Best of LinkedIn: Future Mobility & Market Evolution CW 15/ 16

00:00:00: brought to you by Thomas Allguyer and Frennis.

00:00:02: This edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on future mobility in market evolution, in weeks fifteen and sixteen.

00:00:08: Frenis 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 find more info In the description.

00:00:22: Yeah Welcome everyone to today's deep dive.

00:00:25: If you're a professional navigating this incredibly fast moving mobility space, You are in the right place

00:00:32: exactly.

00:00:32: we were essentially giving you a custom executive briefing.

00:00:35: We've gone through all the noise on linkedin from calendar weeks fifteen and sixteen And uh...we pulled out absolute top trends.

00:00:42: Right,

00:00:43: the stuff you actually need to know about where future mobility is heading.

00:00:46: and we've grouped these insights into three main themes for you today.

00:00:49: yeah so we're going to cover scaled autonomous mobility in AV ecosystems first.

00:00:53: that will get into micro-mobility and shared mobility reinvention And finally we'll wrap up with integrated urban mobility and public transport linkages.

00:01:01: It's a lot of ground, but the overarching narrative connecting all this is that industry is rapidly moving out of the shiny technology experiment phase.

00:01:11: Oh

00:01:12: completely!

00:01:12: Not sci-fi anymore?

00:01:13: No not at all.

00:01:14: it colliding head on with brutal operational economics about unit economic scale.

00:01:20: now.

00:01:21: so let jump right into first theme Scaled autonomous mobility.

00:01:26: Yeah lets do because I was reading Steve Greenfields recent post and It is just staggering, he highlighted that Uber's committing something like ten billion dollars to autonomous vehicles.

00:01:38: Wow!

00:01:38: Ten billion?

00:01:39: Right and they aren't doing light partnerships anymore.

00:01:42: They're buying thousands of AVs taking equity stakes at developers.

00:01:46: it a massive pivot away from their whole asset-like gig economy model.

00:01:50: Well

00:01:51: there are going into avoid being disrupted right?

00:01:53: And PRH Diamond has actually provided some brilliant context on this dynamic.

00:01:57: Oh yeah what did you say?

00:01:58: So?

00:01:58: he was arguing that Uber CEO Dara Khazrashahi is making this really calculated bet.

00:02:04: He assumes that owning the passenger demand like the actual consumer interface and routing logistics, it's going to matter way more than who manufactures the AI

00:02:13: stack.".

00:02:14: That makes a lot of sense?

00:02:15: Yeah

00:02:15: by twenty-twenty nine Uber projects they'll facilitate more autonomous rides then anyone else.

00:02:20: They're basically treating whole AV industry as just roster suppliers for their platform.

00:02:25: Which exactly what we are seeing on hardware side.

00:02:28: Mark Winterhoff and Silvio Napoli were both sharing updates on LinkedIn about Lucid Motors deeply expanding its Uber partnership.

00:02:35: Right, the new fleet deal!

00:02:36: Exactly we're talking up to thirty five thousand purpose-built Robotaxi vehicles backed by a one billion dollar capital raise.

00:02:43: Lucid is heavily engineering their vehicle specifically for fleet efficiency.

00:02:48: so wait... Trying to wrap my head around this.

00:02:50: Is Uber basically trying to become the booking dot com of autonomous sleets or Lucid just provides hotel

00:02:56: rooms?

00:02:56: That is, yeah that's a perfect analogy for demand side strategy but reality on ground is a lot grittier than listing room winning roblo.

00:03:04: taxi war isn't about having smartest AI anymore.

00:03:07: it's operations

00:03:08: right?

00:03:08: Precisely Kieran White and Sanjana are both broke down.

00:03:13: Sanjna made fascinating point.

00:03:15: When you scale a fleet to ten thousand vehicles, edge cases stop being rare.

00:03:20: Because of the sheer volume of miles?

00:03:22: Exactly!

00:03:22: Construction zones, erratic pedestrians at ten-thousand cars – those edges happen before lunch every single day.

00:03:29: So the winner is whoever builds best operational triage.

00:03:33: Yeah and Karen White argued that ride hailing historically won on price.

