The World’s First Micromobility Conference: You Had To Be There

Have A GoJanuary 31, 2019

Conferences and industry events. All too often, they are forums where industry actors can perform on stage for clever sound bites and self-congratulation. All fluff, no substance.

Maybe because the industry is young and the participants are naive enough to be speaking their minds, maybe it was because the organizers’ focus was education instead of mere indulgence, the first ever Micromobility Conference was a significant cut above the rest.

Chalk full of ideas, charts, analysis, demos, and contrarian opinions, the day was engaging, thought provoking, self-reflective, and informative.

The conference was also teaming with amazing electric rides from scooters to revolutionary bike/car hybrids, electric mopeds, high-end electric bikes, electric skates, electric unicycles, and even a bike/canoe crossover!

Here’s the day in pictures and bullet points.

But such an overview does this conference no justice. You had to be there to hear the wealth of information presented and to experience the Cambrian Explosion of micromobility in person!

MODAL REVIEW

Introduction
James Gross, Co-Founder of Micromobility Industries

1st ever with over 650 registrants with heavy hitting sponsors:
Honda Xcelerator, Jump Rides, Spin, Invers, Twilio, Lyft, Drop, Swiftmile, Morpher, Smide
A brief history of the Craneway Pavilion and its roots in mobility as the former Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant.

The Reason For Micromobility
Horace Dediu, Co-Founder of Micromobility Industries

The trend of human civilization is towards urbanization
Cities bring people closer together facilitating ideas, and creating wealth and prosperity
Half of all kilometers traveled per year are with cars
90% of all car trips are under 20 miles
Short distance trips are more expensive/valuable
Short trips are much slower
Short trips are predominant trips taken
As urbanization continues, short trips are going to increase
Orders of magnitude of efficiency is gained from car to micromobility
And as we add comfort, power, convenience, cargo to micromobility, we begin blurring the line between micromobility and cars

Micromobility Securitization
Paula Cormerais, CEO of Pony

A new business model (and new asset class) for micromobility.
Adopt a micromobility ride
User can “adopt” a Pony ride for a fee
When Ponies are used, you make money
A new model for micromobility sharing
Why new model? Micromobility margins are, and will probably stay low

Premium Micromobility
Corinne Vogel, Co-Founder & COO, Nere/smide

Premium micromobility: Electric bikes that go up to 30 mph with 500 W motors. They offer fun, convenience, and speed.
While scooters compete against walking, speedy e-bikes compete against cars, taxis, carshare.
These bikes are often faster than taxies in cities.
They operate even in Swiss winters.
Premium bikes don’t need to mean premium prices: People willing to walk further for a premium bike, therefore fleet can be smaller. Usage prediction model reduces fleet operation cost further. No rebalancing needed because of pricing incentives for riders to rebalance fleet themselves.

1-Wheel Micromobility
Rose Song Wang, CEO, InMotion

Childhood experiences in China riding bikes with her parents were very formative
Feel like Ironman with electric unicycles
Micromobility that acts like an extension of your body
Climb any hill, zip past any traffic, all hands free
Electric unicycles often beats cars and public transit in cities

3-Wheel Micromobility
Kody Baker, CEO, Veemo

3-wheeled bike/car hybrid (or velomobile) built from the ground up
Offers the comforts of cars with pedaling/legal status of a bicycle
Offers protection from weather and protection from cars in cities
Fills in the car sharing and bike sharing gap
Parks like a car, so doesn’t have the bike/scooter sidewalk parking issues

Micromobility As A Skate
Janelle Wang, CEO, Acton

Wearable micromobility
Electric skates
Electric skateboards, 80% of buyers are college student
These wheels are celebrity magnets

Micromobility By Water
Jessica Schiller, CEO, Schiller Bikes

Many cities are located on rivers, canals, and other waterways
Water personal mobility has a big obstacle: perception
Most people think of water sports or boating
Schiller bikes are micromobility on water
They often beats cars
And can even carry another micromobility device like another bike

BUILDING BLOCKS

Product For Micromobility
Tony Ho, VP of Global Business, Segway

Segway focused on:
– Diverse of form factors for diverse users
– IoT (Internet of things) and micromobility
– Autonomous/robotic deliveries
Diversity of business models is good in the space
Segway aiming to become the engine that begins the micromobility movement

Batteries For Micromobility
Sam Jaffe, Managing Director, Cairn ERA

Demand for batteries is exponential
BMS, battery management systems to get smarter over time
Extending battery life is critical

Motors For Micromobility
David Calley, CEO, Planet Rider

For motors, the name of the game is torque
You can achieve good torque by gearing motors down
One of the best right now is the Bosch system: geared down 15:1 for a powerful riding experience
But gearing has its disadvantages: efficiency losses, belt noise, reliability and wear, costs of additional parts
Planet Rider is developing motors with amorphous metals

Safety For Micromobility
Steve Anderson, Senior Engineer, MEA Forensic Engineers & Scientists

More speed = more deaths
Helmets are only designed for simple falls from bikes (13mph)
In micromobility, speeds are higher
Good thing about bikes/scooters position riders at about standing level
Pitch over from scooters are usually from tripping so wheel size matters
But environmental/cultural effects are the biggest contributors to micromobility safety or danger
US has highest helmet wearing, but most bicycle deaths
Netherlands has the lowest deaths with almost no helmet use
It’s the infrastructure stupid! Infrastructure and culture saves the most lives. More cycling, safety in numbers, separation between cars and bikes make the biggest impact in lives saved
Current levels of American pedestrian and bike death are like a Boeing 737 crashing every 8-9 days…and we tolerate this

Designing for Micromobility
Ryan Rzepecki, CEO, JUMP
Nick Foley, Director of Hardware Products, JUMP

Brief history of JUMP’s journey:

Dockless bike share idea 2009, inspired by some European models
Took 4 years to bring product to market! Some reasons: Ryan had no background in industrial design, there was no investor appetite, early designs were very clunky
After several years of working on unique product design, some product market fit was achieved, especially with Nike sponsored BikeTown
Chinese brands started scaling very quickly with new business model of dockless model and electric bikes
A complete pivot was required: Change of business model, direct to consumer instead, rebranded the company, released new e-bike, partnership with Uber, Series A raised capital
Achieved high levels of use 6-8 rides per bike
Joined Uber
Now investing in scooters and unique scooter design

Overview of JUMP’s design process:

Product requirements for sharing are completely different from consumer ownership
Designing for three different audiences all with different needs: consumers, operators, and cities
Design three different pieces of the product/service: software, vehicles, infrastructure
The advantage of hardware designed, owned, and operated by the same company is fast iteration and innovation

Universal Basic Mobility
Alex Roy, Director of Special Operations, Argo AI

Universal Basic Mobility (UBM) is inspired by Universal Basic Income (UBI)
Freedom of movement hadn’t been equated to a right to mobility
People move and cities have grown faster than governments have built, resulting in older cities with struggling public transit and newer cities with automobile traffic
We’re seeing more and more people fall into a “mobility underclass” restricting their ability to find and keep jobs, access basic services, contribute to society or maintain a reasonable quality of life
UBI cannot address these challenges, but UBM can
UBM implementations will differ from place to place
“All modes lead to transit” is the new “All roads lead to Rome.”
No matter what form mobility takes whether it be scooter, autonomous car, etc, they have to lead to transit. You cannot beat transit!