Best of LinkedIn: Future Mobility & Market Evolution CW 19/ 20

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

00:00:02: This edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on future mobility of market evolution in weeks nineteen-and twenty.

00:00:08: Frenness supports Pier One automotive suppliers with early stage market validation for their R&D efforts, but combining secondary research direct OEM expert interviews and facilitated customer meetings.

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

00:00:21: the description Right.

00:00:22: So if take a self driving car right one that has flawlessly navigated the wide, sunny, mathematically perfect grid streets of a place like Phoenix, Arizona.

00:00:33: And you just drop it into a city that was built a thousand years ago?

00:00:36: What actually happens-

00:00:37: Oh!

00:00:38: It's completely different ball game.

00:00:39: Exactly I mean does it adapt or is this freeze?

00:00:43: Okay, let's unpack this.

00:00:44: Welcome to the deep dive.

00:00:45: today we're taking a really hard look at the reality of future mobility.

00:00:49: Yeah We have a great stack of insights Today.

00:00:51: we

00:00:51: do source directly from mobility professionals engineers people sharing what is actually happening on The ground beyond the slick press releases.

00:00:59: that Is the perfect framing for our mission?

00:01:01: I think because were synthesizing the top Mobility trends that surfaced across the industry networks during Weeks nineteen and twenty.

00:01:09: And we're gonna break This down into three distinct area.

00:01:11: okay

00:01:12: lay it out for us.

00:01:13: First, we're looking at what I call the RoboTaxi Reality Check.

00:01:16: So that friction between autonomous ambitions and ancient urban infrastructure.

00:01:22: Second, we'll look at how micromobility is well abandoning its chaotic hyper growth phase to focus on a much quieter highly profitable operating model.

00:01:32: the boring era right

00:01:33: exactly The Boring Era.

00:01:35: And finally will examine the rise of shared mobility platforms That are actively trying to rewire.

00:01:40: How?

00:01:40: We move through cities entirely?

00:01:42: I want to start with that scenario i mentioned off-the top because honestly Nothing highlights the gap between tech hype and operational reality quite like The Robotaxi sector right now.

00:01:51: Oh, absolutely

00:01:52: There was a really interesting update from Daniel Acosta detailing Waymo's aggressive new testing phase.

00:01:57: They're actually putting a hundred EVs Right into central London which

00:02:01: is just a massive escalation in complexity.

00:02:04: It really is.

00:02:04: I mean Phoenix has a relatively sterile testing environment, right?

00:02:07: Yeah, London his chaos.

00:02:09: you're dealing with medieval street layouts that wind and narrow unpredictably.

00:02:14: Yeah,

00:02:15: left hand traffic.

00:02:16: Left-hand traffic massive double decker buses creating huge blind spots And you know pedestrians who treat jaywalking as a competitive sport.

00:02:24: Right it forces the autonomous software to handle a density of edge cases That simply don't exist in a suburban american grid.

00:02:31: But wait gear mo capo or flight.

00:02:33: something else about this?

00:02:34: It was fascinating.

00:02:35: The

00:02:35: ways.

00:02:35: partnership

00:02:36: yes so Waymo and Waze are partnering up.

00:02:40: They're using these autonomous fleets to share real-time plot hole data.

00:02:46: What's fascinating here is that the cars are essentially becoming mobile infrastructure sensors, they aren't just you know providing a ride... ...they're actively diagnosing the physical health of the city's asphalt for transportation officials!

00:02:58: That's a brilliant secondary use of hardware actually

00:03:01: and it sounds incredibly futuristic.

00:03:03: but we have to counterweight that optimism with a reality check.

00:03:06: on commercial deployment We saw a lot of buzz recently about a major European first happening in Zagreb, Croatia.

00:03:14: Mark Thomas and Mathias Bahia were posting about Europe's very first commercial robo-taxi service launching there.

00:03:21: Oh right!

00:03:22: The joint effort between Verne UberandPony.ai

00:03:25: Exactly And the headlines look amazing.

00:03:28: I mean they even have a waiting list with thousands of eager users.

00:03:31: But waiting lists and press releases don't actually move people.

00:03:34: I remember seeing a boots-on the ground report from Merrick Van Zura that basically pulled The Curtain back on this whole operation in Zagreb.

00:03:42: He went out there to see the fleet in action!

00:03:44: He did, and his findings completely shatter the illusion of being a scaled fully functioning autonomous network.

00:03:51: Wait really?

00:03:51: What'd he find?

