on demand mobility, uber, lyft, ride hailing, ride-hailing, Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Automotive market analysis, auto industry news

Let's talk about car sharing, ride hailing, Uber, Lyft, on-demand mobility and all the other disruptive trends that look like they will eat into car ownership -- even good old-fashioned car rental...

Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Automotive market analysis, auto industry news

MAY 2017: The most substantive publication yet in our series about on-demand mobility, we look at:

  • Patterns of human travel today and the implications for the cost and availability levels that on-demand must reach
  • How on-demand mobility can achieve price points that are lower than car ownership
  • How quickly people might adopt on-demand mobility in preference to other forms of transport
  • What the impact on car production would be if people switched en-masse to subscription mobility services (spoiler alert: it's bad news)

MAY 2017:  A condensed version of the Chauffeurs For All report, looking at:

  • Patterns of human travel today and the implications for the cost and availability levels that on-demand must reach
  • How on-demand mobility can achieve price points that are lower than car ownership
  • How quickly people might adopt on-demand mobility in preference to other forms of transport
  • What the impact on car production would be if people switched en-masse to subscription mobility services (spoiler alert: it's bad news)

MARCH 2017: Strategy problems that on-demand mobility creates for carmakers:

  • Why the strategy challenge is different to current OEM core business
  • What to look at to assess the robustness of an OEM's approach
  • What it means if the answers are unsatisfactory

 

FEBRUARY 2017: The problem with the way carmakers are approaching on-demand mobility, looking at:

  • How the value stream will change versus today
  • Why OEMs can't do everything they are currently trying
  • What OEMs can learn from other sectors
Automotive trends, Auto industry trends, Automotive market research, Automotive market analysis, auto industry news

2020

April

  • BMW and Daimler’s FREE NOW ride hailing service absorbed Kapten. (Kapten)
  • Fleet management software developer Autofleet raised $7.5 million. (FINSMES)
  • Uber says coronavirus has caused a write down of investments in other companies totalling around $2 billion. (Uber)
  • Ride hailing firm Via says it is worth $2.25 billion after a Series E funding round that included investment by FCA’s controlling shareholder EXOR, which forked out $200 million. (Via)
  • Grab appointed a new CFO. (Grab)

March

  • White label ride sharing technology firm Wunder Mobility acquired Australian rival KEAZ. (Wunder)
  • Peer to peer car rental firm Getaround is reportedly casting around for a buyer. (Bloomberg)
  • Gojek raised $1.2 billion. (Tech In Asia)
  • Mobility data collector Ride Report raised $10 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Brazilian rental firm Car raised $85 million and hopes to increase its fleet to 25,000 cars. (Auto Rental)
  • Chinese on-demand service Meituan Dianping invested in agricultural products distributor Wangjiahuan in a $87 million round. (Deal Street Asia)
  • JLR-backed ride hailing firm Havn has declared its pilot scheme to be a success and is expanding. (JLR)
  • Uber is happy to have driverless cars from other suppliers on its network provided “the tech is safe enough” (unsurprisingly, how that will be decided remains unclear). (Reuters)
  • French courts ruled that Uber drivers are employees. (Reuters)

February

  • Uber is reportedly planning to pay drivers who put an advertising screen on top of their car a $300 one-off fee, plus $100 per week (if they are on the road for 20 hours or more). The firm plans to offer advertisers intelligent swarms of screens which can show the same messages as nearby fixed display boards. (Business Insider)
  • Chinese ride hailing company Shouqi Limousine is trying to reassure coronavirus-obsessed customers by installing ultraviolet air purifiers in its cars. (Shouqi)
  • Grab and Gojek denied that they were in merger talks but journalists, urged on by their sources, remain convinced that something is afoot. (TechCrunch)
  • Lyft purchased Halo Cars, which provides advertising on car roofs. (Reuters)
  • South Korean short-term car rental firm SOCAR raised $18 million. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Gojek purchased a 4.3% stake in Indonesian taxi company Blue Bird. (Bloomberg)
  • Cabify says it turned a $3 million profit, on an EBITDA basis, in Q4 2019. (Auto Rental News)
  • Lyft reported 2019 revenue of $3.6 billion and a net loss of $(2.6) billion. Even taking the highly optimistic measure of adjusted EBITDA the net loss was $(679) million. Lyft seemed pleased and hopes revenue will grow to around $4.5 billion in 2020 with the adjusted EBITDA loss under $(500) million. (Lyft)
  • Lyft is buying rental car provider Flexdrive for $20 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Peer to peer car rental firm Turo raised $30 million. (Phocuswire)
  • Uber reported full year revenue of $14.1 billion on $65 billion of gross bookings. The net loss was $(8.5) billion. The firm says it recognises that the “era of growth at all costs is now over”. (Uber)
  • Fair is stopping its program of leasing to ride hailing drivers (which the company acquired from Uber), blaming insurance costs. (TechCrunch)
  • Child-focused ride hailing service HopSkipDrive raised $22 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Enterprising car thieves in Washington, DC, are using peer-to-peer app Getaround to identify suitable targets because they know the vehicle will contain keys. (Auto Rental News)
  • Ride hailing has become so important to Indonesia’s economy that prices from Gojek and Grab are now included in the basket used to calculation inflation. (Tech In Asia)
  • Didi and ThunderSoft are collaborating to produce a whitelabel fleet management system that they hope to sell to third parties. (ThunderSoft)
  • Uber invested in logistics start-up ClearMetal. (FINSMES)
  • ViaVan’s Berlin service, named Berlkönig, is reportedly in financial trouble with the operator and Berlin’s public transport provider arguing over who should fund it in future. (Autonomes Fahren)

January

  • GoJek has suspended several drivers after it discovered they were using modified versions of its app that allowed them to see more information about passengers and reject trips. (Tech In Asia)
  • Lyft’s restructuring made the headlines, but it only affects about 90 people. (NYT)
  • Uber sold its Indian food delivery unit to Zomato, taking a 9.99% stake in the enlarged business return. (Uber)
  • Zoomcar raised $30 million from investors including Sony. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Ride hailing firm Bolt raised €50 million in debt. (TechCrunch)
  • On demand bus app Shuttl raised $8 million. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Chinese ride hailing firm Dida (not a typo), backed by Nio, reportedly hopes to raise $300 million. (Technode)
  • Cargo, a company that provided in-car vending machines for ride hailing drivers, has pivoted into advertising instead. Participating drivers get a screen to put on their car roof. (Mashable)
  • Uber will shutter operations in Colombia after a court ruling that it was anti-competitive. (Reuters)
  • Car sharing firm Getaround is shedding staff but says everything is going well. (Getaround)
  • Hyundai showed off an air taxi called the S-A1 and says it will partner with Uber to put it into service. (Hyundai)
  • Uber completed the takeover of Careem, although it hasn’t yet received approval in some smaller markets so these have been packaged into a subsequent deal. Uber says the Careem brand will remain in service. (Uber)
  • Uber’s co-founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick exited stage left and left the board. (Uber)
  • A judge struck down rules in New York limiting the idling time of ride hailing drivers (caps on total fleet size and minimum wages for drivers are unaffected). (Reuters)
  • The mayor of Los Angeles threatened to make ride hailing fleets go all-electric. (FT)
  • HERE’s mobility arm said 2.5 million vehicles are signed up to its platform. (HERE)

2019

December

  • A German court ruled that Uber didn’t have the necessary licences to operate in the country. (Reuters) Unfortunately, Colombian judges reached a similar conclusion. (Reuters)
  • BMW and Daimler reorganised the mobility joint venture they established at the beginning of the year. Instead of the previous five pillars (multi-modal; ride hailing; car sharing; parking; and charging), there are now three: ride hailing including multi-modal; car sharing; and parking and charging. (BMW)
  • BMW’s and Daimler’s joint venture car sharing service Share Now will exit North America and shut down in several European cities including London. In North America competition and poor infrastructure were blamed whereas in Europe the customer adoption (and therefore utilisation) was too low. (Share Now)
  • Gossiping Uber insiders told journalists at the firm’s Christmas party that they are confident the ban on operations in London would be overturned and was politically motivated. (Business Insider)
  • Lyft has started a car rental service; the firm hopes that offering free taxi rides to and from the rental location will help to sweeten the deal. (Lyft)
  • Uber released a safety report detailing the number of incidents such as sexual assaults and deaths of passengers and drivers. The company believes that it compares favourable to US national averages, or figures from similar services, but admits that more can be done to keep stakeholders safe. (Uber) There was some criticism that the data only covers Uber’s definition of active service. (TechCrunch)
  • Ride hailing firm Arcade City is relaunching services. (ABS-CBN)
  • MVL’s blockchain-based ride-hailing service Tada raised $5 million. (MVL)
  • Ford is dramatically scaling back its GoRide Health non-emergency ambulance service and shifting the brand to a smaller scheme testing autonomous vehicles. It was only in May that Ford heralded the scheme’s expansion to more US cities. (TechCrunch)
  • May Mobility raised $50 million from investors including Toyota and BMW. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Daimler and Geely’s Chinese ride hailing joint venture is called StarRides. (Daimler)

November

  • Uber lost its operating licence in London, again. Uber will appeal the decision but the regulator has pledged to stand firm, citing numerous instances of what it considers to be safety failures. (BBC)
  • An analysis of fare data in Chicago suggested that ride hailing companies are increasing the prices for shared rides more than for single user journeys. (Reuters)
  • Shuttl raised $18 million from Toyota Tsusho and other investors. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Gett is shutting the Juno ride hailing service in New York in a deal with Lyft that will see Gett use Lyft’s US network on a whitelabel basis. (Gett) Despite being based in Belarus (and therefore relatively close to Gett), the Juno software team are transferring to Lyft rather than being absorbed into Gett’s efforts, raising the question of whether talent shortages are a thing of the past. (Business Insider)
  • Uber explained a little bit about how it shares with governments and said that in future it will give updates less frequently. Apparently, this will make the data more accurate. (Uber)
  • Lyft is ending scooter rental services in several cities. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber reported Q3 2019 financial results. Revenue of $3.8 billion rose 30% versus prior year, but a net loss of $(1,162) million was (18)% worse. Uber still has $12.65 billion of cash. (Uber)
  • BP invested in MaaS Global’s multimodal offshoot Whim. (Reuters)

October

  • Lyft reported Q3 2019 revenue of $956 million, up 63% year-over-year, and a net loss of $(464) million. Lyft said that on an adjusted basis, net losses narrowed to $(122) million. (Lyft)
  • Waymo says it is giving journeys without drivers, but only to people who signed NDAs. (Reuters)
  • Lyft is ending the $299 per month all-access offering, instead replacing it with a $20 monthly scheme that offers discounts on trips. (Lyft)
  • Lyft’s founders expect the firm to be profitable by Q4 2021. (WSJ)
  • Uber’s CEO says emerging markets will be a source of far greater growth over the next ten years than western countries. (Reuters)
  • Ride hailing firm InstaCar raised an undisclosed sum. (Deal Street Asia)
  • German ride hailing firm Clever Shuttle is ending services in almost half the territories it operates, highlighting the difficulty of running a profitable service -- especially with drivers who are employees. (Handelsblatt)
  • In-car advertising start-up StickEarn raised $5.5 million. (Tech In Asia)
  • Uber is buying a majority stake in online grocer Cornershop. (Uber)
  • Renault created a new mobility division to house its various car sharing and ride hailing assets, most of which have been held within the finance company up until now. (Renault)
  • Malaysia is fining Grab $20 million for restrictive working practices foisted in drivers. (Reuters)
  • Uber’s CEO told employees there could be more job cuts but he thinks the worst of it is over. Long-suffering staff are still trying to overcome the company’s move to swap artisanal coffee with Starbucks. (Washington Post)
  • SoftBank invested in Buser, a Brazilian bus charter firm. (Reuters)