00:03:37: But once you remove the human driver's wage, The battlefield shifts entirely to utilization rates and obsessive cost optimization.

00:03:44: Which brings up the math Jigar Shah posted about.

00:03:47: Yes I found this mind-blowing.

00:03:49: He quantified those granular costs.

00:03:51: he noted that if you reduce a RoboTaxi battery size by just one kilowatt hour You save the operator one thousand dollars a year.

00:03:58: in recharging costs

00:03:59: One thousand dollars per car

00:04:01: Per car.

00:04:01: Hmm, assuming it runs about a hundred thousand miles per year.

00:04:05: So when you multiply that by tens of thousands of cars shedding just a few pounds battery weight becomes a board level priority

00:04:12: because the smaller battery means less weight better efficiency, and more revenue-generating time on the road.

00:04:19: Exactly!

00:04:19: But you know optimizing the battery exposes other hidden bottlenecks like data logistics.

00:04:25: Nicolas Sivage detailed this massive problem that emerges at scale...

00:04:29: Data offloading right?

00:04:30: Yeah

00:04:30: a robotaxi gathers terabytes of video and LiDAR data all day.

00:04:35: When it returns to the depot, It has to offload all of that train.

00:04:38: The next iteration of the AI.

00:04:40: you can't just plug in standard cables when a thousand cars return at once.

00:04:43: You need ultra fast wireless infrastructure

00:04:46: right because if physical cables are your bottlenecks Your ai learn slower than your competitors Yeah?

00:04:51: Its crazy how physical these digital problems become absolutely.

00:04:55: and speaking of bottlenecks There's the insurance side.

00:04:57: Jeff Cavins announced that Romley is offering per mile FSD.

00:05:01: That's full self-driving insurance at just thirty one cents per active mile,

00:05:05: which is a massive unlock.

00:05:07: huge traditional commercial fleet insurance assumes human error and charges this flat fixed premium By turning it into a variable cost, fleet operators only pay for the risk exposure while the car is actually moving and generating fares.

00:05:21: It completely changes the financial model And you know.

00:05:24: its interesting to look globally at how different regions are putting these vehicles on the street.

00:05:29: Its like a global laboratory.

00:05:30: Oh For sure!

00:05:31: Ravashi Mystery observed Dubai deploying one hundred Apollo Robotaxis and their approach is so systematic they're actively using AVs to engineer structural risk out of the transport system.

00:05:42: They just want human variables removed

00:05:44: entirely.".

00:05:44: Meanwhile, Europe is operating under a totally different kind of pressure.

00:05:48: Daniel Ubreu Marques provided really impartial breakdown on the Verne Robo Taxi launch in Zagreb.

00:05:54: Uh yeah...the EU grant situation

00:05:56: Right!

00:06:03: To meet that funding window, Vern actually launched using Chinese vehicles from pony.ai running on a US-based Uber platform.

00:06:11: Yeah it highlights this real tension in Europe between massive funding ambitions and maybe lacking the immediate readiness of homegrown tech.

00:06:18: And then you have the U.S which is just tangled in regulatory definitions.

00:06:22: Gabriel Cyberth and Harry Campbell were discussing Tesla's RoboTaxi system in California, the

00:06:27: level two versus level four debate?

00:06:29: Exactly!

00:06:30: And Tesla currently operates under a standard limousine permit.

00:06:33: regulators classify their tech as Level Two driver assistance meaning a human is ultimately responsible by keeping that l-two classification.

00:06:41: they are exempt from these super strict autonomous safety reporting That L for companies like Waymo have to submit.

00:06:47: it's entirely a semantic regulatory standoff.

00:06:50: It really is, but then on the flip side.

00:06:53: Johanna Guss and Halsey shared an update from Stavanger Norway.

00:06:56: they quietly launched Europe first level four autonomous bus in live traffic.

00:07:01: no safety driver onboard at all.

00:07:03: just true autonomy in the wild.

00:07:04: The

00:07:04: variance of maturity across regions is just stark.

00:07:07: But this whole focus on surviving through operational efficiency isn't unique to AVs.

00:07:13: it brings us perfectly into our second theme micro-mobility and shared mobility reinvention.

00:07:18: Right, the exact same shift from VC hype to ruthless discipline has hit the scooter and bike sectors

00:07:26: Totally!