00:03:52: Well Merrick spent time observing actual deployment And noted there are rarely more than three cars actually operating at any given moment.

00:04:00: Just

00:04:00: Three Cars.

00:04:01: But if you go to their website or look at their promotional materials, they show this slick dynamic live tracking map with vehicles like swarming all over the city.

00:04:10: Right

00:04:10: but Merrick actually dug into the source code of that map.

00:04:13: Yeah It turns out it's largely just a front-end animation Its'a simulation designed to looks like a bustling network.

00:04:21: You're kidding?

00:04:22: No And on top of that The actual vehicle is have safety drivers in them, which is standard for testing.

00:04:29: But Merrick observed that these drivers were so visibly nervous they were stopping the vehicles to manually film pedestrians on the sidewalks with their smartphones.

00:04:38: Wait!

00:04:38: So the safety drivers don't even trust the multi-million dollar sensor suite on top of a car?

00:04:44: That's wild...

00:04:45: Yeah it really makes you rethink where tech actually at.

00:04:49: It make me think about architecture.

00:04:51: It's like we've engineered this genius supercomputer AI brain, but the digital spinal cord connecting it to wheels doesn't actually have physical reflexes.

00:05:04: Your analogy is spot on, and there's a deep engineering reason for that disconnect.

00:05:09: Dr Zoltan Hankovsky shared a highly technical but incredibly important insight regarding exactly this.

00:05:14: Okay break it down for us.

00:05:16: He pointed out of fundamental flaw in how level four autonomous vehicles are currently deployed.

00:05:21: They lack an independent ASIL-D safety layer.

00:05:25: Ok I know ASIL relates to automotive safety standards But what does the lack of an ASIL D layer actually mean for car?

00:05:33: In practical sense

00:05:34: So ASIL stands for Automotive Safety Integrity Level and level D is the strictest classification.

00:05:40: Think of it as the ultimate fail-safe,

00:05:42: like an emergency break over right?

00:05:43: Basically in traditional car manufacturing if a system fails there's a deterministic mechanical or lower level electronic backup.

00:05:51: to stop What Dr.

00:05:53: Hankowski is pointing out, in these rogo-taxis the AI software stack effectively a black box and physical chassis of car has no independent way to verify safety commands.

00:06:05: So if the AI makes catastrophic miscalculation The chassis blindly follows orders.

00:06:10: Exactly If the AI sensor suite gets confused by reflections on flooded road Calculates trajectory tells chassis accelerate forward.

00:06:18: The chassis does not have an independent safety layer saying Wait, that command exceeds safe motion limits.

00:06:24: It just obeys and drives the car straight into a flooded creek.

00:06:27: That explains why deployment in complex European environments is moving so carefully.

00:06:32: it's not just software scaling problem its fundamental hardware safety integration problems And Kyle Bosey and Bradley Wu made a compelling argument about this recently.

00:06:44: They're saying The European Autonomous Race will NOT be one using the American Silicon Valley playbook of, you know build fast break things and scale rapidly.

00:06:53: No!

00:06:53: You can't break things when your dealing with two ton vehicles.

00:06:56: Right

00:06:56: It's going to require deep meticulous ecosystem integration.

00:06:59: You have to weave these systems into existing public transit adapt to incredibly strict city regulations And navigate infrastructure that was never designed for cars in first place.

00:07:10: Yet despite those massive hurdles The timeline is compressing at a terrifying speed.

00:07:16: Yeah Yuckim Langenwalter just posted about his experience testing Momenta's world model AV stack in Beijing.

00:07:23: He was so impressed with the maturity of software that he expects it to be operating on the streets.

00:07:42: Michael Gansler provided some great context here.

00:07:45: There is currently a massive cutthroat domestic price war happening among electric vehicle manufacturers in China.

00:07:52: Oh, so they're bleeding cash at home

00:07:53: exactly.

00:07:54: Profit margins at home are practically non-existent right now.

00:07:58: This economic pressure is actively forcing these companies to rapidly export their most advanced cutting edge vehicle tech abroad, simply define higher margins and sustain their sales volume.

00:08:10: Wow!

00:08:10: They have to expand globally locally.

00:08:13: It's

00:08:13: fascinating.

00:08:14: you have this perfect storm where rapid technological advancement and cut road economics are smashing headfirst into the physical and regulatory realities of ancient european cities.

00:08:25: it's

00:08:25: a collision course!

00:08:26: And that actually transitions us really well into our next cluster because while these autonomous tech giants are trying to figure out how to navigate our messy urban infrastructure, The micro mobility sector...the electric scooters & bikes has essentially given up on and is now quietly reshaping the infrastructure itself.

