Moof out of the way, old bike brands

The VanMoof S3 With the April 21 launch of their S3 and X3 electric bikes, VanMoof has rolled into the spotlight. While they’ve sold over 100,000 total bikes since 2009, they have much larger ambitions for the S3/X3 and their successors. Their factories now have the capacity to produce over 100,000 bikes per year. To … Continue reading Moof out of the way, old bike brands →

Transportation Camp DC 2020 Takeaways

Earlier this month, I attended Transportation Camp DC- a one-day “unconference” held before the annual TRB gathering. It’s what happens when more than 500 professional transportation nerds come together to discuss their shared passion. In other words, it’s awesome :). Here are my takeaways. Data sharing Cities, private mobility operators and other interested parties (e.g. the … Continue reading Transportation Camp DC 2020 Takeaways →

On the Origin of Scooters

By Michal Naka and Stephen Lambe “We’re building a custom micromobility vehicle and raised more money.” Sound familiar? Micromobility operator announcements have been converging lately. But what does “custom” really mean? Not all are created equal, and an evolution in hardware strategy is underway. We propose lightweight electric vehicles, like e-scooters and e-bikes, can be … Continue reading On the Origin of Scooters →

The Autonomous Vehicle Ecosystem- Extended Edition

The world of autonomous vehicles (AVs) extends far beyond the likes of Waymo, Cruise Automation, Uber and other well-known operators. Many specialized firms are vying to sell pickaxes during the gold rush that is the largest transportation revolution since the automobile. This is a deep dive into their expanding ecosystem in three parts: an overview … Continue reading The Autonomous Vehicle Ecosystem- Extended Edition →

Self-driving bikes

Recently there have been rumblings about the next thing in micromobility: micro-autonomy. This was actually a Google April Fool’s joke in 2016. But are the pieces now actually coming together? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZPNwZex9steUsing the self-driving technology stack as a framework, I’ve considered the possibility of building a self-driving bike for shared fleet use. Tl;dr: it’s feasible to … Continue reading Self-driving bikes →

Micro autonomy’s family tree

Rumblings about the combination of micromobility + self-driving tech have gotten louder in the last several weeks. One can examine this from two angles: Research the vehicles that already exist (read this post) Analyze how a micro-autonomous vehicle would function across the self-driving tech stack (stay tuned) First, a few overall thoughts… Commercialization is unsolved. … Continue reading Micro autonomy’s family tree →

Micromobility Conference 2019 learnings

Last Thursday, I attended the Micromobility Conference in Richmond, CA, organized by Horace Dediu and James Gross. The event proved to be full of optimism, creativity and a few overly bold claims (Richmond is just across the bay from Silicon Valley after all :). Here are five of my takeaways. For the uninitiated- what’s micromobility? It’s … Continue reading Micromobility Conference 2019 learnings →