00:07:27: Prumb & Joel Jones shared a great interview with Candace C., CEO of VO And they did something really impressive.

00:07:33: They only raised about sixteen million dollars which is nothing in The Scooter World but had fifty million in revenue became EBIT positive

00:07:41: EBIT positive, meaning they're fundamentally profitable.

00:07:43: Right!

00:07:44: Earnings before interest and taxes are in the black...and did it by abandoning whole growth at all costs.

00:07:50: mentality kept operations in-house obsessed over ridership made one percent daily operational improvements.

00:07:58: But wait I gotta push back here a bit.

00:08:00: When i look my LinkedIn feed The dominant headlines always about cities regulating scooters out of existence.

00:08:06: Paris banned rental scooters entirely.

00:08:09: How is this a maturing market if cities are shutting them down?

00:08:12: Yeah, that's a super common read on the situation.

00:08:14: But Darius Skirtu offered a really compelling counter perspective.

00:08:18: Strict regulations actually serve as a market catalyst.

00:08:21: while the early Wild West days damaged public trust when cities enforced strict technical requirements or cat fleet numbers it forces operators to prove their reliability.

00:08:32: and The smart operators don't die they pivot.

00:08:35: Okay, yeah.

00:08:36: Lars Christian Grudemulsen highlighted exactly that with the Paris situation.

00:08:39: when Paris banned The e-scooters operators like Dot Lyme and Voie didn't abandon in the city.

00:08:44: they just pivoted to E bikes.

00:08:46: Exactly.

00:08:46: And within a year Paris issued contracts for eighteen thousand shared e-bikes.

00:08:51: Dockless e-bike trips jumped fifty seven percent.

00:08:54: So e-Bikes basically became the path of least regulatory resistance...

00:08:58: ...and hardware is evolving to protect new profit margins from those e- Bikes.

00:09:02: Eric Jewel noted DOT is rolling out forty-five thousand new vehicles with double the battery capacity.

00:09:07: Double the capacity?

00:09:08: That's huge for operations!

00:09:10: Right, if the battery lasts twice as long you dispatch your vans half as often to swap them out.

00:09:14: less laborless fuel.

00:09:16: it's a massive drop in operating costs.

00:09:18: Arrini Zafferatu also shared that The New Bolt Seven eScooter is engineered For an insane eight year lifespan plus.

00:09:25: It has AI parking capabilities To make sure users leave Them upright.

00:09:30: but its not just hardware.

00:09:32: Bojan Jukic posted this fascinating analysis on pricing psychology.

00:09:35: Oh,

00:09:36: the mental accounting stuff!

00:09:37: Yes

00:09:38: he pointed out that dynamic per minute pricing which the whole industry started with ignores how humans actually think.

00:09:44: users subconsciously hate an open-ended meter.

00:09:47: if you hit a red light You feel like your losing money.

00:09:50: it creates

00:09:50: anxiety.

00:09:51: exactly.

00:09:52: jukich argued That offering fixed pricing packages Like thirty minutes for a flat one euro rate dramatically Outperforms Dynamic rates.

00:10:00: The user evaluates the financial commitment before unlocking the bike.

00:10:03: It completely removes the friction of the unknown, but you know even with better pricing and hardware keeping these fleets running takes a massive invisible backstage effort.

00:10:12: Remy Kay pointed out that relentless street level repositioning required in places like London Just

00:10:17: eat the footprint from dissolving into chaos.

00:10:19: Right!

00:10:19: They're constantly balancing bikes between residential areas and transit hubs which ties directly to safety & public perception concerns.

00:10:27: Khaled Chowdhury reported that Mississauga is considering suspending its e-scooter program entirely due to rising ER visits and police enforcement challenges.

00:10:36: But if you zoom out, the macro data is actually surprisingly positive!

00:10:42: Magizier Boe & Andrew Savage unpacked the Micromobility for Europe report.

00:10:47: They found that despite a seventy two percent increase in E-bike trips The injury rates per million trips actually dropped by eighteen percent.

00:10:54: Wow...

00:10:54: Eighteen percent drop?

00:10:56: Yeah So better vehicle tech and better city infrastructure are actually working.