00:08:44: Yeah, the micromobility space has undergone a total metamorphosis.

00:08:48: Beeman Wagde made an observation recently that really captured the mood.

00:08:52: He said micro mobility has officially entered its boring era,

00:08:56: The Boring Era?

00:08:57: I love them.

00:08:57: right and counterintuitively he framed That as an incredibly bullish signal for the industry.

00:09:02: i would normally argue that boring means the market Has stagnated but i assume he Means.

00:09:07: they stopped burning venture capital on flashy parties And started looking at their spreadsheets

00:09:11: exactly For years this industry operated On pure hype.

00:09:15: it was all about user acquisition any costs.

00:09:19: Yeah, I remember

00:09:20: we saw scooters literally dumped on sidewalks massive funding rounds and cities eventually retaliating with outright bans.

00:09:28: now the surviving players have implemented ruthless operating discipline And The numbers speak for themselves.

00:09:34: boy recently reported over one hundred and seventy eight million euros in net revenue.

00:09:39: huge and lime just crossed the milestone of one billion total rides.

00:09:45: And to put a massive financial exclamation point on how real this turnaround is, Andrea Romano highlighted that Lyme just officially filed for a two billion dollar IPO.

00:09:55: they're projecting nearly nine hundred million dollars in revenue for twenty-twenty five.

00:09:59: it's

00:09:59: incredible!

00:10:00: It's a staggering recovery.

00:10:01: when you look back at the graveyard of micro mobility startups that didn't survive the last three years...it

00:10:06: proves the model can work.

00:10:07: but the financial metrics that matter have changed completely.

00:10:10: Preben Joel Jones hosted a great discussion with Kevin Talbot from Relay Ventures, and they unpacked this shift.

00:10:16: What did they find?

00:10:16: Talbot pointed out that in today's market boasting about being EBITDA positive means absolutely nothing

00:10:22: Right because EBITTA earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization hides the actual cost of the hardware

00:10:31: Precisely.

00:10:32: If

00:10:32: your electric scooters break down and need to be replaced every nine months, that depreciation is a massive real-world cost!

00:10:49: Talbot confirmed that investors only care about actual cash flow and the ability to repay debt now.

00:10:54: Make sense?

00:10:55: And this strict financial reality is forcing a massive market consolidation, we're rapidly seeing the entire global market condense down into just two major dominant players who have the operational scale to survive.

00:11:08: but here's where I have to push back a little or rather Here's work.

00:11:11: It's really interesting.

00:11:12: let's hear it.

00:11:12: if The business models are finally sound and companies like Lyme are prepping for multi-billion dollar IPOs, why is actual cycling participation dropping?

00:11:22: Nick B brought up some alarming research recently showing that post COVID we're dealing with a totally broken demand funnel in active mobility.

00:11:32: Millions of people who picked up cycling or scootering during the pandemic have just stopped.

00:11:36: Yeah!

00:11:37: The retention is awful.

00:11:38: Exactly We have this leaky bucket scenario where we can acquire a user for a trip, but we can't retain them as a daily commuter.

00:11:46: Are we just filling a leaky?

00:11:48: Bucket?

00:11:48: that is the existential vulnerability of the whole sector right now.

00:11:51: Nick B pointed out That people aren't abandoning micro mobility because they suddenly dislike writing.

00:11:57: then why are they leaving?

00:11:58: They're dropping out because of the constant friction of vehicle maintenance and more importantly deep pervasive fears around physical safety.

00:12:06: Which

00:12:06: means the solution isn't going to be found at a slicker app or cheaper ride promotion, you know?

00:12:11: You can't market your way out of a safety issue.

00:12:13: No!

00:12:13: You cannot.

00:12:14: It

00:12:14: requires physical infrastructure changes

00:12:17: And we're seeing cities that understand this completely pulling ahead.

00:12:21: Igor Panchevsky and David Powell highlighted what's happening in places like Dublin and Chicago.

00:12:26: What

00:12:26: are they doing differently?

00:12:28: Those cities are seeing micro-mobility scales successfully and safely because they stopped treating it like an annoying tech pilot, and started treating it as permanent public transit.

00:12:37: They're building out low stress bikeways...and keeping regulations harmonized across different

00:12:43: operators.".

00:12:43: I mean if you build a protected lane.

00:12:45: people will feel safe enough to use it?

00:12:47: It's that simple!