September

  • Uber had its licence extended in London… but only by two months. (The Guardian)
  • WhistleDrive, a company providing transport of people and goods for businesses in India, raised around $10 million to fund an expansion. (Deal Street Asia)
  • BlaBlaCar made an offer to acquire ticketing firm Busfor. (EU Startups)
  • Indian short-term car rental operators are complaining that peer-to-peer services (illegal in India, despite being okay in other countries) are making it uneconomical to operate. (Economic Times of India)
  • White label fleet management firm Wunder Mobility raised $60 million. (Wunder)
  • Bicycle rental operator Lime is ending its short term car rental scheme, citing the lack of a suitable partner to create an all-electric offering. (Geek Wire)
  • Uber is challenging in court a New York rule that limits the amount of time drivers can spend cruising around waiting for work in central Manhattan. (Reuters)
  • Bid2Ride is the latest ride hailing app to launch with a business model that sees drivers bid for journeys. (Bid2Ride)
  • Uber sacked about 8% of the product and engineering team (435 people) saying that a ground-up review of how the organisations should look had revealed staffing levels were too high. (TechCrunch) At the same time, the company intends to hire 2,000 people in its freight arm. (The Verge)
  • Despite recently saying that bicycles were a brilliant idea and had proved popular at attracting new customers to Uber’s platform, the company has been withdrawing from several territories. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber is raising $1.2 billion in debt (earlier in the day the figure had been $750 million but the proposal was over subscribed so Uber decided to give the people what they wanted). (Uber)

August

  • Bide launched a ride hailing service, saying the algorithms had gone too far in matching drivers and passengers. Eschewing the two-click system favoured by Uber and Lyft, Bide will let individual drivers set unique bid and will leave the customer to decide what works best for them. (Bide)
  • The Chinese region of Tianjin has created new regulations that will show the driver’s rating (out of five stars) in the light that sits on top of the taxi. (Xinhua)
  • A survey of drivers suggested Uber and Lyft were taking around 30% - 35% of gross trip receipts in US cities, a higher amount than the companies themselves claim. Uber and Lyft said the study was not statistically significant, but declined to provide alternative figures. (Business Insider)
  • On-demand bus service Urbvan raised $9 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber is opening a new US administrative hub in Dallas, USA, expected to employ 3,000 people. (Xinhua)
  • Grab says it will cost several hundred million dollars to reach maturity in Vietnam. (Reuters)
  • Uber issued a proposal laying out how it hoped to be taxed. The firm wants to continue with the sort of analytical, transfer pricing, method that annoys European politicians. (Uber)
  • ru acquired a controlling stake in short term car rental firm YouDrive. (Reuters)
  • Ride hailing service Ola acquired artificial intelligence start-up ai. (Autocar)
  • Lyft reported Q2 revenue of $867 million, up 72% on a year-over-year basis. The net loss was $(644) million. Lyft said that “active riders” had increased from around 15.5 million in Q2 2018 to 21.8 million now. (Lyft)
  • Uber reported Q2 revenue of $3.2 billion, up 14% on a year earlier and an operating loss of $(5.5) billion, $3.9 billion of which was compensation. Uber says it has 99 million active users across all services. (Uber)
  • Uber is on the lookout for M&A opportunities but will turn them down if they aren’t the “right deal”, citing a recent decision not to buy deliver company Caviar. (Business Insider)

July

  • Uber fired 400 members of the marketing team, saying that the teams had become too big. (Business Insider)
  • Lyft’s COO is leaving. (TechCrunch)
  • A subset of short-term car rental users in Japan aren’t driving the cars at all, preferring to use the vehicles for activities such as eating takeaway food or short naps during the workday. (The Guardian)
  • Short term car rental operator Turo raised $250 million in a round valuing the firm at over $1 billion. (Turo)
  • Rickshaw ride hailing service SmartE raised $14 million. (Live Mint)
  • Yandex and Uber’s Russian joint venture announced a takeover of local rival Vezet, although there were murmurs from some stakeholders that they might not be happy with the deal. (Reuters)
  • Uber suffered a payment mishap that saw some customers overcharged by 100 times the correct fare. (BBC)
  • Didi Chuxing plans to raise another $2 billion. (WSJ) and wants to get back into the carpooling game, but says it will hold a public consultation on improved safety measures first. (Reuters)
  • Didi Chuxing said that it had dropped over 300,000 drivers after a safety review. (TechCrunch)

June

  • Uber has been talking with regulators in Senegal and Ivory Coast about market entry. (Reuters)
  • Grab invested in UK multi-modal app SPLYT as part of an $8 million round. (Auto Rental News)
  • VW launched an all-electric car sharing service in Berlin, Germany, with plans to expand into other European cities during 2020. (VW)
  • Via says it has much better utilisation rates than all other competitors in New York because the company’s cars have passengers in them 87% of the time, whilst the nearest rivals are 58% utilised. (Via)
  • Careem’s CFO suggested that even after the firm is acquired by Uber in early 2020, both brands might coexist because it is better for competition -- although it isn’t clear what evidence the logic is based on. (Reuters)
  • Ride hailing start-up OnTime is launching in Southern China with backing from Tencent. (Tech In Asia)
  • Ride hailing network Micab has a new CEO. (Tech In Asia)
  • Didi Chuxing started offering rides by third party rivals within its app. (Tech In Asia)
  • VW’s German car sharing brand WeShare will charge its electric vehicles through exclusive overnight use of the facilities in supermarket car parks. (VW)
  • Short term rental firms Zoomcar and Drivezy are said to be in merger talks. (Deal Street Asia)
  • The CEO of Bolt (formerly Taxify) said the ride hailing service had demonstrated “a few profitable quarters”, but didn’t explain how he was measuring it. (Business Insider)
  • Citymapper is shutting down its bus routes in London, blaming regulation and the poor economics of offering ridesharing with only a few vehicles. (Citymapper)
  • French firm Ucar is offering users cars for €105 per month if they agree to rent them out (with some leg work involved for the owner to ferry the car around) and says that if they maximise the service, the net monthly rental could fall to €49. (Ucar)
  • Go-Jek acquired recruitment start-up AirCTO to help it bring in new staff faster. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Hertz announced a “subscription” scheme that offers a wide range of vehicles, with up to two changes per month for $999, or a posher selection for $1,399. (Hertz)
  • Uber’s COO and marketing chiefs lost their jobs because the CEO wants greater day-to-day control. (ZDNet)
  • Uber said its accounts were under review by US tax authorities and a write down in unrecognised tax benefits of $141 million is expected. (Reuters)
  • India’s government will reportedly demand that ride hailing companies convert at least 40% of their fleets to electric vehicles by 2026. (Reuters)

May

  • Uber announced financial results for Q1 2019. Net revenue of $3.1 billion rose 20% on a year-over-year basis whilst the operational loss of $(1.03) billion was more than double the loss in the same period a year earlier. Uber says it now has 93 million monthly users and that one day it will make money. (Uber)
  • Ideanomics and iUnicorn (Shenma Zhuanche) formed a joint venture to provide financing to ride hailing drivers, underpinned by almost 110,000 of existing iUnicorn orders. (Ideanomics)
  • Bus operator FirstGroup said it will sell the Greyhound coach service, citing “limited synergies” with the rest of the business. (Reuters)
  • Nigerian ride hailing firm Gokada raised $5.3 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Consumer Reports found that one in six Uber and Lyft vehicles have outstanding safety recalls against them. It wasn’t clear what the rate is for the average private vehicle. (Auto Rental News)
  • GM will reduce the number of cities in which the Maven car sharing scheme operates from 17 to nine, saying that it wants to focus on demand and growth. (Wall Street Journal)
  • The BMW / Daimler mobility joint venture acquired Validated, a service for companies to subsidise travel costs for employees and customers. (Validated)
  • Ola’s international operations have been growing rapidly and are now apparently responsible for one third of company revenues. (Economic Times of India)
  • Non-emergency ambulance service Uzurv raised $5 million. (FINSMES)
  • Xpeng started a limited ride hailing pilot in Guangzhou, China. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber’s IPO was a bit of a damp squib. After debuting with a valuation north of $80 billion, the stock failed to maintain its price. (Fortune)
  • Ugandan ride hailing firm SafeBoda received investment from GoJek. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Grab is considering spinning off the payments and financial divisions from the ride hailing business. (FT)
  • Gett raised $200 million and probably won’t want any more before an IPO planned for early 2020, saying that operations have reached profitability, on an EBITDA basis. (TechCrunch)
  • French ride hailing service Heetch raised $38 million. The CEO says it is close to profitability. (TechCrunch)
  • Ford will expand the GoRide Health non-emergency hospital transfer service to a second US location. (Ford)

April

  • Pakistani ride hailing firm Bykea raised $5.7 million. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Blacklane’s CEO says the ride hailing business wants to IPO in two to three years. (Reuters)
  • Zūm, a service focused on driving children around, raised an undisclosed amount. (FINSMES)
  • Uber’s IPO has apparently been a runaway success, with investors promising all the money executives wanted in just a few days. (Bloomberg)
  • Ride hailing firm Ola has so far raised over half of a planned $1 billion round. (Deal Street Asia) Ola’s electric vehicle division received funding from Tata’s chairman. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Ride hailing service Ola is reportedly planning to launch a luxury car sharing service. (Autocar)
  • PayPal invested $500 million in Uber ahead of the ride hailing network’s IPO. Uber also revealed a loss of somewhere in the region of $(1) billion in the first quarter (Uber isn’t sure yet). (Uber)
  • Car sharing provider Getaround acquired European rival Drivy. (Getaround)
  • Premium ride hailing firm Wheely raised $15 million. (FINSMES)
  • Via announced two Japanese firms as investors. It hopes they will help it to break into the local market. (Via)
  • Uber sold a sizeable stake in its self-driving unit to Toyota, Denso and SoftBank in a move valuing the division at $7.25 billion. (Toyota)
  • Uber released a detailed report ahead of an IPO. (SEC)
  • Via is launching an on-demand public transport service in Indonesia called Tron. (Via)
  • Indian rental operator Zoomcar is reportedly looking to raise $500 million, with Mahindra considering supplying up to $400 million of the money. (Deal Street Asia)

March

  • Lyft’s shares went great guns in initial trading, valuing the company at nearly $30 billion. (Reuters)
  • Ola plans to enter the short term rental business with a $500 million warchest. (Economic Times)
  • Uber acquired Careem in a deal worth $3.1 billion, for the time being the two brands will exist side by side. (Uber)
  • Honda and Hino each took 10% of the MONET mobility joint venture between Toyota and SoftBank. (Honda)
  • Goodyear is running a trial providing mobile servicing to a fleet of cars run by Envoy. (Goodyear)
  • Lyft’s IPO roadshow is apparently going very well. (Reuters)
  • Multi-modal app UbiGo has been acquired by Via ID. (Fleet Europe)
  • South African firm FlexClub, which matches ride hailing drivers with investors who are willing to provide cars in return for a percentage of the takings, raised $1.2 million. (TechCrunch)
  • A consortium of Chinese carmakers (Changan, FAW, Dongfeng) and internet firms (Alibaba, Tencent) will spend $1.5 billion setting up a ride hailing venture. (Reuters)
  • Hyundai and Kia will invest $300 million in ride hailing service Ola. (Hyundai)
  • Lyft has started pre-IPO investor roadshows, apparently aiming for a valuation north of $20 billion. (Reuters)
  • After recently closing a $20 million round, car sharing firm Drivezy wants $100 million more. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Meshek is creating a car sharing scheme for rural areas in Israel. (CTech)
  • Ride hailing firm Taxify changed its name to Bolt (because it doesn’t just offer taxis anymore). (Bolt)
  • FlixBus is in talks to acquire rival Eurolines. (TechCrunch)
  • Grab announced it has raised a further $1.5 billion from SoftBank to bring the Series H total to $4.5 billion. (Grab)

