Best of LinkedIn: Future Mobility & Market Evolution CW 03/ 04

00:00:00: Brought to you by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus.

00:00:02: This edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on future mobility and market evolution in weeks O three and O four.

00:00:08: Frennus supports enterprises with market and competitive intelligence, decoding disruptive technologies, customer needs, regulatory change and competitive moves.

00:00:17: So product teams and strategy leaders don't just react, but shape the future of mobility.

00:00:23: Welcome back.

00:00:24: For today's deep dive, we're digging into the first report card of twenty twenty six.

00:00:28: Really?

00:00:29: Looking at LinkedIn insights from weeks three and four.

00:00:33: And, you know, if I had to pick one word to sum up the mood.

00:00:36: Yeah.

00:00:37: It's sobering.

00:00:38: Sobering.

00:00:38: Hmm.

00:00:39: That sounds a little, a little grim for the start of the year.

00:00:42: I was getting more of a growing up vibe from it all, you know, less hype, more spreadsheets.

00:00:46: That's

00:00:46: exactly it.

00:00:47: That's what I mean.

00:00:48: Sobering, like, you know, waking up after the big party's over and finally checking your bank account, the whole growth at all costs thing, it's officially done.

00:00:55: Right.

00:00:56: The data we're seeing now shows an industry focused on unit economics, on operational reality, and some cases, dealing with some really painful regulatory headwinds.

00:01:06: Okay, well.

00:01:07: Let's get into it.

00:01:08: We've got a lot to cover.

00:01:10: There's a surprising turnaround in micromobility economics, a pretty stark reality check on the Europe versus China gap in autonomous vehicles.

00:01:20: Oh, the big one.

00:01:21: And a structural shift in corporate mobility that might just end up paying your rent.

00:01:25: Yeah,

00:01:25: that corporate budget story is a real game changer.

00:01:28: But let's start small.

00:01:29: Let's start with, you know, the stuff on the street corner.

00:01:32: micro-mobility.

00:01:33: Right.

00:01:33: For so long, the story here was just burn cash, grab market share, scooters everywhere, companies folding.

00:01:41: But Prade and Joel Jones posted an update on the startup dance.

00:01:44: that seems to flip that whole narrative.

00:01:46: It

00:01:46: really has.

00:01:47: So dance is an e-bike subscription service out of Berlin.

00:01:50: And Prade and broke down their twenty-twenty-four numbers.

00:01:53: And it's a turnaround story.

00:01:54: Revenue is up twenty-nine percent, hit eight million euros.

00:01:57: Okay, good growth.

00:01:59: But that's not the headline.

00:02:00: The real story is the bottom line.

00:02:01: They cut their losses significantly.

00:02:03: And just to be clear for everyone listening, dance isn't sharing like finding a bike on the sidewalk, is it?

00:02:09: It's a monthly subscription where you actually keep the bike.

00:02:12: Correct.

00:02:12: It's usage over ownership, but you have custody.

00:02:15: And that model was questioned for so long, investors were always asking, can you make the logistics work?

00:02:21: Braven's analysis suggests.

00:02:22: Yeah, you can.

00:02:23: It's a sign that subscriptions are finally, you know, seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

00:02:27: So you can run a recurring revenue business without just bleeding cash.

00:02:31: If you control your operations, yes.

00:02:33: And speaking of operations, the data from Brussels is even more incredible.

00:02:38: Martin LeFranc shared some stats on the free-floating shared mobility there.

00:02:41: that just defies the old logic.

00:02:44: What's the headline?

00:02:45: In twenty twenty five, Brussels saw fifteen million shared trips.

00:02:49: OK.

00:02:50: That is the exact same number of trips as twenty twenty two right at the peak of the hype.

00:02:54: So demand is flat.

00:02:55: Not great news.

00:02:56: Demand is stable.

00:02:58: But here's the kicker.

00:03:00: They did it with half the fleet size.

00:03:02: Wait,

00:03:02: wait, half.

00:03:03: You're saying back in twenty twenty two we had double the scooters cluttering up the city to do the exact same job.