00:12:48: Exactly

00:12:49: And Thomas Broughton shared an update from Oslo That takes this infrastructure approach.

00:12:54: the next level operator agnostic parking stations across the city.

00:12:59: This is a huge shift.

00:13:01: for years, The industry tried to solve the physical problem of clued sidewalks using digital solutions specifically GPS geofencing.

00:13:09: Oh yeah?

00:13:10: The virtual parking zones right.

00:13:11: you'd look at your phone and the app would draw a digital box saying You can park here

00:13:15: but gps bounces off tall buildings.

00:13:18: So you think you parked legally But the app thinks he left this scooter in the middle of a traffic intersection.

00:13:24: so it won't let you end the ride.

00:13:26: It creates massive user friction.

00:13:28: Exactly!

00:13:29: Oslo realized you need a structural solution, they're building physical docking infrastructure.

00:13:35: When you finish your ride the vehicle must be physically locked into the station.

00:13:40: That makes so much sense.

00:13:41: You structurally cannot abandon it on wheelchair ramp or blind corner... ...it restores city's trust in service.

00:13:49: It is brilliant because removes cognitive load from users.

00:13:53: you don't have to guess if your parked correctly.

00:13:55: And as this infrastructure matures, we're seeing the form factors evolve too and it's no longer just those little standing kick scooters

00:14:01: Right!

00:14:02: The vehicles are getting bigger.

00:14:03: Emma Hughes in Lancelot Horror were discussing how a company called R Bike is rolling out shared e-cargo bikes across the UK.

00:14:12: They even partnered with a company called Tired to handle the complex fleet maintenance.

00:14:16: Cargo bikes represent a total paradigm shift because they solve entirely different urban use cases.

00:14:22: Yeah,

00:14:22: you can't carry weeks worth of groceries on kick scooter.

00:14:24: Exactly!

00:14:25: A kick scooter is great for moving one person-a-mile... ...A cargo bike can handle morning school run, massive grocery trip or local business logistics.

00:14:34: Samantha Saccone Strumpth highlighted this perfectly.

00:14:37: She noted that Amazon is actively running a pilot program using e-cargo bikes to replace their traditional delivery vans in Washington, D.C..

00:14:46: That's a game changer for urban logistics!

00:14:49: We're

00:14:49: taking these massive diesel chugging logistics vehicles off the road and replacing them with quiet battery powered bikes for last mile delivery.

00:14:59: it completely changes the noise an air quality profile of neighborhood.

00:15:02: And that leads us to the final piece of The Mobility Puzzle.

00:15:06: We've talked about the hardware, the robotaxes and cargo bikes.

00:15:09: we have talked about... ...the physical infrastructure, the docks & lanes.

00:15:13: But the ultimate winners in next decade of urban transport will be the software platforms that connect all these disparate modes together into one seamless frictionless user experience.

00:15:24: The Connective Tissue Maxim Romain brought up a massive cross industry partnership that illustrates exactly what this looks like.

00:15:31: DOT, the Micromobility Operator is integrating its services with WOLT, The Food Delivery Platform across eight European markets.

00:15:38: Oh

00:15:38: that's smart!

00:15:39: Yeah if you pay for a WOLt plus food delivery subscription You now automatically get thirty minutes of free dot scooter or bike rides every single month.

00:15:49: They're entirely blurring the lines between personal transportation and on-demand delivery.

00:15:54: they are creating a unified urban utility app

00:15:57: Everything App For This City.

00:15:59: And if we zoom out, this integration challenges our old assumptions about how different transit modes compete.

00:16:05: Lars Christian Grutum Olsen shared some revealing data from Lyft showing that eighty one percent of their shared micro-mobility riders are using the service specifically to connect with a public transit station.

00:16:16: Wait, eighty ONE PERCENT?

00:16:18: So THAT OLD ARGUMENT FROM FIVE YEARS AGO THAT SCOOTERS WERE CANNIBALIZING.

00:16:21: BUS RIDERSHIP IS COMPLETELY DEAD!

00:16:24: I'm completely dead... They don't compete they feed each other.

00:16:26: The scooter solves first and last mile and the train does the heavy lifting.

00:16:31: And progressive city planners are actively engineering their policies around this synergy.

00:16:35: Timo Miller points it out a global pattern, major cities are now deliberately targeting an eighty percent sustainable transport mode share.

00:16:43: Eighty percent?

00:16:44: That's ambitious!

00:16:44: They're using zoning congestion pricing and infrastructure design to structurally push private car ownership out of the urban core.

00:16:53: Milan Veternik describes this regulatory framework as The Urban Mobility Pyramid.

