Ride AI – Details, episodes & analysis

Timothy B. Lee of the Understanding AI newsletter joins Ed Niedermeyer to unpack Tesla’s flashy robotaxi unveil.

In this episode of the Ride AI podcast, host Ed Niedermeyer interviews Anuja Sonalker, CEO of Steer Tech, to discuss a lesser-known success story in mobility technology. Anuja shares how Steer Tech, founded in 2016, specializes in low-speed, autonomous vehicle operations within geofenced areas like parking lots and depots. She explains that while parking automation was initially underestimated, it presents complex challenges requiring high precision and intelligence. Steer Tech developed the first fully autonomous Level 4 parking solution and has since expanded into broader vehicle orchestration systems. Their lean, customer-driven approach allowed them to achieve cashflow positivity by focusing on practical applications in fleet management, emphasizing operational efficiency, safety, and sustainability. Unlike many companies in the autonomous vehicle space, Steer Tech avoided big venture capital funding, choosing instead a more sustainable business model that balances innovation with profitability.

On this episode of Ride On! we are talking with Tyson Roehrkasse, the Chief Reviewer at our sister company, Ride Review. Tyson has been with us now for around 4 months and comes from a tremendous background in electric bike reviews, with the majority of his time spent working with Electric Bike Review, the OG of the ebike review space. 

Highlights: - 🚲 Reviews play a crucial role in the success of small electrical vehicles, with online reviews impacting pre-orders, investments, and revenue. - 🛵 The importance of local dealers and retailers in providing better customer experience and service for e-bike buyers. - 🌐 The rise of influencers in the scooter and one-wheel market, focusing on lifestyle and fun rather than technical attributes and formal reviews.

We also use this episode to make some announcements around Ride AI, a platform covering all the technology that moves us. We have started with a newsletter, you can subscribe at http://rideai.org and very soon we will be launching a Ride AI podcast with Ed Neidemeyer who has tirelessly covered the AV and vehicle tech landscape for over 15 years now. Finally, as part of the new launch, we will also be announcing our Ride AI Conference in Costa Mesa, CA the week of November 11th that will also coincide with Micromobility America. 

So big news there is 1) a new event Ride AI highlighting all the technology that moves us with our first ever event along with Micromobility America moving from the Bay Area to Southern California. 

Why Southern California? On top of the being the largest market in the United States for small electric vehicles we also think it represents the renaissance happening in the hard tech world both as it relates to AI and mobility. SoCal is home to incredible mobility history like Hughes AirForce Base, the first west coast refineries from Rockefeller and now home to SpaceX and many startups looking to change the way we move. 

We hope you buy tickets and join us at the event, go to Micromobility.io to learn more about it.

This 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 into: - Travis’s background in cell phones and ride-hail - The origins of Bird - Product and business model innovation in micromobility - The chicken-and-egg problem of infrastructure - How cities can accelerate micromobility adoption faster. It’s an awesome discussion, and one you can only hear here on the Micromobility Podcast. Thanks very much for listening!

This week Oliver interviews Mina Nada, CEO of Zoomo (formerly Bolt Bikes, featured on episode 66), about their business leasing ebikes to delivery gig workers like UberEATS/Deliveroo/DoorDash in the UK, US and Australia. The business has massively expanded in the last 18 months, and Mina has managed to drive a lot of that growth remotely while he’s been locked down in Australia. It’s an awesome story - don’t miss it. Specifically, they dig into: - for the uninitiated, a brief background on the story of Bolt Bikes and now Zoomo, and why electric bikes are compelling for delivery/B2B. - Where they’ve seen the most growth in the last 18 months. - Zoomo works directly with the delivery companies, so we unpack how integrated into their signup flow the company can you be. - Zoomo have started releasing their own hardware, so they unpack more about the vehicles and what they’ve learnt in doing that. - On episode 66, Mina indicated he had no interest in going for consumers. They explore whether that view has changed at all. - You've raised a few rounds of funding since the last conversation. They talk about the fundraising landscape and what has/has not changed. - One thing that the MM team was massively impressed by in the first interview was Zoomo’s capacity to raise debt funding - felt like a real strategic advantage relative to other companies in the space and it's still relativley uncommon. They unpack why it’s still uncommon and who is doing it well/what needs to happen to make it common. It was a great discussion - well worth listening to!