February

  • Lyft filed S-1 paperwork ahead of an IPO. The co-founders will hold a class B stock with 20 times the voting rights of ordinary shareholders. Financials can be found on page 17. (SEC)
  • Uber is rumoured to be heading towards a $3 billion deal to buy Careem. (Reuters)
  • Mahindra is launching a ride hailing service called Glyd. (Mahindra)
  • French on-demand ambulance start-up Ambler raised €1.5 million. (EU Startups)
  • Lyft started a service called Shared Saver where passengers walk to mutually convenient pick-up spots and are delivered to an algorithmically derived drop-off point, rather than the precise intended destination. Lyft says that only a short walk will be necessary and passengers won’t pay surge pricing (for now). (Lyft)
  • Lyft’s co-founders are reportedly planning to create a super voting class of stock so that they have near-majority control after the business IPOs in late 2019. (WSJ)
  • Uber’s latest financial results showed a net loss of $768 million in Q4 2018 on net revenue of $3 billion ($14.2 billion in gross bookings). Net and Gross revenue grew at around 30% on a year-over-year basis -- consistent with recent quarters. (TechCrunch)
  • Car rental start-up Virtuo raised €20 million. (EU Startups)
  • VW’s Moia on-demand shuttle service plans to charge around €6 - €7 per trip. The company believes that there is a gap in the market between public transport (cheaper) and taxis (more expensive). (VW)
  • Keen to push the boundaries of on-demand transportation, Uber launched a boat hailing service in Mumbai. (CNN)
  • Ride hailing firm Chauffeur Privé is changing its name to Kapten and plans to launch in London and Geneva. (FT)
  • Car sharing start-up CityBee raised €110 million. (EU Startups)

January

  • Uber has started trials of including public transport data inside its app. (The Verge)
  • Grab is planning to add video streaming to its app - but it will only be free for the first three months. (CNBC) The firm is planning to move into a swanky new $135 million headquarters at the end of 2020. (Reuters)
  • Lyft’s 2019 impact report said that about 50% of car owners using the service (and responding to Lyft’s survey) use their cars less as a result. (Lyft)
  • Lyft is taking legal action against New York’s transport regulator saying proposed rules to ensure a minimum wage for ride hailing drivers are poorly constructed and hand an advantage to Uber. (Lyft)
  • Vietnamese ride hailing firm FastGo wants to raise $50 million and expand into the USA and Brazil. (Nikkei)
  • Ola reportedly plans to cut investment in meal delivery service Foodpanda. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Didi and BAIC created a joint venture to work on connected cars. (CNBC)
  • Zipcar is pulling out of Brussels, Paris and Barcelona. (Auto Rental News)
  • BMW and Daimler’s mobility joint venture will reportedly be named “Jurbey”. (The Drive)
  • Ola is launching a payment option that will see customers pay for rides monthly, rather than per trip. (TechCrunch)
  • South Korean car sharing start-up SoCar raised $44 million in new funding. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Kakao, a chat app with transport services bolted-on, appeared to run into problems in South Korea after taxi drivers demanded it cease on-demand ride hailing and car sharing services and protests erupted into violence. The company said it would stop the ride hailing offering and was open to talks about car sharing. (Reuters)
  • Grab is creating an insurance marketplace in partnership with ZA Insurance. (Grab)
  • Enterprise is buying Deem, a corporate travel provider. (Enterprise)
  • Recreational vehicle sharing firm Outdoorsy raised $50 million in a series C round. (TechCrunch)
  • Go-Jek purchased a majority stake in payments firm ph for $72 million. (Tech In Asia)
  • Ola’s latest fund raising paperwork indicates the business is now valued at $5.7 billion. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber’s CEO said the firm might delay the planned 2019 IPO citing market volatility. He believes the company does not need to go public yet, thanks to a strong balance sheet. (WSJ)
  • Gotcha launched an on-demand bus service in Florida using electric vehicles. (Gotcha)
  • Go-Jek’s application to open a ride hailing business in the Philippines was rebuffed but the setback is likely to be temporary, assuming a deep-pocketed local partner can be found. (Reuters)
  • Ford’s Chariot on-demand bus service is shutting by 1st February citing the changing needs of customers. (Ford)
  • Changes in ride hailing permit regulations in China may cause a reduction in vehicles available. (TechCrunch)

2018

December

  • After raising almost $3 billion in 2018, Grab seems to have upped its target by another $2 billion. (TechCrunch)
  • Careem launched a bike messenger service. In addition to providing a simple way to order couriers, customers will be able to order the rider to spend up to $80 on an item for them and then pay when it arrives. (Careem)
  • Short term rental firm Fair raised $385 million in a round led by SoftBank. The company provides cars to ride hailing drivers and partners with Uber. (Fair)
  • Ride hailing firm Ola will invest $100 million in Indian electric scooter rental start-up Vogo. (Reuters)
  • Lyft has gone on a hiring binge, snapping up senior design talent. (Lyft)
  • Researchers think they have cracked the problem of modelling taxi demand in unusual scenarios. (IEEE Spectrum)
  • Driveitaway, a car rental firm aimed at ride hailing drivers acquired peer-to-peer rental app Whip and ended a partnership with HyreCar. (Driveitaway)
  • VW is said to be planning to write off the investment in ride hailing provider Gett (VW’s stake is apparently only valued at €16 million versus the $300 million+ VW has given the business. (Reuters)
  • Uber lost a court case in Germany where it argued that EU transport rules should take precedent over German regulators. The loss means that ride hailing operators in the country will have to operate to (what they sometimes consider arcane) regional rules. (Reuters)
  • Taxify is rebranding as Hopp. (Business Insider)
  • Hertz has created a scheme where customers can rent a car using biometric data, but rather than improving the service for all, it is only available to members of their rewards program. (Hertz)
  • Yamaha will invest $150 million in Grab. (TechCrunch)
  • Firefly, a start-up that sells digital advertising on ride hailing cars, raised $21.5 million. (FINSMES)
  • Grab opened a new research facility in Malaysia. It now has over 1,800 technical staff working in seven development centres across Asia. (ZDNet)
  • Public transport route planning start-up Optibus raised $40 million. (VentureBeat)
  • Lyft’s scheme to get car owners to leave their cars at home for a month apparently attracted 130,000 applicants for 2,000 places. (Lyft)
  • Lyft filed for an IPO set to take place in 2019. (The Guardian)
  • Uber also reportedly filed for a 2019 IPO in secret and may even be hoping to beat Lyft to market. (WSJ)
  • New York regulators set minimum pay standards for ride hailing drivers in the city so that those driving high mileages will see earnings of at least $17.22 per hour after expenses. (NY Taxi Commission)
  • Didi announced a series of organisation changes to improve passenger safety. (Reuters)
  • Luxembourg’s new government announced that all public transport in the country will be free at point of use by the middle of 2019. (Futurism)

November

  • Sixt denied that it was in talks to buy US rival Hertz. (Bloomberg)
  • China’s ministry of transport severely criticised Didi’s safety and driver recruitment processes. (Reuters)
  • The Lyft-owned bicycle rental scheme in New York will expand to 40,000 bikes, a significant portion of which will be electric models. (Fortune)
  • Uber’s rumoured takeover bid for Deliveroo appears to have hit a snag; Uber wants to pay $2 billion but Deliveroo believe they are worth double that. (FT)
  • Uber reportedly wants to expand its electric scooter offering by buying either Bird or Lime. (Telegraph)
  • Uber has stopped offering car rentals to its drivers in San Francisco but didn’t rule out the return of a similar scheme in future. (Quartz)
  • Following in the footsteps of its rivals, Via is planning to launch scooter services. (TechCrunch)
  • Indian short-term scooter, motorbike and car rental firm Drivezy raised $20 million from investors including Yamaha. Drivezy will use the money to increase the car rental fleet. (TechCrunch)
  • Careem is reportedly trying to raise a further $200 million from Chinese investors. (Reuters)
  • Zipcar complained that London local councils and the mayor’s office were not aligned in how badly they wanted electric vehicles on the streets and this was delaying the roll-out of more electric shared cars. (Inside EVs)
  • Didi Chuxing launched a new development centre in Toronto, Canada. (FINSMES)
  • Daimler invested in the $5 million seed round of on-demand bus service Rally. (Rally)
  • BMW plans to launch a ride hailing service in the Chinese city of Chengdu. (Reuters)
  • Uber reported Q3 2018 financial results. There was a net loss of $(939) million on $2.95 billion of net revenue, growth in gross revenue continued to slow (up 34% on a year-over-year basis) and a considerable amount of the increase comes from Uber Eats rather than the ride hailing service. (CNBC)
  • Ride hailing service Gett is reportedly looking for buyers. (Deal Street Asia)
  • BlaBlaCar will buy Ouibus from SNCF, who will take a stake in BlaBlaCar as part of the deal. (TechCrunch)
  • Fleet management platform provider Ridecell increased the size of its Series B to $60 million. (Ridecell)
  • Daimler’s Beat ride hailing service said it would re-enter the Mexican market
  • Taxify’s CEO hopes to grow by ten times in the next two years, with much of the growth coming from operations in Africa and believes it can become the European market leader. (Reuters) He also said that he believes the company can become 100 times larger than it is today. (CNBC)
  • Lyft removed an option that lets users split a far between them, saying an improved version would be coming along in a while (but for some reason stopping the current system now). (Business Insider)
  • Hyundai and Kia invested a further $250 million in Grab and agreed a series of joint projects to better use electric vehicles in providing ride hailing services. (Hyundai)
  • Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi and JLR invested in Canadian multi-modal app Transit. (Renault)
  • The EU approved the merger of BMW and Daimler’s car sharing assets, subject to measures to protect competition in six cities. (Reuters)

October

  • Uber announced a trial of a new subscription plan that let’s users avoid surge pricing. (Vox)
  • Grab raised $200 million fromcom’s parent. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Lime said it will start a car sharing scheme with Renault Twizy-style electric cars. (TechCrunch)
  • MyTaxi is planning to launch an electric scooter rental scheme. (TechCrunch)
  • Lyft announced a tie-up with carpooling app Scoop that lets Scoop users request a Lyft car if their carpooling arrangements fall over. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber will support drivers in London, UK to buy electric cars with higher incentives for those who drive more and have shown loyalty to the firm. The money is coming from a levy on all trips in London. (Autocar)
  • Waze will start offering its carpooling service throughout the USA. (Detroit News)
  • BKMP, the ride hailing network formerly known as Banma Kuaipao raised $43 million. (China Money Network)
  • As rumoured, Daimler and Geely formed a “premium ride-hailing” joint venture that will use Mercedes-Benz cars, and in time possibly some of Geely’s offerings, for on-demand travel in Chinese cities. It isn’t yet clear how the service will integrate with Geely’s existing CaoCao ride hailing venture. (Daimler)
  • Uber is reportedly seeking a $120 billion valuation for its IPO (The Guardian) and recently raised $2 billion in debt to tide it over until that mega payday. (CNBC)
  • Electric car sharing firm Scoot launched services in Chile. (Scoot)
  • The French town of Dunkirk made all its bus services free for residents, saying that fares only covered 10% of the operating costs anyway. One month after the scheme was implemented, usage had risen by 50%. (The Guardian)
  • Uber is creating a business leasing trailers for heavy goods vehicles. (Uber)
  • Careem announced $200 million of a hoped-for $500 million fund raising round. (Careem)
  • Ride hailing start-up Alto raised $13 million and will soon start operations in Texas. (Dallas Innovates)
  • Ford’s Chariot service will start offering private bookings. It isn’t clear how the utilisation will be sufficiently high to make the service cheaper than existing options. (Ford)
  • Uber studied 1.5 million rides to determine the best way of apologising to customers (and found out it is by giving them a $5 discount). (Business Insider) the firm is also studying a short term staffing business. (TechCrunch)
  • Microsoft made a strategic investment in Grab. (Microsoft)
  • Ola is reportedly courting a $100 million investment from a private investor. (Economic Times of India)
  • UK Uber drivers staged a strike to protest for higher fares. (TechCrunch)
  • Careem says employees can have as much holiday as they want. (Careem)
  • Bosch is starting a battery electric van rental business in Germany. (Reuters)
  • Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi’s Alliance Ventures VC unit invested in mobility data company Coord. (RNA Alliance)
  • Daimler and Geely are reportedly in talks to create a Chinese joint venture offering car sharing and ride hailing. (Just Auto)
  • Moovel will launch on-demand services in North America through a pilot in Los Angeles. (Moovel)
  • Daimler will launch car sharing in Paris with 400 Smart EVs, and Toyota might join in. (Bloomberg)
  • Toyota created a joint venture with Softbank called Monet, in which Toyota will have 49.75%, aiming to jointly develop on-demand mobility services and uses for Toyota’s e-Palette autonomous vehicle platform. (Toyota)