00:03:08: Precisely.

00:03:09: Back then operators were just flooding the zone.

00:03:12: Now with smarter fleet management and frankly better regulation, the utilization rate per vehicle has basically doubled.

00:03:20: The Wild West era is over.

00:03:21: Efficiency won.

00:03:22: That's

00:03:22: huge for the cities.

00:03:24: Less clutter, same mobility.

00:03:25: But it does make me wonder, if you're running fewer bikes and they're being used twice as much, doesn't the hardware just fall apart faster?

00:03:32: That is the next logical problem, isn't it?

00:03:34: And it's why we're seeing this big shift in how these things are actually built.

00:03:37: I saw John Fay and Balthazar Sheeter talking about the new e-bike from Bolt.

00:03:41: And honestly, it sounds like a tank.

00:03:44: I saw that post.

00:03:45: They literally put a bear on it to test it.

00:03:47: It's a real bear.

00:03:48: A real

00:03:48: bear sitting right on the seat.

00:03:50: I mean, I have to appreciate the marketing commitment there.

00:03:52: But what's actually different about it?

00:03:54: Bear aside.

00:03:55: It's about the design intent.

00:03:56: Balthazar's point was that Bolt didn't just tweak a consumer bike.

00:04:00: They built this thing from the ground up to be abused.

00:04:03: Lower frame, turn signals, AI safety features.

00:04:06: The whole point is to make it less intimidating, you know?

00:04:08: So anyone feels confident getting on it.

00:04:11: That intimidation factor is so real.

00:04:14: If it looks flimsy, people aren't going to write it.

00:04:16: But there's a trade-off, right?

00:04:17: A tank is heavy, and heavy kills battery range.

00:04:20: Usually, yeah.

00:04:21: But that's where the material science comes in.

00:04:24: Hilgo Yang posted about a really interesting technical shift.

00:04:27: The move to magnesium.

00:04:29: Instead of the usual aluminum.

00:04:30: Exactly.

00:04:31: Hilgo's point was that using magnesium can cut the weight by, like, Eighteen to twenty-five percent so you can build a stronger more robust frame without that big weight tenalty.

00:04:40: It's just smarter engineering.

00:04:42: Okay, so the bikes are better.

00:04:43: the business models are getting there, but the regulatory side of things seems to be getting Well, messy.

00:04:48: messy is a polite word for it.

00:04:50: There's a cautionary tale from New Jersey that Maxine Rinson and Brian O'Leary any we're talking about

00:04:54: this one really had me scratching my head.

00:04:56: New Jersey passed a law that lumps class one two and three e-bikes in with eMotos.

00:05:03: Let's quickly define that.

00:05:04: Class one and two are your standard pedal assist bikes.

00:05:07: The kind commuters use, they top out at around twenty miles per hour.

00:05:10: And New Jersey now requires what, a license and registration for them?

00:05:14: Yes.

00:05:15: So if your parent who wants a simple pedal assist bike to take your kid to school, you have to go to the DMV, stand in line, register it like it's a motorcycle.

00:05:25: That's

00:05:25: a total nightmare.

00:05:27: It kills adoption.

00:05:28: That's Brian Allway and his point.

00:05:30: All that friction just destroys the convenience.

00:05:34: You treat a bicycle like a motorcycle, people will just get back in their cars.

00:05:38: It's policy totally missing the nuance of the tech.

00:05:41: It really feels like a step backward, but there's another threat that isn't legislative.

00:05:45: It's much more physical.

00:05:48: You're dying of vandalism.

00:05:48: Yeah.

00:05:49: Lars Christian Grimm Olsen highlighted the situation in Cardiff, Wales.

00:05:53: Nextbite had to pull out of the city entirely, not because the business model failed, but because the bikes were just being destroyed.

00:05:59: That's awful, and it raises a big question.

00:06:01: Is that just a cost of doing business?

00:06:03: Lars argues it shouldn't be, and I think he's right.

00:06:05: His whole take is that cities need to start treating shared mobility like permanent infrastructure.