00:11:00: And operators are getting smarter about user behavior too.

00:11:03: Ben Astralovas shared how bold uses a riding score, instead of just banning bad users they actively reward safe riding in proper parking with in-app perks.

00:11:12: Gamifying civic responsibility, that's brilliant and it perfectly sets up our final theme today.

00:11:17: Integrated urban mobility because whether its an eight-year lifespan scooter or a purpose built lucid robot taxi they all have to compete for the exact same physical space.

00:11:26: The Battle For The Curb?

00:11:28: Yes!

00:11:29: The ultimate constraint.

00:11:30: Mateo Forte brought this life.

00:11:33: He posted about New York City creating dedicated office of curb management.

00:11:38: Every shared mobility operator delivery fleet and ride-hill car is fighting for the same two meters of asphalt.

00:11:44: It's incredibly competitive!

00:11:46: So, Is The physical curb essentially becoming a dynamic digital stock market?

00:11:51: For space allocation

00:11:52: it really has to function that way.

00:11:54: Mobility can't be siloed anymore And A big part Of That is integrating with existing public transit.

00:11:59: David Powell highlighted how Chicago is integrating its Divi bike share system directly with the Venture Transit Pass.

00:12:05: So they're treated as one connected system?

00:12:07: Exactly, and Robbentine was advocating for similar integration in Scotland between voice bikes sharing and ScotRail.

00:12:14: Lydia Senor and Anna Bellin-Fernandez-Lorente noted that tightly combining transit which shared mobility could actually boost overall ridership by up to seven percent.

00:12:23: but true integration is also digital and energetic.

00:12:25: Right.

00:12:26: Stefano de Lorenzo shared an update about iRide partnering with Hubject in Switzerland.

00:12:31: they seamlessly integrated fifteen thousand EV charging points into a single multimodal flow.

00:12:37: right wait what does that actually look like for the user?

00:12:39: so instead of opening one up for a bike another It's all unified.

00:12:46: It connects energy access directly to public transport and shared mobility in one seamless interface.

00:12:52: that massively reduces friction, And it solves real human problems.

00:12:56: Pietro Payron highlighted that seven million people in Italy are vulnerable to transport poverty.

00:13:02: Shared mobility platforms generate this dense layer of data origins destinations frequencies.

00:13:08: cities can use that data To map and solve those access gaps.

00:13:12: That data is invaluable But spatial challenges definitely remain.

00:13:16: Robert Joseph Martin shared field research from Oslo showing that train station bike parking is becoming completely overwhelmed by the sheer size of modern e-bikes, he called it auto obesity hitting the bike lanes.

00:13:27: Auto obesity?

00:13:28: That's a perfect term!

00:13:30: The infrastructure built for lightweight pedal bikes just can't handle hundreds of thirty kilo electric utility bikes.

00:13:35: and the final boss of all this dense urban integration has to be logistics.

00:13:39: Oh absolutely

00:13:40: John McClimate posted about DoorDash and also partnering on purpose-built autonomous delivery EVs.

00:13:47: They realize they can't just put self driving software into a standard sedan, have to build vehicles structurally designed to handle rapid curb access and navigate narrow historic streets without killing last mile productivity.

00:14:00: And that specific point about vehicles interacting with city infrastructure, it raises a much broader question that pulls all our themes together.

00:14:09: So Mike Landau and Nathan Cabetti reported that Waymo & Waze are partnering to use RoboTaxes to crowdsource real-time pothole detection.

00:14:16: Oh wow!

00:14:17: Right.

00:14:17: so here is a paradigm shift to leave you.

00:14:20: if autonomous fleets constantly mapping decaying roads finding potholes better than the government can will mobility companies eventually evolve past just moving people?

00:14:29: crazy thought.

00:14:30: Will they become the primary data brokers for urban planning and city maintenance?

00:14:34: A sci-fi movie colliding with a municipal spreadsheet right there on The Curb, it really changes how you look at vehicles outside your window!

00:14:43: If you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:14:46: also check out our other editions on electrification & battery technology next gen vehicle intelligence and commercial fleet insights.

00:14:54: Thanks so much joining us today on The curb.

00:14:57: don't forget to subscribe.