00:16:58: How does that pyramid actually break down in a planner's mind?

00:17:02: Like what is at the top.

00:17:04: Well, The foundation of the Pyramid—the absolute top priority in terms of planning —is pedestrians.

00:17:09: Every single journey regardless of vehicle starts and ends on foot

00:17:13: Right Makes sense.

00:17:14: Next layer up is public transport which acts as high capacity backbone to city.

00:17:19: Then above you have micro-mobility and cycling filling short distance neighborhood gaps

00:17:25: And private cars.

00:17:26: they're relegated to the very top tip of the pyramid.

00:17:28: They still exist, and are necessary for heavy logistics or individuals with reduced mobility but no longer treated as a default subsidized solution for every single

00:17:40: journey.".

00:17:40: So what does this all mean?

00:17:41: If we look at everything that's been discussed it really feels like Mobility is transforming into a physical app store!

00:17:47: I like that analogy….

00:17:48: You aren't buying a depreciating asset –like a vehicle anymore– you're subscribing You open one app, it preserves a scooter, routes you to smart bus terminal pays your fare automatically and ensures that groceries arrive at the apartment when walking.

00:18:04: That is the exact vision but operating in real time requires data intelligence we have never seen before.

00:18:12: I

00:18:13: can imagine.

00:18:13: The data processing must be insane.

00:18:16: You all, Shawnee highlighted a new partnership between Vistion and NVIDIA that is building the architecture for this.

00:18:22: They're combining high-performance edge computing meaning processing power located directly on the vehicle itself with massive centralized cloud platforms.

00:18:31: Let me make sure I follow the logic there.

00:18:33: they need Edge Computing on the scooter or car so the vehicle can process sensor data instantly for safety reflexes, right?

00:18:41: Like dodging a pedestrian without waiting for a cloud server to respond.

00:18:44: Yes the latency has to be zero

00:18:46: but they need the cloud connection so that entire fleet can collectively learn from this event and update cities traffic models

00:18:52: precisely.

00:18:53: it's continuous localized safety combined with global system improvement And we're already seeing this intelligence being deployed in public transit today.

00:19:02: We are at!

00:19:03: Dr.

00:19:03: Duraj Bardwaj and Syed Al-Hasan shared some incredible examples of these from the Middle East.

00:19:09: Dubai recently launched the world's first AI powered smart bus station, At The Mall Of The Emirates

00:19:15: An AI Bus Station?

00:19:16: What does it do?

00:19:17: It features a network of sensors providing real time crowd monitoring to automate passenger flow and dynamically adjusts bus dispatching based on immediate demand.

00:19:26: So It's wild to think about how far the conversation has shifted.

00:19:51: We spend so much time debating the mechanics of building better battery cells or more efficient motors, but The real revolution is happening in the data layer coordinating all these vehicles.

00:20:01: I think that Is the perfect place to land and To wrap up this entire discussion?

00:20:05: i want to leave you with a highly provocative thought from frank aldorf.

00:20:08: All right let's hear it.

00:20:10: Looking at all These trends From autonomous struggles to micro mobility infrastructure And ai transit he argues That we need to fundamentally shift our perspective.

00:20:20: He says that people are not optimizing for transportation.

00:20:24: People are optimizing for freedom inside dense

00:20:26: cities.

00:20:27: Optimizing for freedom, I really like that frame.

00:20:29: It

00:20:29: changes the entire mandate of the industry.

00:20:37: The winning mobility brands of the next decade are not going to be ones that simply engineer a scooter that goes five miles an hour faster, or battery charges ten minutes quicker.

00:20:51: The winners will be companies successfully engineering urban behavior systems.

00:20:56: They're selling completely different relationship with city itself.

00:21:00: That is profound take away.

00:21:02: We aren't just changing how the vehicles move, we're changing how humans exist and operate within these urban spaces.

00:21:08: Exactly!

00:21:10: If you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:21:13: Also check out our other editions on electrification of battery technology next gen vehicle intelligence And commercial fleet insights.

00:21:20: Yeah

00:21:20: definitely check those out.

00:21:22: Thank You so much for joining us with This Deep Dive.

00:21:24: Make sure to hit subscribe So that you don't miss The Next Session As you commute tomorrow.

00:21:28: Take That Thought With You.

00:21:29: Look at the lanes the apps in the Vehicles around you.

00:21:32: How are those systems actively engineering your urban behavior, and ultimately how much freedom they're really giving you?

00:21:38: Catch ya next time.