September

  • Careem announced the acquisition of on-demand bus operator Commut and promptly offloaded the operations part of the business to Shuttl. (Careem)
  • Didi said it could no singlehandedly service the needs of the Chinese ride hailing market and that whilst it was dominant, it did not want to become a monopoly. (Technode)
  • Uber will pay $148 million to US drivers who had their information stolen by hackers. (Business Insider)
  • Uber will spend $10 million on lobbying for the “long-term public interest”, including congestion pricing. (Uber)
  • Bangladeshi ride hailing firm Shohoz raised $15 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Grab may sell a stake in its Thai business. (Reuters)
  • Renault launched a Paris car share scheme with no subscription and rental charges of ~€23 per hour. (Renault)
  • Uber is reportedly in detailed discussion to acquire Careem. (Reuters) It is also said to be in early talks about buying food delivery service Deliveroo. (The Guardian)
  • Lyft said it had reached the 1 billion trips milestone. (Lyft)
  • Lyft has partnered with Trafi to add a multi-modal dimension to its app (in some cities). (Trafi)
  • Didi Chuxing has started to record in-car audio during trips. Passengers must agree as a condition of being allowed to book journeys on the network. (Business Insider)
  • Ola raised a further $50 million in a deal valuing the company at over $4 billion. (TechCrunch)
  • Go-Jek is looking to raise a further $2 billion to fund expansion and competition with Grab. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Uber will invest $150 million over five years in Toronto, Canada, increasing the headcount from 200 to 500 and opening a new office. (TechCrunch)
  • A memo from Didi’s CEO said the company lost 4 billion RMB ($582 million) in the first six months. (Reuters)
  • Grab is looking to raise an additional $1 billion to fund further expansion. (Yahoo)
  • Lyft started a dockless electric scooter pilot scheme in Denver, USA. (Lyft)
  • Uber’s CEO said the company was on course for its IPO and was not planning to sell its self-driving arm. (Reuters)
  • Ride hailing firm Taxify launched dockless electric scooters in Paris, saying the firm was ready to ramp up supply to tens of thousands if the demand was there. (Quartz)
  • Careem said it had one million drivers on the platform, reaching the milestone slightly ahead of schedule. The company adds between 60,000 - 70,000 drivers per month (Careem)

August

  • Uber is reportedly designing its own electric scooter for subsidiary Jump to use in preference to buying them from external suppliers. (Bloomberg)
  • Uber’s CEO says the company thinks bicycles are a better method of transport than cars for short trips in centres and will try to direct users to that type of service over cars. He believes that, in general, a switch will be a good thing for drivers since there will still be lots of longer trips for them to fulfil. (Financial Times)
  • Uber appointed a new CFO, who immediately hit headlines by suggesting that 2019 could be too early for the company to have its IPO. Uber’s PR department said he was simply being conservative. (Business Insider)
  • Uber executives talked about the challenges of operating in emerging markets, particularly verifying cash used in transactions and dealing with fuel price inflation. (QZ)
  • Grab announced a fleet of 200 Hyundai Ioniq BEVs will serve customers in Singapore and build the company’s understanding of the practicalities of operating a high-utilisation electric vehicle fleet. (Grab)
  • Didi suspended services on its carpooling app Hitch after a murder, the second this year. (Reuters)
  • Car sharing firm Getaround raised $300 million from investors including SoftBank and Toyota. (Reuters)
  • Luxury car rental firm CarHopper integrated its offering into private jet rental firm JetSmarter’s (CarHopper)
  • MaaS Global raised €9 million. (MaaS Global)
  • Uber’s Q2 2018 financials showed net revenue of $2.7 billion on gross bookings of $12 billion. Adjusted losses came to $(891) million. (Reuters)
  • Uber is reportedly under pressure from investors to abandon its self-driving program after rumours that it is spending almost $(200) million per quarter on development. (Reuters)
  • Didi’s services unit, Xiaoju Automotive Services, acquired car maintenance business Hiservice. (TechCrunch)
  • Hyundai made a strategic investment in Revv, an Indian car sharing firm. (Hyundai)
  • New York passed restriction measures that freeze the number of vehicles operators such as Lyft and Uber are permitted to operate in the city for 12 months. (Digital Trends)
  • BlaBlaCar acquired smaller Russia market rival BeepCar. (TechCrunch)
  • Ola is going to expand to the UK. (BBC)

July

  • Grab said it had raised $2 billion in a round where Toyota invested $1 billion. (Grab)
  • Indian bus (shared rides) service aggregator ZipGo is reportedly close to a $50 million investment. (Live Mint)
  • Didi is reportedly considering a $2 billion takeover of bicycle rental firm Ofo in combination with Alibaba’s Ant Financial. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Lyft is conducting a trial for 100 people in Chicago where it will provide $550 in vouchers for a combination of mobility services in return for them renouncing car usage for a month. (The Verge)
  • Winner-takes-all ride hailing bulls saw their vision of a future monopoly for the likes of Uber take a blow as New York investigated measures to control fleet sizes, meaning regulators are now active in major cities on both sides of the Atlantic. (New York Times)
  • Moovel said it has five million users, with two million joining in the past 12 months. (Daimler)
  • Car2Go now has a fleet of 14,000 vehicles (of which 10% are electric). In the past six months, 90 million km have been covered by the scheme’s 3.3 million users. (Daimler)
  • Uber said it completed its 10 billionth trip in mid-June. (Uber)
  • Careem said it had completed 300 million trips, covering 3.019 billion km. (Careem)
  • Ola’s CEO is hoping for an IPO in the next 3-4 years, saying the business is nearly cashflow positive. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber users have been warned to be aware of vomit fraud, an unseemly racket by drivers to charge passengers cleaning charges for being sick during the journey when they weren’t. (Gizmodo)
  • Didi saw the owner of com take a $500 million stake. (Fortune)
  • Didi is reportedly looking to spin off its car services unit that provides cars, servicing and fuel, and raise around $1.5 billion in the process. (Economic Times of India)
  • French car sharing operator Totem says that it can break even with monthly revenue of €450 per vehicle and believes this will help it expand through offering franchises. (Journal Auto)
  • HyreCar and DriveItAway, two companies that provide access to vehicles for ride sharing drivers said they were forming a strategic partnership. (HyreCar)
  • Link Motion sold a 58% stake in itself to a Chinese investment vehicle. (Link Motion)
  • Lyft executives said the reported $250 million purchase price for bicycle rental firm Motivate was inaccurate, without providing further information. (Fortune)
  • Uber researchers said that after launching services that integrated the recently acquired Jump e-scooter rental offering, overall trip bookings increased but ride hailing’s share fell, in preference to scooter rental. (Uber)
  • Uber lost the closest thing it had to a CFO when the finance leader left for another start-up. (Fortune)
  • BMW launched a new version of ReachNow in Seattle which offers both car rental and ride hailing. (Wired)
  • Chinese carmakers FAW Group, Dongfeng and Changan have set up their ride hailing concern, the catchily named T3 Mobile Travel Services. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Toyota announced a new car sharing program called Hui, operating in Hawaii. (Toyota)
  • Coach trip charter and sharing service Skedaddle is reportedly a target for both Lyft and Uber. (TechCrunch)
  • Gett is reportedly considering exiting the US market and selling Juno. (Bloomberg)
  • Uber invested in electric scooter rental firm Lime. (Lime)
  • Malaysia’s competition regulator said it was taking a closer look at the Uber / Grab (Reuters).
  • Didi signed Continental as a partner for its program to make a purpose-built ride hailing vehicle, ready for launch by 2020. (Brinkwire)
  • Cabify denied that Lyft was interested in taking a stake. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber reported passed up on the chance to buy bicycle rental firm Motivate before Lyft snapped them up but was put off by the company’s unionized workforce. (CNBC)
  • Singapore’s competition commission said the merger of Uber and Grab had been unhealthy for competition and may force a separation unless its concerns can be allayed. (CNBC)
  • Karhoo said that it now has a fleet equivalent to 51,000 vehicles in the UK. (Fleet Europe)
  • VW is starting an all-electric car sharing service called WE from 2019 in Germany and internationally in 2020. The press release implied that scooters will become a part of the service offering. (VW)
  • Volvo launched a new mobility brand called M, initially it will offer car sharing services. (Volvo)
  • PSA and Renault both announced new all-electric car sharing schemes in Paris. (PSA) / (Renault)

June

  • Uber’s London licence was reinstated after a court hearing. Both sides claimed victory; Uber is now operating under a 15 month probationary period rather than the five year licence it previously had. (BBC)
  • Uber is trialling a fare discount, if the rider will agree to a longer wait for their cab. (Quartz)
  • Uber’s CEO suggested a levy on ride hailing in New York to compensate taxi drivers who paid (in retrospect) high prices for their operating licences. (Business Insider)
  • Chubb and SURE launched an on-demand insurance product for ride hailing passengers, so that they are covered for death or injury costs in the event of an accident. Since the service operators already have their own insurance coverage in place, it isn’t clear what the market demand for the product will be. (Press Release)
  • Didi said that its next international market will be Australia. (Economic Times of India)
  • Toyota made a $1 billion investment in Grab and took a seat on Grab’s board. (Toyota)
  • Lyft announced a major makeover for its app to put more emphasis on shared rides as it aims for 50% of trips to be shared by 2020. The app now also includes multi-modal input from a variety of public transport partners. (Lyft)
  • Peer to peer ride hailing start-up HyreCar hopes to raise around $10 million in its IPO. (HyreCar)
  • The mayor of Paris said she was contemplating ending the contract of Bolloré’s Autolib car sharing service in favour of one that did not require fixed stations, or such large subsidies. (Les Echos)
  • Grab announced a venture fund and accelerator program called Grab Ventures. (Grab)
  • Gett raised $80 million from investors including Volkswagen. (FINSMES)

