35: if we connect this to the bigger picture?

00:16:37: yeah It dictates the entire ecosystem.

00:16:40: Parking influences perceived convenience it drives land use development and ultimately decides whether driving private car feels like obvious default choice for commuter.

00:16:51: Muhammad Ali and Russell King discussed a new UITP report that just hammers this point home.

00:16:57: The report argues that underpriced parking is actively wrecking public transport systems.

00:17:02: I mean it's true.

00:17:03: in most major cities you can store two tonne metal box on prime urban real estate for less than the cost of cup coffee.

00:17:09: We are heavily subsidizing passive storage.

00:17:12: And the report argues that cities have to shift parking from being a static asset, To a strategic tool for modal shift.

00:17:19: Meaning why exactly?

00:17:19: Meaning

00:17:20: implementing dynamic pricing based on demand using digital enforcement and aligning parking policy directly with public transit goals... ...to incentivize people to leave the car at home.

00:17:30: Okay I'll push back here.

00:17:31: In theory sounds great but in reality taking away cheap parking or strictly enforcing speed limits is political dynamite.

00:17:39: Mayors lose elections over parking spaces.

00:17:42: So how are cities actually enforcing this new spatial reality without causing political outrage?

00:17:48: You build an intelligence layer that completely removes the human confrontation.

00:17:53: Okay, you use data to make enforcement precise invisible and undeniable.

00:17:58: Tossif Said highlighted a massive initiative in Dubai.

00:18:01: They just launched an AI-powered digital twin platform

00:18:05: Digital Twin.

00:18:05: like a three D simulation.

00:18:07: they mapped over a hundred ninety five thousand buildings and two hundred eighty thousand infrastructure assets into a virtual replica of the city.

00:18:14: A virtual replica sounds great in a press release, but how does a three-D model actually stop a delivery driver from double parking and blocking a bike lane in real life?

00:18:22: Isn't there a massive gap between the simulation and street?

00:18:26: There is unless you have a real time feedback loop which is what they're building.

00:18:30: They aren't just creating a static three D model their ingesting live data from cameras sensors and vehicles to completely reimagine How The City operates dynamically.

00:18:39: And we are seeing this real-world AI enforcement work right now in the

00:18:42: U.S.,

00:18:43: too.

00:18:44: Kevin Paschuk discussed how New Orleans integrated real time telemetry and video AI across forty one separate municipal departments.

00:18:52: What did that actually achieve?

00:18:54: By utilizing AI enabled dash cams, behavioral feedback loops They reduced driver speeding of their own city fleets by thirty seven percent.

00:19:02: That's

00:19:02: significant!

00:19:03: ...and they cut mobile phone distractions by forty six percent.

00:19:07: So they are connecting physical operations to a unified data layer, to objectively improve safety.

00:19:13: Which obviously saves the city money on insurance and liability Exactly.

00:19:17: And what is truly wild Is that we're now seeing this level of data extraction happen without cities needing any new hardware at all.

00:19:25: Jadish Patel shared an incredible update on how the Flow platform is detecting traffic signal spillback.

00:19:30: Just to clarify, spill back being when cars block the intersection during a red light and completely gridlocked the network.

00:19:36: Right!

00:19:36: The classic box blocking.

00:19:38: Historically A city would have spent thousands of dollars to hang in new camera on a pole To monitor that intersection.

00:19:43: Yeah

00:19:44: Super expensive.

00:19:45: But flow Is mapping this at scale using existing connected vehicle data.

00:19:49: Instead of a camera watching the cars, the cars are essentially texting the city their GPS coordinates and breaking telemetry in real time.

00:19:58: The vehicles themselves become sensors

00:19:59: Exactly!

00:20:00: The City gets full visibility cycle by cycle without pouring single ounce of concrete.

00:20:06: So

00:20:06: what does this all mean?

00:20:07: If we zoom out look at these developments from weeks twenty-seven to twenty eight A very clear consensus emerges for anyone working here.

00:20:17: Remember, Zoomie and Katie Zander summarized it perfectly in their takeaways from the ITS America conference.

00:20:22: The fundamental barrier to transportation innovation is no longer technology itself.

00:20:28: We know that physical AI works.

00:20:29: we know connected vehicle telemetry exists.

00:20:31: we know scooters can reliably get people on train.

00:20:34: Right!

00:20:35: The barrier now has alignment.

00:20:36: It is the heavy grinding work of aligning municipal policy, integrating deeply fragmented data systems and fundamentally changing community habits.

00:20:45: Yeah it's about creating the regulatory in digital infrastructure that actually allows the hardware to scale!

00:20:56: if the public doesn't trust the deployment, and if vehicle data isn't integrated with city's broader transit

00:21:04: goals.

00:21:05: Your technology is just a glossy render stuck in real-world traffic?

00:21:09: Absolutely!

00:21:10: You

00:21:10: know as line between digital data and physical concrete continues to blur I think everyone has to accept new reality.

00:21:19: The most valuable mobility skill of next decade will not be engineering the vehicle.

00:21:24: it'll be engineering ecosystem that allows vehicles.

00:21:28: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:21:32: Also check out our other editions on electrification and battery technology next-gen vehicle intelligence and commercial fleet insights.

00:21:39: Thank you so much for listening to This Deep Dive And don't forget to subscribe Until Next Time.