2021 is the year that micro-capabilities as a concept, a solution and a way of life really begin to settle down.
Increasing the likelihood of shared micromo and public transit with COVID has helped in miniaturization tram popular enough for people to swing their own purchases. Therefore, 2021 is the year e-bike, with one 240% revenue growth rate in the 12 months to July. This new normal has resulted in cities adopting infrastructure plans that were truly unbelievable a decade ago. (look at you Paris!).
2021 is also the year when people, especially people in cities, start talking openly about the impact of micromobility on emissions decrease, certainly greater than the introduction of tram.
This year, we’ve seen micro mobile sharing companies really take advantage of this mindset shift towards the humble. e-scooter and e-bikes, using their dominant market position to become more operationally efficient and get their hardware on track.
So with all this behind us laying the groundwork for the future, let’s take a look at the top predictions for the micromobility space in 2022.
E-bikes for everyone
The e-bike trend is expected to continue into 2022, especially as countries like the US are currently provides subsidies worth up to $900 discount buy new e-bike. But the craze won’t stop with private consumers. Tony Ho, Segway’s vice president of global business development, says the company is also seeing a huge jump in demand for e-bikes from micro-mobility companies. Segway has been known as a supplier of e-scooters and e-bikes to most shared micromobility giants, such as Lime and Bird.
“Lime was a bike-sharing company at first, but it didn’t go anywhere until they started the scooter business, partly because scooters were cheaper and easier to deploy,” Ho said. TechCrunch. “Now it looks like the e-bikes are getting more traction and we’re seeing that mix start to be even and see more orders from the e-bike side to share. And for cities. , it’s a… smart because they have a bike-sharing program to start with.”
New VC money is running out
Some big players like Bird and Helbiz, was made public, something Lime promised to do it next year, and the industry as a whole has consolidated under a few big names. So instead of having a lot of VC money and new entrants pouring in, we can see the existing market mature.
“After the whole Bird and Lime craze, I think investors have turned to something different, like Coco the sidewalk delivery robot“Ho said.” It still takes some capital to get into this business, and for smaller people, I personally think it will be more difficult for them, especially since cities require you to pay for paper. permission, buy insurrance. It’s not really a game for small startups anymore. Whoever survived the last wave will probably stay here to stay.”
And those who are staying are doing everything they can to reduce costs, become more efficient, more sustainable and more compliant with city regulations.
But… car-sharing companies can get back in the game
“The orders and interest we’ve received shows that many companies are getting back to work, so next year, as people come out of the pandemic, micromobility is becoming a reality,” Ho said. a priority on their agenda. “We’re seeing a number of companies bounce back, including big names like carpoolers.”
In the summer of 2020, the micromobility feature was in dire straits due to the lockdown issues of the pandemic. Uber, Eg, sell off his micro mobile company Jump to Lime, and more integration between the two companies followed. In May of last year, Lyft also ended many of its fledgling e-scooter programs, but if Ho can be trusted, these two companies can try to get back in the game before they lose all of their market share.
Expect to see more AI, smarter vehicles
Cities really hate it when people race and park on sidewalks. They absolutely hate it, their hatred has led many companies to innovate and create some seriously smart scooters. Companies like Turn, Helbiz and Elephant are testing camera-based systems that can detect when a driver is on the sidewalk or about to hit a pedestrian and even potentially stop the vehicle in real time. Others like Super fast racing athlete and Bird are using a highly accurate location-based approach to deploy similar advanced driver assistance systems. Once companies figure out how to reduce costs and cities around the globe benefit from this exciting killer technology, this trend will only become more widespread.
The Mircromobility ADAS system will expand beyond the sharing market. There are already companies like Streetlogic and Terranet is working to produce computer vision-based systems that can help consumer-market electric cyclists ride safer by detecting potential danger and providing collision warnings. These types of systems offer greater peace of mind and safety to ordinary people looking to replace car trips with electric bike rides.
Horace Dediu, an industry analyst who coined the term “micromobility,” says having more sensors on micro-vehicles also opens the door to data monetization for companies.