May

  • Lyft is reportedly in talks to acquire Motivate, an operator of several high-profile bicycle rental schemes such as New York and San Francisco, the deal could cost $250 million. (The Information)
  • Car rental firm Athlon unveiled a car sharing scheme called Car2Use and a flexible ownership scheme for employer-funded cars. (Journal Auto)
  • At a rally shortly before an election, Turkey’s president declared Uber “finished” in the country after lobbying by traditional taxi drivers. (Engadget)
  • Sixt’s founder said car sharing is “nothing but renting” and totally flexible rental where a car can be parked anywhere and left represents on a “very small segment”, suitable in only a few large cities. (Manager Magazin)
  • The Bolloré-run Autolib car sharing scheme in Paris is reportedly forecasting losses of almost €300 million on a cumulative basis between 2018 and 2023. (Usine Nouvelle)
  • Daimler and Didi Chuxing invested in ride hailing firm Taxify as part of a $175 million round. (TechCrunch)
  • Car rental company DriiveMe offered a new service to ferry cars across Europe. Companies can choose from either a professional driver or a private driver (who benefits from a reduced rate car rental). (Europa Press)
  • ComfortDelGro called off its acquisition of Uber’s Singaporean car rental firm. (Straits Times)
  • Uber’s Q1 results showed net revenue of $2.5 billion, and a net loss of $(601) million, with gross bookings at $11.3 billion. (TechCrunch)
  • Lyft’s COO said the driver base will “more than double” in the next five years. (CNBC)
  • Uber announced its intention to run a mini-diesel scrappage scheme for its London fleet, seemingly in a bid to butter up the city authorities to grant a new licence. (Reuters)
  • Uber will open a €20 million research centre in Paris, France to develop flying taxis. (The Guardian)
  • Go-Jek said it would invest $500 million in an expansion across South East Asia, looking to fill the void left by Uber’s (Go Jek)
  • Speaking about flying taxis (but with implications for self-driivng cars) Uber’s CEO said in an interview that “we don’t know where the capital [to buy the vehicles] will come from, but we don’t think that this model necessitates our being the capital provider”. (The Verge)
  • Chinese ride hailing firms Shouqi Limousine and e-driver signed a cooperation agreement to offer each other’s services on their respective apps. (Shouqi Limousine),
  • Labour activists created an advert to bring attention to the pitfalls of the gig economy for ride hailing drivers. The campaign not only stars Pamela Anderson, it also features her analysis (and criticism) of the situation facing drivers. When the history of ride hailing is written, will this prove to be a decisive turning point? (Press Release)
  • Drivers for Ola and Uber in India went on hunger strike demanding that the networks reduce their commission and stop adding new drivers. (Economic Times of India)
  • Lyft claimed US market share of over 35% but others, including Uber sources, put the figure at under 30%. (CNBC)
  • UK bus company Go-Ahead will launch an on-demand minibus service using technology supplied by Via. (Reuters)
  • Didi Chuxing suspended its car-pooling offering, Hitch, following the murder of a passenger. Although the suspect was not the Didi account holder, he appeared able to defeat the facial recognition software used by the company to verify the identity of riders and drivers. (China Money Network)
  • Grab introduced a range of services for users with restricted mobility, called GrabAssist. The service costs more per mile and Grab takes a reduced commission (but for how long?). (Grab)
  • Uber held a conference about flying taxis, saying its own offering would launch in 2023 and cost $5.73 per passenger mile, falling to $0.44 per mile at some unspecified future point. (TechCrunch)
  • Japanese bus drivers in the city of Okayama went on strike. Unusually, rather than gather around burning dustbins in donkey jackets, the buses kept running but the drivers refused to collect fares. (BBC)
  • Peer-to-peer car rental start-up SizeCar launched in Ukraine, saying the country lacked good rental options outside major cities. (Auto Rental News)
  • Lyft reportedly has waiting lists to sign up to its monthly subscription service -- for $200 you get 30 (up to $15) rides per month. (TechCrunch)
  • BMW’s car sharing subsidiary ReachNow will end its free-floating service in Brooklyn, New York, citing high maintenance and damage costs. The company will continue the business model elsewhere, indicating ReachNow views the problems as location-specific. (GeekWire)

April

  • Europcar acquired scooter rental firm Scooty. (Auto Rental News)
  • VW is reportedly working on an alliance with Didi Chuxing that would see VW run part of the fleet and develop purpose-built vehicles. (Reuters)
  • Didi Chuxing reportedly wants a valuation of between $70 billion and $80 billion in a forthcoming IPO. (CNBC)
  • Didi Chuxing has created in-house teams to develop purpose-built vehicles, although the company also praised the knowledge of “traditional” OEMs. (Reuters)
  • Uber’s COO said the firm was going to “double down” in India, Middle East and North Africa and is prepared to make “indefinite” investments in chosen regions. (Forbes)
  • Go-Jek and ComfortDelGro are reportedly in talks to collaborate in the Singaporean market. (TechCrunch)
  • Careem suffered a data breach in January in which hackers gained access to data on 14 million customers; their credit card and password information was spared. (Careem)
  • Carpooling firm BlaBlaCar acquired smaller rival Less. (TechCrunch)
  • Peer to peer car rental start-up HiyaCar raised more than £1 million in a crowdfunding drive. (Crowdfund Insider)
  • The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance has joined Didi Chuxing’s project to increase availability of BEV and PHEV vehicles for ride sharing drivers. (Nissan)
  • Lyft said it would purchase carbon offsets to match the rides taken on its network. The company believes “in future all vehicles will operate with clean energy” and says the scheme makes it one of the largest purchasers of such credits in the world. (Lyft)
  • Via and Mobike now offer a subscription package covering ride hailing and bike sharing in Washington. (Via)
  • ComfortDelGro said it would purchase London taxi operator Dial-a-Cab. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Car sharing firm Turo said it had added $12 million in funding, taking its latest round to $104 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Moovn expanding its ride hailing service from launch city Seattle to a further five US cities. (Geekwire)
  • BMW said it does not “exclude other partners” from the mobility joint venture with Daimler. (Manager Magazin)
  • Uber acquired bicycle rental firm Jump for $200 million and announced partnerships with a car sharing firm, Getaround, and a multi-modal platform, Masabi, seemingly intent on creating an Amazon Marketplace-style element to its offering. (TechCrunch)
  • South Korean firm Kakao took a small stake in Lyft. (Yonhap)
  • Ola acquired multi-modal and ticketing app Ridlr. (Forbes)
  • Go-Jek is rumoured to have received funding toalling over $1.5 billion in its latest round. Although the company hasn’t confirmed this, some investors have announced their participation. (TechCrunch)
  • Alibaba is reportedly considering an investment in Grab. (TechCrunch)
  • Grab’s CEO gave an interview containing some commentary on the merger with Uber’s ASEAN operations. Pressed on the impact for customers and drivers, he answered that some drivers would be better off and so would some customers (but the reverse would be true), failing to answer the central anti-competitive challenge: that Grab would be better off. (CNBC)

March

  • Uber’s deal with Grab is under investigation by competition authorities in ASEAN who fear that a powerful monopoly will be created, against the best interests of the consumer. (Reuters)
  • Grab announced a collaboration with RideCo where the latter will provide dynamic on-demand shuttles that will be available on Grab’s app. (RideCo)
  • Careem is reportedly in initial talks for a new fund raising round with a target if $500 million. (Deal Street Asia)
  • An in-depth profile of Uber’s CEO suggested that his performance incentives for a $120 billion IPO might be so extravagant that they are driving many of the company’s strategic decisions (e.g. converting competitive market position in Russia / China / ASEAN into stakes in dominant operators). (New Yorker)
  • US rental company Ryder said that a trial fleet asset sharing scheme had been highly successful and it is now planning a nationwide rollout, believing that 25% of fleet vehicles are totally idle at least one day per week. (Reuters)
  • As rumoured, Uber and Grab agreed to merge their entire Southeast Asia operations. Grab will run the combined business, with Uber taking a 27.5% stake in Grab. (Press Release)
  • The long-rumoured mobility asset pooling between BMW and Daimler could have a larger scope than previously anticipated and could include Daimler’s stake in ride hailing firm mytaxi. (Manager Magazin)
  • Lyft appears to be testing the price sensitivity of its customers by offering package subscription deals for 30 rides per month with prices varying between $199 and $300 for identical products. (Engadget)
  • Lyft said that it reached $1 billion of revenue in 2017 and is serving 10 million rides per week. (TechCrunch)
  • After selling its stake in DriveNow to BMW, Sixt is planning its own short term car rental service, which it will bundle with more traditional car rental and taxi products. (Manager Magazin)
  • Zūm, a US ride hailing service aimed at children, raised a further $19 million. (Press Release)
  • SoftBank is reportedly looking to build an ownership stake of around 50% in Ola; some early investors may sell their shares in secondary markets. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Uber launched UberHealth, similar to its existing UberCentral offering that helps companies book journeys for their customers. The new service can be used for non-emergency trips to a from hospitals and clinics. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber criticised a MIT report into the earnings potential for its drivers, saying the methodology underestimate pay by asking confusing questions. (Uber)
  • Chinese firm Meituan is reportedly planning to launch ride hailing services in several major cities. (Technode)

February

  • Bosch said it was creating a new mobility division and acquired US start-up SPLT / Splitting Fares (Bosch)
  • Sony is partnering with a group of Japanese taxi firms to create a ride hailing service. The company believes that it can offer artificial intelligence competencies that will set its efforts apart. (Reuters)
  • Citymapper said that it had finished its pilot scheme running bus services in London and decided to start trials of a fleet of smaller minibuses. The company said it would like to operate larger vehicles but that regulations were currently too great an obstacle. (Citymapper)
  • Car sharing firm MyKeego has started operations in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Auto Rental)
  • Moovit raised an additional $50 million from various sources including BMW iVentures and Intel. (FINSMES)
  • Via won a contract to develop on-demand technology for public transport in Singapore. (Via)
  • Mahindra purchased a 16% stake in car sharing firm Zoomcar. The two are already partnering in a scheme to create more electric car sharing. (Mahindra)
  • Uber is reportedly in talks to sell its ASEAN business to Grab in exchange for a part stake in the company. (CNBC)
  • Uber’s CEO is “pretty darn confident” that the company could be profitable in the near future, if it chose to reduce spending on growth and innovation. He is hoping Uber will have a “path” to profitability in 2019 when it plants to start talking in detail about an IPO. (Business Insider)
  • Uber lost $(1.1) billion in Q4 2017 on bookings of $11.06 billion and net revenue of $2.26 billion. (Business Insider)
  • Uber published a white paper about its vision for work in Europe, arguing that it provided a useful opportunity for freelance work that could help people earn, and championing the gig economy in general. (Uber)
  • South Korean ride hailing company Kakao Mobility has acquired car pooling start-up Luxi. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Lyft is trialling a new partnership in Baltimore where users can book a bike rental and be dropped off at the bike sharing station. (Lyft)
  • SEAT acquired Madrid car sharing company Respiro and its fleet of 200 cars. (SEAT)
  • Didi announced a deal with 12 carmakers -- including the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance; KIA and a series of Chinese manufacturers -- to work on a future electric car sharing network. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Europcar said it would start offering integrated taxi rides to and from the rental location into leasing offers; using the Brunel ride hailing service it acquired last year. (Auto Rental International)
  • com -- the recent acquirers of Uber’s leasing business -- completed a new round of fund raising. At the same time, Fair purchased Skurt, a fleet management company BMW had previously invested in. (FINSMES)
  • Business expense company Certify said that 68% of US travel spending on its systems in 2017 was on ride hailing services, against 7% for taxi rides. (Auto Rental)
  • Communauto subsidiary Vrtucar acquired longstanding Canadian operator Community CarShare. (Auto Rental)
  • Zoomcar said that its revenue had grown 40% on a year-over-year basis and that it was launching a bike sharing scheme called PEDL (Auto Rental)
  • Uber said it will team up with bicycle sharing company Jump to run a scheme in San Francisco where users can choose to rent a bike, rather than hail a car, from Uber’s app. (The Verge)
  • Grab and Samsung will partner on initiatives around “digital inclusion”, such as improving ride hailing services and mobile payments. (Samsung)
  • BMW acquired full control of car sharing brand DriveNow, buying out Sixt. (BMW)
  • Ford will launch the Chariot bus service in London, the first European city. A fleet of 14 vehicles will run on four routes, all with snazzy alliterative titles. (Ford)