00:06:10: like a bus stop.

00:06:11: You don't shut down the subway because of some graffiti.

00:06:14: You protect it.

00:06:15: That's

00:06:15: a fantastic point.

00:06:16: And it's a great segue, actually.

00:06:18: Because if we're talking about permanent infrastructure, we have to talk about autonomous mobility.

00:06:22: This

00:06:22: was a huge theme.

00:06:24: And the consensus seems to be shifting.

00:06:26: Zaki Ibiza said that, twenty twenty five was the year AVs went from being tech experiments to strategic industrial competition.

00:06:35: But.

00:06:36: There's a huge geographic gap opening up.

00:06:38: The Europe versus China gap.

00:06:40: It's more like a chasm.

00:06:41: Dr.

00:06:41: Loha Hashimi shared her notes after a trip to China.

00:06:44: And for a European, it was a shock to the system.

00:06:47: What did

00:06:48: she see?

00:06:48: Operations, not pilots, real-scaled operations.

00:06:51: She saw delivery drones, AVs integrated into transit hubs, EVs as the absolute default car on the road.

00:06:58: She figures Europe is at least five years behind.

00:07:00: Five years.

00:07:01: In technology, that's a generation.

00:07:02: It is.

00:07:03: And it's not just China.

00:07:04: Vaipav Kumar Gupta was highlighting the UAE.

00:07:06: Abu Dhabi already has level four commercial robo taxes on the Uber app.

00:07:11: Right now, Dubai is scaling with Baidu and Uber.

00:07:14: Just to clarify, level four for everyone, that means the car handles everything in a specific zone.

00:07:19: No human needed, right?

00:07:20: Correct.

00:07:20: No driver in the driver's seat within that geofenced area.

00:07:25: So while Europe is still stuck debating regulations, the UAE and China are out there collecting millions of miles of real-world data.

00:07:33: They're becoming the global hubs for this.

00:07:35: That's a serious wake-up call.

00:07:38: But let's look at the consumer side.

00:07:39: Even where it is operating, like with Waymo in the US, the economics

00:07:43: are

00:07:45: not what I expected.

00:07:46: Ryan Sawme did an analysis on this.

00:07:48: Just

00:07:48: price comparison piece, yeah.

00:07:49: Right.

00:07:50: Ryan found that a Waymo ride costs about thirty percent more than a standard Uber.

00:07:55: Which sort

00:07:55: of breaks the first rule of automation, doesn't it?

00:07:57: The whole point is that robots are supposed to be cheaper because you don't pay a person.

00:08:00: Exactly.

00:08:01: If it's more expensive, it should fail.

00:08:03: But... It's real.

00:08:04: Ryan says seventy percent of writers actually prefer the Waymo.

00:08:07: Why?

00:08:08: It's the product experience.

00:08:09: His insight is that people are paying a premium for consistency.

00:08:12: A robot doesn't have a bad day.

00:08:13: It doesn't make awkward small talk.

00:08:16: drives predictably and safely every single time.

00:08:18: That's actually a brilliant point.

00:08:19: It's the business class argument.

00:08:21: You pay more for the lack of friction, the lack of humanity, I guess.

00:08:27: Yeah.

00:08:27: It really challenges that core assumption that AI only wins by being cheaper.

00:08:33: Maybe it wins by being better, but... There's a paradox here.

00:08:38: If everyone starts using these things, we could have a huge problem for our cities.

00:08:42: The robo-taxi paradox.

00:08:43: Alex Vassilio and Gunner Frohe were discussing this pointing to a Deutsche Bahn study.

00:08:49: And the simulation showed that if we just do a one-for-one swap personal cars for personal robo taxes, congestion actually goes up.

00:08:56: By

00:08:56: a lot, right.

00:08:57: Something like thirty to forty percent.

00:08:59: Yeah.

00:08:59: Why?

00:09:00: Is it the empty cars driving

00:09:01: around?

00:09:01: It's the zero occupancy cruising.

00:09:03: The car drops you off, then has to circle the block or drive across town to get the next rider.