“We’re going to see more sensors happen, and that basically means dashcams, so a lot of imaging happens,” Dediu told TechCrunch. “I know this is coming to cars, but everything that happens in cars happens on the micro, and often happens faster because you can roll out 100 million cars without that much investment. “
By placing cameras at the front and rear of micro-capable vehicles, Dediu says, companies can image entire cities the way dash cams do today. If those systems were able to detect sidewalks and pedestrian lanes, they would certainly be able to detect pavement conditions that could notify cities through a shared database. on road maintenance issues. Or mobile device companies could sell that information to mapping companies like Google and allow them to picture the world a little better.
If you think about what micro-vehicles can do today, like torque sensors that measure user input, Dediu predicts companies could roll out all sorts of “translations”. Peloton-like service” attached to a wearable device.
Micromobility and metaverse
“There have been billions of dollars invested by Meta or Facebook, by Microsoft and Apple, trying to figure out how to interact with someone wearing something on their head,” Dediu said. say we need to find a way to get people to wear helmets. So I simply put those two ideas together and said, if you’re going to wear a helmet, why not turn it into a smart helmet? And if you’re going to wear a smart helmet, why not make it fun and enjoyable that you’ll want to do so? “
A helmet with a smart visor that enhances the realism when you’re driving around the city not only makes the rider more aware of their surroundings and potentially safer, Dediu says. can unlock experiences and get people out and about.
“Micromobility and metaverse were made for each other,” he said. “It’s about finding. Enhance the car experience nothing more than becoming more isolated when looking down. So would you rather look up or look down? ”
Note: This combination may not happen in 2022, but Dediu is pretty sure it will in some way, form or form in the next few years.
New – heavier – form factor
The only problem with riding a scooter, e-bike, or moped to work every day is, what if it rains? According to Oliver Bruce, a strategic advisor, angel investor and co-host of Micromobility Podcast with Horace Dediu.
Companies like Arcimoto, which recently acquired Tilting Motor Works, and Nimbus Bruce said he is working on a number of tilting electric tricycles that could be ready or coming to market by 2022.
Bruce told TechCrunch: “If we are to be serious about achieving the climate goals we talked about at COP26, then new electric vehicles will need to launch and scale quickly. . “If we try to develop electric vehicles like we are now, we’re really struggling to do that. We can’t afford to do that.”
Micromobility is integrated into the transit mix
“I think 2022 will start to see the adoption of ride-hailing on public transport credits,” Bruce said. “So for example, you’re going to get off the subway and you’re going to be able to step on an e-bike and it’s going to be a cross-subsidized ride.”
Bruce says this will partly be a side effect of all the infrastructure plays that we’re seeing with cities around the world, but mainly in Europe, building multiple lanes for traffic. for more bicycles. But it will also be a function of micro-mobility companies to dramatically reduce the cost-per-mile of vehicle maintenance.
“The economics of it start to stack up so operators can sell bulk kilometers to trucking agents, and then those trucking agents will say you can unlock the car. scooter on a metro pass or through its app. Certain cities around the world will begin to include this on their public transport.”
Better integration with Maps
“The year 2022, maybe next year, will be the year of software,” Dediu said.
Today, mapping and transit planning apps like Google Maps and Moovit have start integrating micromobility options, providing users with multiple ways to get to their destination. That kind of integration will enhance to the point where Maps acts as a search engine, allowing you to see your top traffic hits within seconds.
“Today, we’re saying, I want to go from A to B, and you have three or four options, and nobody is bidding on my ride,” Dediu said. “I want to see 15 bidders. I want to see one auction happens every time I request a ride, the way Google search does. This is so obvious that I’m shocked that it’s so close to 2022 and it doesn’t exist yet.
“But a lot of that is because the glue isn’t there. The interaction of the APIs isn’t there, so once that happens on the shared side, then we have an explosion of opportunity. great for shared operators bidding on Google Maps, which should have made a lot of money from micromobility. So the monetization of micromobility will come through discovery.”