January

  • Maxi Mobility, the firm behind ride hailing operators Cabify and Easy Taxi raised $160 million. The money is reportedly to strengthen existing market positions rather than expand internationally. (TechCrunch)
  • Ride hailing firm Blacklane (Daimler is an investor) raised around $40 million for expansion. (TechCrunch)
  • French ride-haling app Heetch raised an additional €16.5 million. The company hopes to expand in two to three companies each year. (Journal Auto)
  • Executives speaking off the record said the long-awaited deal for BMW and Daimler to merge their car sharing units may reach a final agreement next month. The companies will reportedly continue to operate separate brands, pooling technology and back office functions -- BMW’s parking assets will also be part of the agreement. (Reuters)
  • Lyft said “hundreds of thousands” of passengers got rid of a car in 2017 because they use ridesharing. 83% said that they would request a ride in a self-driving vehicle when the service is available. (Lyft)
  • Ride hailing start-up Go-Jek is apparently part way through a $1.2 billion funding round. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Shell has applied for an operating licence for the FarePilot app in London. At present it directs drivers for services such as Uber and myTaxi to likely hotspots of customer demand, but does not offer its own service. (City AM)
  • VW announced that it will launch ride hailing and car sharing schemes in Rwanda during 2018. (VW)
  • Chinese electric car sharing start-up Caocao Zhuanche raised $156 million. (China Money Network)
  • Lyft said that it was expanding its concierge service and making it easier for companies to sign up. It is targeted at businesses that want to provide transport for their customers rather than employee travel. (TechCrunch)
  • Singaporean fund BM Mobility is set to buy Malaysian electric car sharing firm UNiRide. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Hyundai invested in Grab; the two companies will partner on electric ride-hailing fleets. (Hyundai)
  • Kia will launch the WiBLE car sharing service in Europe during 2018. (Kia)
  • JLR invested in US ride-hailing start-up Voyage -- a company that previously said it believed fares could be paid for by advertising. (JLR)
  • Following an earlier investment, Didi acquired Brazilian ride hailing firm 99 Taxis in its entirety. (TechCrunch)
  • Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is reportedly looking to sell 29% of his stake in the company. (TechCrunch)
  • Chinese carmaker FAW has taken a 10% stake in a new car sharing operation set up by Mobike. (Reuters)
  • Luxury peer-to-peer car rental service Ryde started operations. The company hopes to expand beyond Los Angeles soon. (Ryde)
  • SnagRide, a long distance peer-to-peer ridesharing service, launched an initial coin offering, with hefty bonuses for early subscribers. The company is planning to launch full-scale in Q4 2018. (SnagRide)

2017

December

  • SoftBank said it had successfully closed its tender offer for 15% of Uber. Based on the share sale, Uber is valued at around $48 billion. (TechCrunch)
  • Didi Chuxing said that it had raised $4 billion to fund expansion, investments in AI and electric vehicles. (Didi)
  • Uber was declared to be a transport company for regulatory purposes within the EU after it lost a court case. Although it was hailed as a massive blow, the impact on most of Uber’s existing operations is minor. (BBC)
  • Grab launched ride hailing services in Cambodia. (Grab)
  • An article suggested that autonomous vehicles could herald free ride hailing, with users agreeing to visit sponsoring companies to get their trip paid for. (The Atlantic)
  • Uber hired a new COO -- he worked with the recently appointed CEO at their previous employer. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber is selling its leasing business to com, some of the payment will be in Fair.com shares. (Business Insider)
  • Denso announced that it had invested in ride hailing and car sharing fleet management technology provider Ridecell and the two companies would work together to find uses for Denso’s technology in on-demand vehicles. (Ridecell)
  • Electric scooter sharing service Scoot said that it would add “hundreds” of electrically assisted bicycles to its network in San Francisco. (Press Release)
  • Car-pooling start-up Carsmartt announced that it was creating its own crypto-currency called Coinsmartt. The company claims that this will be fully interchangeable with other currencies and has been implemented to reduce transaction fees. (Press Release)
  • Daimler will start a dynamic shuttle service in Berlin in partnership with Via and German public transport operator BVG. The initial fleet of 50 vehicles is forecast to eventually reach 300. The service is currently planned to run for two years before an evaluation of its merits will take place. (Via)
  • Daimler acquired a 50% stake in French ride hailing company Chauffeur Privé with the intention of buying the rest of the company by 2019. (Daimler)
  • BlueSG, run by Bollore, launched in Singapore with 80 vehicles and 32 stations. The company wants to get to 1,000 vehicles and 2,000 charging points by 2020. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Continental and Avis started a pilot scheme in Kansas City where vehicles can be driven off with a smartphone that runs Avis’s app rather than having to go through Avis employees. (Continental)
  • Go-Jek acquired three start-ups (Midtrans, Mapan and Kartuku) to help it expand its digital payments offering. (Deal Street Asia)
  • UK politicians got into a war of words over the future of transport. After transport minister Chris Grayling said that the future of buses was towards “Uber-style, demand led services”, the opposition transport spokesman said “nobody wants to see Uber replacing local bus services” and unions were similarly critical. (Politics Home)
  • Peer to peer car sharing operator Snappcar partnered with telematics provider Telia so that owners can see what is happening to their cherished steed whilst it is out of their sight. (Telematics News)
  • Nissan is launching an all-electric carsharing scheme called e-Share Mobi in Japan. (Nissan)
  • Honda invested about $9 million in Chinese car-sharing platform Reachda. (Caixin)
  • Renault announced the re-launch of Karhoo, the taxi aggregator app that Renault purchased after its failure. The company forecasts that by the end of December over 150,000 taxis will use the app. (Renault)
  • Uber has run into licensing problems in two further UK cities -- York and Sheffield. As with London, the company is able to appeal. (BBC)
  • ComfortDelGro is buying a majority stake in a private hire vehicle fleet operator from an Uber (Reuters)
  • Didi will reportedly launch in Mexico early in 2018. It recently apparently gave up on the US. (Reuters)
  • Go-Jek said it was planning to open its first overseas service, in the Philippines early in 2018. (Reuters)
  • Go-Jek has invested in Bangladeshi ride hailing firm Pathao. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Chinese electric vehicle car sharing company PonyCar has reportedly raised $37 million in a series C round, bringing total fundraising to $83 million in just over a year. (China Money Network)
  • In a preview of some of the problems the sharing economy will yield, car rental operators were criticised for not wiping user data such as phone and location details when a vehicle was passed to a new user. (V3)
  • Fuelling rumours of an impending IPO, Lyft boosted its fund-raising by another $500 million and has just hired a VP of corporate development and IR. (TechCrunch)

November

  • Didi Chuxing ended its pilot scheme in the USA and instead is directing users to download Lyft. (Technode)
  • Uber’s Q3 financials showed net losses of $1.46 billion on $9.71 billion of gross bookings and $2.01 billion of net revenue. (Business Insider)
  • Softbank’s offer for existing Uber shares apparently values the company almost a third lower than its last major funding round. (TechCrunch)
  • According to leaked documents, Lyft lost $(206) million on $483 million of revenue in the first half of 2017. (Business Insider)
  • Ola has launched a bicycle sharing service called Ola Pedal. (TechCrunch)
  • BMW launched car sharing in China under the ReachNow brand (same as US) in partnership with Chinese car sharing operator EVCARD. The starting location is Chengdu and will only use all-electric vehicles. (BMW)
  • Uber suffered a data breach in 2016, losing control of data for 57 million drivers and customers. The company, apparently with the knowledge of the then-CEO, paid for the data to be deleted and stayed silent on the matter until the new CEO decided it needed to be transparent. (Uber)
  • Chinese ride-hailing company Shouqi said that it had secured new investment of around $195 million from companies including NIO and Baidu. (Press Release)
  • Sixt intends to expand the MyDriver ride hailing service from its existing 16 US cities, including launching the service in Europe. (Bloomberg)
  • HopSkipDrive, the ride hailing service dedicated to transporting children, said it had raised a further $7.5 million, bringing total funding to over $21.5 million. (TechCrunch)
  • Lyft is looking to raise an additional $500 million. (Axios)
  • Messaging service Line acquired Indonesian carpooling platform TemanJalan, citing the company’s local language chatbot expertise, rather than business model, as the primary reason for the purchase. (Deal Street Asia)
  • Lyft bought streaming start-up Kamcord to hire its engineering staff. (Kamcord)
  • Lyft saw some of its financial details published (after a leak), including medium-term growth targets. (Bloomberg)
  • Lyft has chosen Canada Toronto for its first international location. (Lyft)
  • Softbank completed its much-anticipated investment in Uber. (TechCrunch)
  • It looks like Uber is safe in London for a while yet. The mayor said that the appeals process could “go on for a number of years”. (BBC)
  • Media reports questioned the popularity of Autolib, the car sharing scheme in Paris run by Bolloré, saying that subscribers have fallen 5% since the start of the year and only 17 new vehicles have been registered to the scheme this year, compared to 941 last year. (Journal Auto)
  • French carpooling start-up LESS said that it had raised €16 million. (Journal Auto)
  • Toyota Financial Services launched a scheme in partnership with Launch Mobility aimed at ride-hailing drivers to offer used vehicles for short term rentals. (Toyota)
  • Uber said that it will trial flying taxis in Los Angeles from 2020 (Dubai was already on the cards) and sees “heavy use” of Uber Air by 2028. It is collaborating with NASA to develop the necessary control systems. (Business Insider)
  • Hertz’s CEO said the company does not view ride hailing as “the enemy” and that it is a likely area of growth, suggesting that it may be a way for vehicles to be retained for longer periods. (Bloomberg)
  • Daimler’s Car2Go said that Madrid was one of its top 3 busiest cities globally, with 180,000 users sharing the 500 vehicles it has in the city. (Europa Press)
  • Uber has created a new service option called “Express Pool” to reduce fares. Rather than being collected and dropped off at the exact spot they want, passengers begin and end their journeys at nearby “smart spots” which are easy for the cars to reach. (TechCrunch)
  • Grab said that it had reached one billion rides at the end of October. (Grab)
  • Didi has entered into a strategic partnership with NEVS to create a charging network that Didi’s drivers and members of the public can use. Didi expects to have 1 million electric vehicles in its fleet by 2020. (Climate Action Programme)
  • Ford’s Chariot on-demand bus service confirmed that it is working towards a launch of operations in London. (City AM)

October

  • Zipcar announced a program that gives unlimited access during the work week. There is a flat monthly subscription of between $199 - $299 and then a mileage charge. (The Verge)
  • Uber is adjusting fees to help drivers earn more. It will now make customers with long pick-up distance pay extra to reflect the cost of collecting them, as well as the paid journey. (TechCrunch)
  • Lyft announced that it had raised $1 billion in a round led by Alphabet’s (Google’s) growth fund. The company is now valued at $11 billion. (Lyft)
  • Grab announced $700 million in debt to fund expansion and that it will partner in Singapore with SMRT (public transport and taxi operator) to create a flexible fleet. (Grab)
  • California’s Energy Commission has approved a grant for an all-fuel cell car sharing scheme. There will be 15 vehicles in the fleet. (Auto Rental International)
  • Research by website rastreator.com found that six out of ten Spaniards would be prepared to carshare (temporary rental, not pooling) if it saved them money. (Europa Press)
  • In an interview GM’s president said that it was unlikely to make further acquisitions for its self-driving car business or that it was planning to spin-off any mobility business from the main company. (Reuters)
  • Hyundai launched an all-electric car sharing scheme with 100 vehicles in Amsterdam. Rental costs €12 per hour. (Auto Rental International)
  • PSA will expand its emov all-electric car sharing scheme in Madrid to 600 vehicles in total (memo: it recently said it would shutter activities in Berlin). PSA says that the Madrid operation has an average user age of 36, 71% of customers are men and the average travel time is 20 minutes. (Auto Factil)
  • Ford had to suspend operations of the Chariot service in California after routine inspections found that some of its drivers were improperly licensed. (Wired)
  • Car sharing and ride hailing back office platform provider Ridecell said that it was buying Auro, a developer of autonomous vehicles and said it was creating a platform to provide and operate autonomous vehicles in ride hailing services. (Ridecell)
  • Lyft said that it had reached a total of half a billion rides, and has completed 100 million in the last three months. (Lyft)
  • Ride hailing company Ola said that it had raised $1.1 billion from investors including Tencent and SoftBank and that it was working on an additional $1 billion. (Ola)
  • Uber told UK MPs that it was working on ways to cap drivers to 10-12 hours worked within a 24-hour period. According to Uber, a quarter of drivers in the UK are working more than 40 hours per week currently. (City AM)
  • Short term luxury rental company CarHopper raised $1.5 million to fund developments that will allow it to bring small rental companies onto its (currently peer-to-peer) platform. (TechCrunch)
  • Various media sources speculated that Waymo could launch ride hailing services using autonomous vehicles without safety drivers in Phoenix, Arizona within the next few months. (ArsTechnica)
  • An analysis of the four largest providers of car sharing in Italy (Car2Go, DriveNow, Share’n Go and Enjoy) put the average loss per car at €(4,700) in 2016. (Journal Auto)
  • French ride hailing company Heetch has raised $12 million to fund expansion beyond its current operations in France, Belgium, Sweden and Italy (TechCrunch)
  • Estonian ride hailing company Taxify, recently shut down in London over licencing issues, said it would launch in Paris. (Journal Auto)