00:09:07: That's a car on the road with nobody in it, just clogging up traffic.

00:09:09: So what's the solution?

00:09:10: Just ban them.

00:09:12: The study suggests you change the form factor.

00:09:14: The sweet spot isn't the individual car, it's the autonomous shuttle.

00:09:17: Think six to twelve people integrated with public transport.

00:09:20: Do that and you could actually reduce traffic by about eleven percent.

00:09:23: So less cyberpunk sports car and more smart minibus.

00:09:27: Exactly.

00:09:28: But even with the right vehicle, the tech isn't perfect.

00:09:33: Philip Koopman, who is really the conscience of the AV safety world, he noted we're still seeing some serious issues, specifically with Waymo vehicles getting confused around school buses.

00:09:43: Oh,

00:09:44: yeah, that's a high stakes edge case.

00:09:45: you do not want to fail.

00:09:47: It just shows we're not quite there yet.

00:09:49: But let's shift from the vehicle itself to the environment.

00:09:52: We saw some amazing updates on how mobility is literally reshaping cities.

00:09:56: This is my favorite part.

00:09:57: The big infrastructure plays.

00:09:59: And the scale of the Riyadh Metro extension that Adeeb Samara and Nicholas Bonaventure mention is just... It's mind-blowing.

00:10:07: One of the largest projects on the planet.

00:10:08: They're talking about taking a hundred and fifty thousand cars off the road every single day.

00:10:12: But what I love is the thinking behind it.

00:10:15: They're not just laying tracks, they're building entire districts around the stations.

00:10:18: It's transit-oriented development on steroids.

00:10:21: Instead of building more roads for cars, they're building a city where you just don't need one.

00:10:26: But it doesn't always have to be mega-scale, right?

00:10:29: Brian Wong shared a great example from Zurich, the Whitkingen Station.

00:10:32: Yeah, that was a redesign of an existing station.

00:10:35: Right, more of a surgical intervention.

00:10:37: They just focused on making the transfers seamless, from the train to the bus to the sidewalk.

00:10:43: And Brian's whole point was about partnership.

00:10:46: The city and the transit agency had to work together perfectly to make it all connect.

00:10:51: It's that last meter of the journey that makes all the difference.

00:10:54: And speaking of journeys, we have to talk about the twilighter.

00:10:57: Alexander Lewis-Jones reviewed this, and I immediately wanted to book a ticket.

00:11:03: From Brussels to Zurich.

00:11:04: But it's not just a seat that reclines, you get a proper bed, you sleep.

00:11:08: And this is a brilliant part.

00:11:09: When you arrive, you get access to a hotel shower and breakfast.

00:11:18: You usually arrive feeling stiff and gross.

00:11:21: The twilight is all about fixing that arrival experience.

00:11:23: Alexander did have one complaint though, the vibration.

00:11:26: The diesel engine rumble, yeah.

00:11:28: He said if you're used to EVs or trains, you really notice it when you're trying to sleep.

00:11:32: But it shows the whole idea of travel is being reimagined.

00:11:35: And that reimagining is happening in places you wouldn't expect, like gas stations.

00:11:39: Thomas Perkman from West Phelan A.G.

00:11:41: wrote about this.

00:11:42: Right.

00:11:42: And it's basically a survival strategy for them.

00:11:45: Because

00:11:45: if we all drive EVs, no one's stopping for gas.

00:11:48: Or if you do stop to charge, you're there for twenty minutes, not two.

00:11:52: Thomas' argument is that the gas station has to become a mobility hub.

00:11:56: The Starbucks invistification of the petrol station?

00:11:58: Pretty much.

00:11:59: fast charging, good coffee, decent retail, maybe a workspace.

00:12:04: They have to become places you actually want to spend time.

00:12:07: If they stay pump and pay, they're going to go extinct.

00:12:11: Moving on to our last theme.

00:12:12: And honestly, this one probably has the biggest immediate financial impact for you listening, corporate mobility.

00:12:18: This

00:12:18: is where it gets real for HR and fleet managers.