This 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 you feel might be easier or more intuitive to understand. Specifically they dig into: - The historical importance of James Watt’s Horsepower and generally industrial measurements - Why new words and metrics can help us reframe the conversations - What the implications of a low MoTz score is in a city context (hint, it’s like free flowing water vs. sewage) - The next steps for adoption

This 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 summary here: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport) - The challenges of technology disruption intersecting with policy makers who require proven and de-risked methods

In today’s episode, Oliver interviews Ties Carlier, the co-CEO and cofounder of Vanmoof to talk about the new Vanmoof V, which is one of the most beautiful ebikes at Micromobility Industries have ever seen and is due to drop next year. It’s a lot faster and more powerful than anything they’ve done before, and this was a great chat about that design decision and why Ties thinks we need to get more creative and lateral in how we think about what micromobility vehicles can do and should be regulated. Ties is based in Taiwan, which manufactures most of the world’s ebikes, so they also briefly touch base on that too. We’ve had his brother Taco (co-CEO of Vanmoof) on shows 53 and 74 so also check those out if you want to hear more about the Vanmoof story. Specifically they dig into:
- Ties’ background starting the company with his brother Taco and his move to Taiwan.
- the new V - what, why, when and why they chose to go for speed over other potential design opportunities
- how the launch of the S3/X3 went and what Vanmoof learned in the process
- hiring/building teams remotely for micromobility and how much Vanmoof has grown in the last year - what he’s excited about in the coming years in terms of product and tech in micromobility

This week Oliver interviews Enrico Howe and Alex Gmelin from Invers (@Inversmobility) about the 2021 Global Moped Sharing Report. Oliver interviewed Enrico on the show in episode 52 for the 2019 version and it was great to have him back and get an update two years later on about the state of moped sharing globally. It included some incredible and crazy stats – the mopeds sharing industry has transitioned to electric at a dizzying pace in the last two years. We’re looking forward to hearing commentary about it on Twitter - please drop us a line at @MicromobilityCo, @oliverbruce and @asymco. Specifically they dig into: - How INVERS and the Global Moped Sharing Report came to work together - The current state: What are the top line figures/key insights/developments? - What are the main markets and how did they develop? - Which cities are hotspots for moped sharing? - What vehicles are used for sharing and what are the trends? - What are latest developments in charging infrastructure and battery management? - Urban mobility planning: how is regulation affecting the market? - Look into the future: what do we expect for the next two years? In the meantime we want to thank our sponsor for the episode Ubiq. Ubiq is turning operations from reactive to predictive. Most shared mobility businesses are not profitable, as 60%-80% of the demand is not met. Ubiq places vehicles in the right place, at the right time, to meet demand. This enables operators to increase revenue by 20% within 8 weeks while also decreasing operational costs. Most shared operators react in order to meet demand, instead of predicting and exploiting the full capacity of their fleet. StreetCrowd is enabling over 15.000 citizens across 11 cities on 2 continents to address that issue by matching vehicles requiring rebalancing or charging with crowd users, allowing shared mobility providers to automate operations. Therefore, mobility operators can utilize decentralized operations that run 24/7, across the city, turning operations from reactive to predictive. Best part? It’s plug and play and you can get started right away. Get in touch to find out more by clicking this link: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/eNgL

This week we’re releasing another interview from the Micromobility America conference. Laura Bliss from Bloomberg interviews Ben Bear, CEO of Spin (and guest on MM episode 73), about where sharing is going next after a COVID 19 put the brakes on it. Spin is one of the more interesting companies with the relatively crowded shared Micromobility field being owned by Ford, and pursuing a slow and steady strategy focussed around things like charging infrastructure. It’s a great discussion. Specifically they dig into: - The challenges that COVID-19 has posed to the industry - What of the big problems - regulatory, unit economics, safety - still need to be solved - What cities are thinking about - Their expansion globally In the meantime, thanks to the sponsor for the episode Ubiq. Ubiq is closing the gap between supply and demand. Most shared mobility businesses are not profitable, as 60%-80% of the demand is not met. Ubiq places vehicles in the right place, at the right time, to meet demand. This enables operators to increase revenue by 20% within 8 weeks while also decreasing operational costs. How? By exploiting the full potential of your fleet. StreetCrowd is enabling over 15.000 citizens across 11 cities on 2 continents to contribute to the future of shared mobility. StreetCrowd matches vehicles requiring rebalancing or charging with crowd users, allowing shared mobility providers to automate operations. In other words, mobility operators have access to scalable, decentralized operations that run 24/7, across the city. Best part? It’s plug and play and you can get started right away. Get in touch to find out more! 
 
https://l.linklyhq.com/l/cxIZ