Note: this newsletter is on hiatus as I adjust to my LA-to-NYC transition. Rest assured that I love the Su$tainable Mobility folks and I’m looking forward to properly rebooting this newsletter once things settle down a bit here in the Big Apple. But for now, please see an update on all the startups in Startup Watch and peep an opportunity in NYC to engage with dozens of growth-stage startups, including those in sustainable mobility.

🗽NYC Event Alert🗽: On Tuesday, March 31, 2026 at 3pm, LACI and Second Muse will host a market-making event in Brooklyn that will dive deeper into time-tested tactics to scale startups sustainably, including for those in the mobility space. Startup founders can meet growth-stage partners such as contract manufacturers and workforce partners. 🍎Register here.🍎

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

Since the last newsletter edition (Feb 1, 2026), Startup Watch founders have raised more than $300M. Highlights include:

• Arc (Vol 4) raised a $50M Series C from Andreessen Horowitz, Lowercarbon, Necessary Ventures, and others. This is the first Series C in the dataset

• Phoenix Tailings (Vol 48) raised $30M Series B from Aether and others along with $10M of debt from Nomura

• Mitra EV (Vol 52) raised a $27M Series A from Ultra Capital

• Everimpact (Vol 60) raised a $31M Series A from Ibex, Eclipse, and others

• Scalvy (Vol 65) raised a $14M Series A from Azolla Ventures, Climate Capital, and others

• Halcyon (Vol 72) raised a $21M Series A from Congruent Ventures, Obvious Ventures, and others

• DG Matrix (Vol 73) raised a $60M Series A

• Zeno Earth (Vol 91) raised a $20M Series A from Congruent Ventures and others, along with debt for a total round of $25M

• Zero Homes (Vol 99) raised a $17M Series A from Prelude and others

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🍎DEEP DIVE: SCALING STARTUPS…SUSTAINABLY: AVOIDING THE PITFALLS OF POST-PILOT STAGE GROWTH

(Note: This Deep Dive was first published on LACI’s website earlier this week)

Few things are as rewarding for a hardware founder as turning a customer pilot into a large number of orders, or turning that customer traction into investment to scale the business. For founders that have worked for years to get through multiple valleys of death, moments like these can make it feel like success is now all but guaranteed.

And while many startups don’t ever make it this far, the challenges in scaling after the pilot stage can be daunting, whether you’re a self-funded small business or venture backed startup. Being aware of the most common pitfalls and building a corresponding plan is vital. To continue to climb where many will fail, leaders of highly-effective hardware startups should pay particular attention to three key areas: the pace of manufacturing expansion, designing for equity-enhancing industrial jobs and hiring, and managing working capital with customers and suppliers.

Figure 1: Climate Tech’s Valleys of Death. In moving through the Demonstration to Deployment stage, new challenges emerge in manufacturing, hiring and workforce capital management. Source: Rocky Mountain Institute; Greentech Media

Fortunately, there are programs out there to help you along the way as you navigate these three critical topics, including LACI’s own startup programming. For example, in thinking through how to tackle sustainable production, textbooks talk about moving from prototype to serial production as though doing so involves a simple formula, but the actual transition between the two usually involves a delicate series of steps. As many successful founders can attest, the first several dozen sellable units might be handbuilt before moving on to contract manufacturing and ultimately deciding to in-house production in a dedicated facility. Successful founders avoid the temptation to blitz-scale production and instead ensure that steadily growing production grows over time from more of an operating cost approach (i.e., handbuilt sellable units) to more of a capital heavy approach (i.e., in-house production). Along the way, tapping into a wide variety of prototyping centers – such as Maker Space NYC or the Advanced Prototyping Center at LACI’s campus in downtown LA, and contract manufacturers – is likely going to be key as founders learn to balance the need to quickly enter production to deliver against pilots or first customer contracts, while maintaining the ability to deliver on-time with strong quality and cost controls in place.

One of the least talked about, but most substantial challenges founders face, is learning how to hire thoughtfully to attract and retain talent, in addition to customers and investors. To hire for growth in the manufacturing, technical and industrial part of the business, it is key to consider designing not just for job quantity, but for climate equity and economic opportunity. Successful founders recognize the vital importance of attracting and retaining talent via strong wages and approaches like Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP) while creating creating economic opportunities for local, underrepresented, underserved communities. In parallel, to create a better company that attracts and retains investors and customers, resources like LACI’s Impact Framework help founders manifest values via specific actions to deliver social and economic impact. Additionally, at this stage, as the company frequently grows into double digit headcount, successful founders often build genuine partnerships with workforce development operators to find and train the type of manufacturing, installation and operations and maintenance talent that drives long-term growth.