September

  • Daimler has bought Flinc, an on-demand mobility platform. Flinc originally started as a peer-to-peer ridesharing service but then built a white label service for car sharing, used by Opel among others. (Daimler)
  • Bollore are set to launch an all-electric car sharing scheme called BlueSG in December with an initial 80 vehicles and 30 separate sites. (Auto Rental News)
  • Didi has reportedly invested $200 million in peer-to-peer car sales site RenCheChe. (TechCrunch)
  • Ford said that it would work with Lyft to integrate fleet vehicles (as opposed to driver-owned) into the Lyft system as a precursor to offering robo taxis. In the system that Ford described, it would have a technology platform that operated a pool of vehicles that could be assigned to jobs from companies such as Lyft. (Ford)
  • Uber was told by London’s transport regulator that it would not have its licence renewed when it expires at the end of September. The company is appealing the decision (it can continue to operate until the appeals process is exhausted) and is calling for regulators to open a dialogue on what it can do to improve. (BBC)
  • Uber is facing a Californian lawsuit from drivers complaining about its pricing model. Uber appears to have been calculating driver revenue based on the shortest route to the passenger’s destination at the time of pick-up (i.e. at which time it becomes fixed). The Passenger is then charged for the actual trip (invariably longer) and Uber keeps the difference. (Ars Technica)
  • Citymapper and Gett announced a trial in London where they will run taxis on a fixed route during commuter hours. The fare will be fixed and the taxis will be shared, with users able to get in and disembark at any point on the route. (Citymapper on Medium).
  • French car rental start-up Virtuo said that it had raised €7.5 million to fund expansion into European cities outside France. (Journal Auto)
  • Alphabet (Google) is reportedly looking at making a $1 billion investment in Lyft. (TechCrunch)
  • Dutch car sharing company SnappCar has taken over German rival Tamyca. (Fleet Europe)
  • Daimler announced that it had been the lead investor in a financing round for US peer to peer carsharing service Turo and that as a part of the deal, Daimler’s own peer to peer carsharing service Croove would be folded into Turo’s operations and Turo would enter the German market in 2018. (Daimler)
  • Daimler created a joint venture with on-demand shuttle bus company Via that will see Daimler invest $50 million and licence Via’s technology to launch services in Europe, starting with London, where an on-demand bus service will begin in late 2017. The companies will also work together to develop an optimised Mercedes van for the service. (Via)
  • Lyft said that it would introduce self-driving vehicles in collaboration with ai. Memo: Lyft is already working with GM’s Cruise operation and has recently begun its own in-house autonomous effort. (Lyft)
  • Estonian ride-hailing start-up Taxify saw the launch of services in London run into problems when the city’s transport regulator told it to suspend services because they were dissatisfied with the way in which Taxify circumvented licencing application requirements by partnering with an existing firm. (Telegraph)
  • GM’s mobility chief said that Maven Gig vehicles had an average utilisation rate of 60% on hourly leases and 40% on daily leases. She sees Maven’s fleet as being 2/3 electric “going forward”. (GM -- Audio only)

August

  • Lyft announced that it had now achieved full coverage in 40 of the 50 US states. (Lyft)
  • Uber’s new CEO said that the company would likely have its IPO in the next 18 to 36 months. (TechCrunch). The company also published highlights of his opening comments to staff. (Uber)
  • Uber’s Movement trip data website went on general release, providing trip data for some of the cities that the company operates in. (TechCrunch)
  • Toyota participated in ride hailing service Grab’s latest fund-raising round and announced a collaboration to install Toyota-developed data recording devices in Grab vehicles. (Toyota)
  • Ride hailing firm Zūm, who organise rides for children with specially trained drivers, raised $5.5 million in a Series A round. (TechCrunch)
  • White label car sharing platform provider Vulog announced a €17.5 million fund raising. (Journal Auto)
  • Uber’s latest financial results showed revenues of $1.75 billion, up from $1.5 billion in the prior quarter and an EBIT loss of $(645) million. The company had $6.6 billion in cash at the end of the quarter. (Axios). This week also saw Uber’s first pitch deck being re-published by one of the firm’s co-founders. The company remains some way from the $20 million per year profits envisaged on slide 20. (Medium)
  • The speculation surrounding the search for Uber’s new CEO proved spectacularly wrong (example: Business Insider) as the company announced Expedia’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. (BBC)
  • Uber is reportedly in talks with Singaporean taxi firm ComfortDelGro to add the company’s licenced taxis to Uber’s local offering. (Straits Times)
  • Google Maps took a further step towards commoditisation of ride-hailing services with the announcement that BlaBlaCar services would now be shown (in the public transport section). Google already displays offerings from Uber and Gett. (Journal Auto)
  • Luxury peer-to-peer car sharing app LuxNow launched in Florida, with plans to expand to other US locations and expand its offerings into all-things-luxurious including jets and yachts. (Auto Rental News)
  • GM’s VP for urban mobility gave an interview about the performance and growth of Maven. She was asked whether the unit was profitable and replied that there was more than 100% return on investment without being clear on the rationale. (Economic Times of India)
  • Go-Jek has reportedly added JD.com to its list of investors as it looks close to finalising its latest funding round. (TechCrunch)
  • Renault will reportedly partner with infrastructure company Ferrovial to launch a Spanish car sharing service that uses all-electric vehicles. (Autofactil)
  • Uber’s chief product officer indicated that the company was targeting 2023 (memo: testing will apparently start in 2020) for a mass rollout of a flying taxi service and was interested in operating in Australian cities Melbourne and Sydney. (Herald Sun)
  • Uber agreed to a 20-year monitoring period in order to settle a case with the US’s FTC over its “God View” data collection platform. (BBC)
  • Uber had its licence to operate in the Philippines suspended for one month because of the number of drivers operating on the service who are not fully registered with the government. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber has revised its Uber for Business interface to make it easier for companies to set limits on how employees can use the platform. The update comes after Lyft has made a raft of changes to its business offering in order to become more appealing. (TechCrunch)
  • Ride-hailing firm Careem announced a financing agreement with Didi Chuxing to expand its presence in the Middle East. (TechCrunch)
  • SoftBank’s CEO said that the company was interested in taking a stake in either Uber or Lyft to complement its ride-share holdings in other regions. (TechCrunch). Softbank weren’t alone in their courting of Uber however, as rumours emerged of an alternate investment group looking to increase their shareholdings (Recode)
  • Uber’s former CEO and founder Travis Kalanick was sued by major shareholder Benchmark Capital, a move that was criticised by other shareholders. (TechCrunch)
  • Uber announced a new feature that allows passengers to text the driver ahead of the pick-up to give information such as how to spot them at the side of the road. The message is read aloud to the driver by the app. (Uber)
  • Uber’s Xchange leasing program to provide cars to drivers is reportedly losing $9,000 per vehicle and the company is considering options for the unit including closure or sale. (Wall Street Journal)
  • Lyft has bought YesGraph and DataScore. YesGraph’s team will work on driver retention and DataScore’s expertise will be applied to customer acquisition and retention. (Lyft)
  • GM subsidiary Cruise unveiled a ride-hailing service called Cruise Anywhere which its employees have been using to summon self-driving vehicles around San Francisco. Cruise said that the ultimate aim was to open the service to the public after extensive testing. (TechCrunch)
  • Japanese company Line, best known for its messaging app, has launched a taxi booking service in Thailand as part of an on-demand platform it is continuing to build. (TechCrunch)
  • Toyota will expand its EV sharing pilot program Ha:mo to Thailand. (Economic Times)
  • Uber announced upgrades to its payload-to-driver matching service Uber Freight offering, expanding the markets covered and allowing drivers to be more specific about the type of jobs they are interested in. (Uber)
  • Uber came in for criticism after a report revealed that its Singapore operation had let cars subject to a recall remain on the road because of a shortage of parts (in part created by Uber’s use of grey imports). (TechCrunch)
  • Lyft announced a tie-up with (US train operator) Amtrak that will allow travellers to book a pick-up directly from the train company’s app at the same time as booking their ticket. (Lyft)
  • Media profiled ride-hailing integration app Mystro, which lets drivers log into both Uber and Lyft and then helps them determine the most profitable jobs to accept. The company believes it has found a way around Lyft and Uber’s notorious efforts to shut out integration services by using accessibility software embedded within Android. (TechCrunch)
  • Via announced the launch of a new service called Shared Taxi in New York through a collaboration with Curb. It matches riders in NYC yellow cabs and gives discounts on shared portions of the ride. (Via)
  • Estonian ride hailing company Taxify is preparing to launch in London, assisted by an investment from Didi Chuxing. (TechCrunch)

July

  • Softbank reportedly has expressed an interest in making an investment of several billion dollars in Uber. It isn’t clear whether this interest is in purchase of existing shares, newly created equity or both. (TechCrunch)
  • Ford said that shuttle service Chariot will expand to New York. (TechCrunch)
  • Renault said that Karhoo was on track to be relaunched in late 2017 with a new strategy. (Auto Finance News)
  • Uber reportedly hopes to have a new CEO in place by September but one of the rumoured candidates, Meg Whitman, has already ruled herself out. (Bloomberg)
  • Capital One said that it was changing the way it structured lending for taxi licences as commercial pressures from ride hailing companies have reduced their value. (Auto Finance News)
  • Lyft said that it had partnered with Deem to include its service in the latter’s multi-modal travel for business applications. (More…)
  • Lyft has created its own autonomous vehicle lab called “Level 5” (a reference to the SAE designation of full autonomy). Saying that it wants to be “active” in the development of self-driving vehicles. Given Lyft’s existing relationships with a range of self-driving providers including Waymo, nuTonomy and GM/Cruise, the rationale for and scope of the exercise isn’t clear. (More…)
  • Careem has bought a stake in Egyptian start-up Swyvl an operator of a multi-modal service that directs users to the most appropriate private bus service for their trip. (More…)
  • Grab is in talks to raise $2 billion from a range of investors including SoftBank and Didi. (More…)
  • Uber announced that it would merge its business in Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Kazakhstan with Russian ride-hailing company Yandex, giving Uber a 36.6% stake. The new company will also cover Armenia and George (where Uber currently has no presence). Uber will put $225 million into the new venture, in addition to the $170 million it says it has already invested in the region. The combined business will be about the same size as Lyft on a rides per day basis. (More…)
  • Uber has bought Swipe Labs, seemingly on the basis of the engineering talent rather than the product. The new team is expected to add user interface expertise to Uber’s existing capabilities. (More…)
  • Lyft announced that it had integrated several expense management platforms into its app for business customers. This change allows business users to automatically add the receipts for trips to their company’s system. (More…)
  • Daimler announced an investment in and cooperation with CleverShuttle, a company that creates software which lets public transport operators optimise routes depending on point in time passenger demand. (More…)
  • Freight-matching start-up Transfix has raised an additional $42 million (More…)
  • Uber said that it would partially suspend services in Finland. The UberBlack service (professional drivers) will continue but UberPop (unlicensed drivers) will be stopped until new regulations are put in place. (More…)
  • Spanish car sharing start-up Amovens announced that it had raised €5 million to enter the French market. (More…)
  • Russia’s Bakulin Motors Group announced that it would begin trials of driverless buses on a university campus. (More…)
  • Lyft said that it was now completing 1 million rides per day (memo: Uber is currently carrying out upwards of 6 million rides per day in more markets). (More…)
  • Zipcar said that it would withdraw from the Austrian market. (More…)