00:12:22: And the news out of Belgium is just, it's massive.

00:12:25: A huge policy shift.

00:12:26: Hendrik Serres and Anthony Barrett were breaking it down.

00:12:29: By twenty twenty seven, it's going to be mandatory for larger employers in Belgium to offer a mobility budget.

00:12:34: Let's unpack that because mobility budget sounds like corporate jargon.

00:12:39: Traditionally in Belgium, the company car is this huge tax subsidized perk, right?

00:12:45: It locks you into driving.

00:12:46: Totally.

00:12:47: If they give you a free BMW, you're going to drive it.

00:12:49: You're not taking the train.

00:12:50: Exactly.

00:12:51: This new law forces companies to offer an alternative.

00:12:56: You can trade in that car for a pot of cash.

00:12:59: You can spend it on a bike, on public transport, or, and this is the absolute game changer on your housing costs.

00:13:06: Wait, hold on.

00:13:07: I can use my car allowance to pay my rent.

00:13:10: Yes.

00:13:10: If you live within a certain radius of your office, I think it's about ten kilometers, you can use that mobility budget to pay your rent or your mortgage.

00:13:17: That's genius.

00:13:18: I mean, think about the incentive there.

00:13:19: It literally pays you to live closer to work.

00:13:22: Which cuts your commute.

00:13:24: which cuts graphic, which cuts emissions.

00:13:26: It's this perfect positive feedback loop.

00:13:28: And are people actually taking this offer?

00:13:30: They are.

00:13:30: We're already seeing it.

00:13:32: Manuel Alush shared some data from Flanders that I almost couldn't believe.

00:13:35: Forty-five percent of people in Flanders now own an e-bike.

00:13:38: Almost

00:13:39: half the population.

00:13:40: Yes.

00:13:41: And it's being driven by corporate leasing and these exact kinds of incentives.

00:13:45: It just proves that when you align the corporate wallet with the tech, adoption goes through the roof.

00:13:51: And companies are getting it.

00:13:52: The old model of just buying a bunch of cars for five years doesn't work anymore.

00:13:56: Nick Boucher pointed out the big shift towards subscription-based corporate fleets.

00:14:00: Flexibility is everything now.

00:14:02: If your workforce is hybrid, you don't want a parking lot full of cars just sitting there depreciating.

00:14:07: You want to scale your fleet up or down as you need to.

00:14:10: it all comes back to that theme we started with, maturity.

00:14:13: Whether it's dance focusing on profit or Riyadh focusing on integrated hubs or companies using flexible budgets, the industry is just growing up.

00:14:23: We're not just throwing tech at a wall to see what sticks anymore.

00:14:26: We're building systems that actually have to work financially and operationally.

00:14:30: So what does this all mean for you?

00:14:32: It means the future of mobility isn't some far-off concept.

00:14:35: It's happening in the laws being passed in Belgium right now.

00:14:38: It's in Waymo's pricing model.

00:14:40: It's in the fleet decisions your company is making for next year.

00:14:43: And if you're working in this space, the message from these first few weeks of the year is loud and clear.

00:14:50: Operational excellence and smart integrations are what win.

00:14:54: The hype is over.

00:14:55: Execution is everything.

00:14:57: Here's a final thought for you to chew on.

00:14:59: We talked about robotaxis maybe making traffic worse and we talked about using a mobility budget to pay your rent.

00:15:06: Right.

00:15:06: What happens when those two things collide?

00:15:08: Imagine a future where your company literally pays you to live downtown specifically so you don't have to take that expensive traffic jamming robotaxi in from the suburbs.

00:15:20: Real estate and mobility are becoming the same conversation.

00:15:23: That's a fascinating connection.

00:15:25: The commute or the lack of one is becoming its own form of currency.

00:15:30: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:15:33: Also check out our other editions on electrification and battery technology, next-gen vehicle intelligence and commercial fleet insights.

00:15:40: Thanks for diving in with us.

00:15:41: Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss what's next.

00:15:44: We'll catch you next time.