Week in Review: While the West burns… new EVs and booming bike sales

All across the Western United States, climate change-induced forest fires rage, hammering home the need to pivot to more sustainable forms of mobility. Towards that end, Lucid Motors finally reveals key details of its Air EV, GM and Nikola tie up(but watch out for possible litigation), Uber plans to be 100% zero-emissions by 2040, Phoenix is expanding its rail network, and bike sales continue to boom. And oh yeah – catch the details for this November’s CoMotion LA LIVE!

Does GM know what it’s buying? General Motors and hydrogen / EV truck startup Nikola sign a major deal, with the legacy automaker taking a $2 billion stake in the Arizona company. The first vehicle, a “Badger” SUV, to be built with GM’s Ultium battery platform, is meant to hit the streets in 2022. But it’s looking quite possible things won’t go as planned, with activist shareholders accusing Nikola of engineering nothing more than a massive fraud. Watch this space…

Cue the Elon fanboys: Tesla’s struggles with quality control have long been a known issue, but this latest development really takes the cake: new Model Y owners are finding their $55,000+ cars’ cooling systems are held together with… plywood. Overall, things are looking dicier than usual for the EV leader, with the company missing out on inclusion in the S&P 500, and the stock dropping 21% in one day after hitting nose-bleed inducing highs last month. Never a dull moment in Muskville…

No more holding your breath: Lucid Motors reveals key details of its long awaited “Tesla killer,” the Lucid Air. The ultra-luxurious vehicle boasts an industry-best 400 mile range, advanced technology, and a hefty $170k price tag. Hopefully no plywood included…

Waze malaise? Google-owned mapping service Waze announces a 5% staff reduction, and the closure of offices in LatAm and APAC, as the pandemic continues to change travel patterns and wreak havoc on the advertising market.

Setting aside some green to help others go green: Uber lays out an ambitious roadmap to get to zero emissions by 2040. Even more importantly, the company is setting aside $800 million to help its drivers purchase the vehicles necessary to make the transition. Great, but can we maybe speed this goal up by a decade or two?

Ouch! Washington DC’s Metro system is facing a “looming crisis” as the pandemic continues to ravage ridership and finances. The agency is eyeing big cuts to bus and rail service if it doesn’t receive a quick cash infusion.

Now for some good news: things are looking a bit better for transit out West, with Phoenix going full steam ahead on a planned expansion of its light rail system. Proceeding apace are a new downtown transit hub and an extension to South Phoenix.

Putting passengers first: in our latest CoMotion Mobility Perspective, Moovit’s CMO Yovav Meydad lays out how transit agencies can prioritize the passenger in ways that can rebuild COVID-decimated ridership.

More underground down under? Sydney announces plans for two new metro lines, linking the city’s southeastern suburbs. Unfortunately for traffic-weary Aussies, the project isn’t expected to wrap up until 2056. A little over a quarter-century? Really, mate?

Over or under? Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority acquires the local monorail but that doesn’t mean an expansion is in the works. Instead it lets the government end the system’s “no compete” clause, paving the way for expansion of the nascent Boring Company Loop System.

More boring news: Switzerland is on a tunnel building spree that rivals the railway mania of the late 1800s. The latest one to open – the Ceneri Base Tunnel – cuts north-south travel time by a cool 30 minutes.

FlyAway 2.0: the good folks at L.A. World Airports – who operate LAX – are launching an RFI to gather ideas on what the next generation of the popular FlyAway airport-bus service could look like. Have an idea? Send it to them!

The map is not the territory: it may not quite be mobility news, but this one will still tickle all you technology and mapping geeks – and horrify those of us who still care about political freedoms. In Hong Kong, the government has taken to blurring out Google Maps Street View shots that contain pro-democracy phrases, including oh so scary terms like “fight for freedom.”

Choo choo! Our friend Paul Comfort, the transit evangelist at Trapeze Group, has a new book out, aimed at the world’s most reliable source of train-fandom: young kids. Take a peek at Public Transportation: From the Tom Thumb Railroad to Hyperloop and Beyond.

While the world burns: in Los Angeles, Councilmember Paul Koretz kills a popular plan to bring protected bike lanes and improved pedestrian infrastructure to one of the city’s iconic shopping street, Melrose Avenue. Our friends at Streets For All give a behind-the-scenes look at just what went wrong.

Dusseldorf drones: Aerial startup Lilium teams up with two German airports to build eVTOL drone infrastructure. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia hopes to position itself as a drone transport leader, in time for Lilium’s planned five-seater vehicle launch in 2025.

Yet another Tesla killer: China’s Xpeng Motors debuts on the NYSE and hits a cool $16 billion valuation. While the company’s eerily familiar looking sedan is not yet available in the U.S., investors are excited about its self-driving prowess and impressive battery range.

Get up to speed: did you miss last week’s insightful CoMotion LIVE webinar on the future of UAM regulation? Both eVTOLInsights.com and GovTech break down the big takeaways from our own John Rossant’s discussion with Uber Elvate’s Eric Allison, Wisk’s Dan Dalton, and NEOM’s Florian Lennert.

Best and worst of times: While it has been a turbulent year, 2020 has been good to the e-bike, with sales up to 300% based on several large manufacturers’ released sales figures. And even as the pandemic has hurt makers of e-mopeds and scooters, the sector is still forecast to grow over 6% this year.

More bikes, fewer crashes? In a study of eight Canadian and American cities, researchers surprisingly discovered that reported bicycle crashes do not increase after the introduction of docked public bike sharing programs and actually decrease in cities that already had such bike sharing programs.

Better late than never: Seattle City Council finally approves the city’s first scooter pilot allowing for three companies to operate 500 scooters each, while Naples puts 900 scooters on its streets following similar moves by many other Italian cities.

Two steps forward, one step back: New York City’s long awaited scooter sharing program is impacted by budget shortfalls, delaying the program to late 2021.

God save the scooter: As the U.K. officially approves 12 scooter providers to operate in the country, Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits Lime to take one out for a spin. Meanwhile, Voi is eyeing what could be the world’s largest micromobility contract, with up to 10,000 units to hit the streets in the West Midlands.

Heaps of hardware: E-bike maker Canyon reveals concept to merge car and bike technologies with the goal of creating a vehicle with the best of both worlds. France’s Red Electric aims to eliminate moped range (and speed) anxiety with models up to 300 kms (186 miles) and 120 kmh (74 mph). Lamborghini and Cervelo Cycles create a performance $18,000 limited edition bike to cure any need for speed on two wheels. Hold on to your wallets!