June

  • Uber said that it had now completed 5 billion trips. The milestone was passed on May 20th but only reported now. Since it reported hitting the 2 billion trips milestone (June 2016), it has averaged just under 9 million trips per day. During the first six months of 2016 the average was about 5.6 million per day. (More…)
  • Alphabet’s (Google) Waymo driverless car division announced an agreement with Avis to run its self-driving test fleet in Phoenix. The exact terms of the agreement (length of time, geography and exclusivity) were unclear. (..)
  • Hot on the heels of the Waymo / Avis tie-up, Bloomberg analysis showed that Apple were renting cars from Hertz’s contract hire subsidiary. Without any indication that Hertz are actually involved in the day-to-day running of the fleet (unlike Avis / Waymo), this seemed to be far more mundane than many media reports indicated. (More…)
  • South Korean firm Kakao Mobility (ride sharing, on-demand chauffeurs and navigation services) has raised $437 million for “aggressive expansion”. (More…)
  • Uber’s CEO resigned, having earlier taken a leave of absence. His departure now leaves a raft of C-suite roles vacant. (More…). The company also announced a “180 days of change” program to improve driver experience, in particular the introduction of tipping and improved cancellation and waiting time charges. (More…)
  • Ride-hailing firm myTaxi (controlled by Daimler) said it will buy Romanian company Clever Taxi for an “eight figure” sum. The company is reportedly interested in further acquisitions in Eastern Europe. (More…)
  • Europcar raised €175 million and announced that it is buying Spanish rental company Goldcar. (More…)
  • Volvo will acquire Swedish rental car company First Rent A Car. (More…)
  • Lyft unveiled a shuttle service in San Francisco that offers fixed fares along pre-determined routes. (More…)
  • Uber published the recommendations of a US law firm that had conducted an investigation into its culture. Among the suggestions were to appoint a strong COO and to have more independence on the board of directors. (More…)
  • As rumoured, Uber’s CEO is stepping down for an unspecified period. Within just a few days, SVP Emil Michael left and a board member resigned after making a sexist joke (More…)
  • Alibaba is reportedly in talks to invest in Grab’s latest fund-raising round which has a target of $1.5 billion. (More…)
  • Rental company EuropCar has made an investment in peer-to-peer car sharing firm SnappCar and now owns 20% of the start-up. (More…)
  • Chinese EV-only car sharing firm Ponycar is said to have raised $22 million. Rival Yibuyongche raised $19 million days earlier. Ponycar has around 2,000 vehicles in use and has said that currently it payback period for a new vehicle investment is 700 days. (More…)
  • JLR said that it had made a $25 million investment in Lyft via its InMotion subsidiary. The investment includes a technology collaboration and the supply of some JLR vehicles to Lyft. Although only announced now, the investment is part of a fund raising round that closed in April. Whilst JLR touted a multitude of benefits, Lyft said only that it was “excited to join forces”. (More…)
  • French car sharing firm Karos announced a white label partnership with a property developer that will allow the developer to create a fleet of vehicles in a business park it owns that can be used by tenants. (More…)
  • Lyft announced an updated set of climate goals following president Trump’s intention to leave the Paris climate agreement. Lyft is targeting 100% use of renewable energy for its electric fleet and that by 2025 Lyft will provide at least 1 billion rides per year in electric autonomous vehicles. (More…)
  • Car sharing firm Split said it was in talks with an OEM to launch on-demand car sharing through the manufacturer’s connectivity suite. Split currently provides a platform for co-workers to share lifts but is hoping to build a presence in consumer services. The potential OEM wasn’t mentioned by JLR are already an investor. (More…)
  • Middle East ride-hailing firm Careem said it had completed a $150 million fund raising, in addition to $350 million earlier in the year. Investors included Daimler. (..)
  • Spanish ride sharing start-up Cabify is reportedly seeking a new funding round of $300 million, having raised $100 million in April (More…)
  • Saw media profiling US ride sharing start-up Sitbaq. The service is similar to BlaBla in that rides are requested between two hours to seven days in advance. (More…)
  • Canadian car rental company Via Route said that it was buying rival Bleu Pelican. (More…)
  • Toyota subsidiary TFS announced a strategic investment in Finnish company MaaS Global, a start-up intending to build “the world’s first mobility ecosystem). (More…)
  • Ride-hailing platform provider Ridecell will supply the technology infrastructure for Gig Car Share. (..) and a new car-sharing scheme in Poland for Škoda (More…)
  • Daimler-owned Car2Go is making its registration process easier. New users of the service will no longer have to visit a validation point to register their licence. Many competitors already offer an online only service. (..)
  • Uber has reportedly fired over 20 employees following investigations into harassment and bullying and is considering whether the CEO should take a leave of absence. (..)
  • Uber is reportedly in talks to acquire the valet service and engineering know-how of Luxe. Although Luxe intends to continue operation, it has pivoted away from door-to-door valet services. (More…)
  • Uber saw its losses improve to $(708)m in Q1 2017. It’s head of finance is departing to join another start-up and the head of the self-driving unit (and Otto co--founder) Anthony Levandowski was fired for refusing to testify in Uber’s IP dispute with Waymo. (..)
  • Waze (owned by Google / Alphabet) will expand its ride pooling service from Los Angeles to the whole of California. The service matches riders and routes and gives the driver a small per mile reimbursement for fuel. (..)
  • Hertz offered a $1 billion debt issue. The company is looking to raise money to offset the effect of the fall in used car prices and re-finance existing debt. (..)
  • Intel released a report that they had commissioned from Strategy Analytics saying that the passenger transport business would be worth $7 trillion globally in 2050 (note: similar to other analysis). (..)

May

  • Uber wrote a blog post announcing some changes to the algorithm of its POOL service in New York. Amongst the changes, passengers will now be picked up and dropped off at what Uber determines is the most efficient point, rather than exactly where they asked. (..)
  • Brazilian ride sharing app 99 (aka 99taxis) said that it had $100 million from SoftBank, taking its latest funding round to $200 million. Most of the remainder came from Didi. (..)
  • There was renewed talk of a merger between car sharing companies DriveNow (BMW) and Car2Go (Daimler). The latest stories have a merger taking place in Q3 2017 and a new brand being established. Rumours of a tie up have circulated since December 2016. BMW’s partner in DriveNow, Sixt, has been openly opposed to the move but BMW reportedly now believes that it can convince Sixt to cooperate. (..)
  • Avis Car Rental is increasing the number of connected cars it has in the fleet -- to more than 50,000 by early 2018. (..)
  • A ban on Uber’s services in Italy (suspended pending appeal) was overturned by a higher court. (..)
  • Uber said that it had over-charged drivers in New York by failing to calculate commissions properly. (..)
  • Media profiled Los Angeles ride sharing start-up RideYayYo. The company provides drivers with cars free of charge. (..)
  • Paris public transport operator RATP is investing in the Paris operations of car sharing company Communauto. (..)
  • Europcar Group has agreed a deal to acquire German rental company Bunchbinder. Bunchbinder currently has 152 sites and around 20,000 vehicles. (..)
  • Uber announced Uber Freight, a business to match up drivers and loads. (..)
  • Bosch has announced a scheme that will offer self-service short term rental of 600 scooters in Paris. This is the first expansion after its initial scheme in Berlin. (..)
  • Uber received a ruling from the European Court of Justice that it should be regulated as a transport company. The ruling can be challenged and it is not clear what the implications for Uber’s business model would be. (..)
  • Daimler said that its Car2Go car sharing scheme had seen a significant increase in “cross-border” rentals in Q1 2017 with 33,000 journeys by customers visiting from other European countries using the local Car2Go service. (..)
  • BMW announced an agreement with the City of Hamburg to form a strategic partnership concerning urban mobility. As a part of this, the Hamburg fleet of DriveNow vehicles will expand to 550 cars by 2019 (400 pure electric, 150 PHEV) and the city will provide 1,150 charging points. (..)
  • Ola announced a partnership with Bharti Airtel, which media speculated was in part motivated by the high level of defaults Ola drivers are making on their car lease payments. (..)

April

  • Avis Budget noted that it was selling more used vehicles to ride hailing drivers. (..)
  • BMW received coverage for its efforts to improve the user experience of car-sharing and reduce the time it takes to access a vehicle. (..)
  • Didi Chuxing said that it has raised a further $5.5 billion, valuing it at more than $50 billion. (..)
  • Uber has reportedly changed the role of Anthony Levandowski (Otto founder, ex-Google employee and current lawsuit target). Although he will remain with Uber he will not be working on LIDAR (one of the key areas where Google says its IP has been infringed). (..)
  • Recently launched Californian ride sharing app RydenGo was issued with a cease-and-desist order because of improper licencing, even though it has not yet commenced operations (it is allowing users to sign up). (..)
  • Daimler announced an expansion of peer-to-peer car-sharing service Croove to additional German cities. (..)
  • Uber announced plans for airborne ride-sharing in Dallas and Dubai in 2020. There are 5 companies who are competing to supply the vehicles. (..)
  • Gett will buy New York based ride sharing company Juno for $250 million (the final value will reportedly depend on future performance of the combined entity). (..)
  • According to board member Hubertus Troska, Daimler is in talks with various Chinese ride hailing firms including Didi around possible cooperation. (..)
  • Uber had its operations in Brno, Czech Republic disrupted by a court injunction judging that there was insufficient driver training and vehicles must be equipped with taximeters. (..)
  • Toyota took part in a $45 million Series C funding round for car sharing service Getaround. (..)
  • Uber announced that vice president of global vehicle programs Sherif Marakby (hired from Ford) had left the company after joining around one year ago. (..)
  • Uber’s CEO has allegedly hired his own driver and stopped using the company’s services following negative PR after an argument with an Uber driver that was filmed and released on the internet. (..)
  • Uber released details of its 2016 financial results to Bloomberg, showing that it lost $3.8 billion in 2016 while gross revenue (total value of fares - not Uber’s take) was about $20 billion, a 126% year-over-year increase. (..)
  • Uber lost a case in Sao Paulo, Brazil where a judge ruled that drivers were employees and ordered Uber to pay damages including for loss of holidays. Uber is appealing the judgement. (..)
  • Saw New York City taxi medallion prices being used as a proxy for Uber’s The trend is downward, although there isn’t a clear consensus on the amount. (More...)
  • Uber had a block on its services in Italy lifted after a the decision was suspended so that Uber could appeal. (..)
  • Uber said that it is aiming for 10% of its fleet in the US city of Portland to be electric by 2019. (..)
  • Enterprise Rent-A-Car Germany has acquired CARO Autovermietung - a company with 46 sites in Germany and more than 800 employees. (..)
  • A judge in Seattle issued a temporary block on a new city law that would have allowed drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft to unionise (Source)
  • BlaBlaCar announced a scheme where drivers can lease Opel vehicles at discounted levels (Source)
  • Lyft raised $500 million for a latest valuation of $7.5 billion (Source)
  • Ola said that it will pilot using electric vehicles this year, with an eventual target of 1 million electric Ola vehicles in India over the next five years (Source)
  • Uber was criticised by UK politicians for the terms it requires drivers to sign. One MP called the contract “gibberish” and pointed out that although Uber have resisted English language tests for drivers, the contract was long and complex (Source)
  • The New York Times published an investigation into how ride hailing companies create incentives for drivers to stay available (Source)

March

  • Uber said it will end its service in Denmark, due to new taxi regulations
  • Uber released its first report on employee diversity (not counting drivers) -- media were divided on whether to single Uber out for not employing many women (which it doesn’t) or whether it was an issue across the technology sector
  • Didi was said to be contemplating a $6 bn investment round backed by Japanese firm SoftBank.
  • RydenGo was featured in the media for its different approach to ride hailing. Drivers will pay a $20 per month fee to be on the platform and then will bid for rides according to rates that they set for themselves.