Now, let’s talk about the capital stack. We often see founders asking us how to manage working capital as the company starts booking real revenue and incurring new manufacturing-related costs. Prior to the production stage, the financial process had generally been taking investor money and stretching it to cover salaries and product development. But in this post-pilot stage, the startup begins to take on much-needed customer revenue while also managing a rapidly ballooning cost base from both new headcount and a large amount of work in process and a growing network of suppliers. This is when venture-backed startups need to learn about the full capital stack beyond venture, including green lending, equipment leasing and factoring. Resources like the first of its kind LACI Cleantech Debt Fund available to support working capital needs for climate startups across the nation, including in New York through incubator partners like The Clean Fight and Second Muse Scale for Climate Tech. It’s common here for startups to learn that certain customer promises around contracts aren’t going to materialize, or the harsh reality that one misstep from a supplier can mean several months of delay in getting a product shipped. Smart founders know that they are balancing accounts payable and accounts receivable in order to avoid running out of cash in the bank.

This post-pilot scaling phase is when the company has the opportunity to reach growth targets that create widespread economic, environmental and social impact. Keeping focused attention on these three interlinked issues of manufacturing, hiring and working capital, including with partners, is what will create an enduring business with loyal customers, committed employees, and satisfied investors.

🗽REMINDER: NYC Event Alert🗽: On Tuesday, March 31, 2026 at 3pm, LACI and Second Muse will host a market-making event in Brooklyn that will dive deeper into time-tested tactics to scale startups sustainably, including for those in the mobility space. Startup founders can meet growth-stage partners such as contract manufacturers and workforce partners. 🍎Register here.🍎

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Some of you have been asking me what is happening with the Su$tainable Mobility newsletter. The answer is that the newsletter on hiatus as I adjust to my LA-to-NYC transition.

Rest assured that I love the Su$tainable Mobility folks and I’m looking forward to properly rebooting this newsletter once things settle down a bit here in the (frozen) Big Apple.

But for now, please see an update on all the startups in Startup Watch and peep the opportunities I’m working on professionally related to piloting (including sustainable mobility), the world of solar plus storage, and all things microfreight (aka last mile-delivery).

Since the last time I published this newsletter (August 10, 2025), things have been a bit…ahem…turbulent in the world. Just as Seinfeld debated whether there can be big and small coincidences, we’re living a real-life debate about how much more “unprecedented” things can become.

Either way, I’m happy to say that many of the startups in the Startup Watch section of this newsletter continue to crush it on the fundraising front, including over $300M since our last check-in.

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💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• XFuel (Vol 6) raised a $20M Series A from AENU and 10 other investors

• RushOwl (Vol 18) raised a $10M Series A from Gobi Partners and others

• ZParq (Vol 30) raised a 5.5M EUR round from Almi Invest Green Tech, Santander, InnoEnergy, and others

• Vammo (formerly Leopardo, Vol 36) raised a $45M Series B from Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Maniv, 2150, and others

• Deftpower (Vol 37) raised a 12.5M round from Endeit Capital and others

• Phoenix Tailings (Vol 48) raised a Series B (amount undisclosed) from Sahin Boydas as well as a $1.6M grant from ARPA-E

• Mitra EV (Vol 52) raised a $7M venture round (investors undisclosed) plus debt

• Pionix (Issue 53) raised an 8M EUR Seed Round from Ascend Capital Partners, Pale Blue Dot, and others

• Hullbot (Vol 59) raised a $16M Series A from Regeneration, Artesian VC, and others

• Ammobia (Vol 63) raised a $7.5M Seed Round from AIR Capital and 12 others

• Valar Atomics (Vol 69) raised a $105M Series A from Day One Ventures, Riot Ventures, Palmer Luckey, and others plus a $75M venture debt round

• SirenOpt (Vol 80) raised a $6.5M round from InMotion Ventures, Hitachi Ventures and others

• Maritime Fusion (Vol 102) raised a $4.5M Seed Round from Trucks VC, Y-Combinator, Aera VC and others

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🍎DEEP DIVE: ALL THINGS NYC

Rest assured, the newsletter will have its moment of rebirth. I’m currently working for LACI (Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator) getting BATWorks, a new $100M climate innovation hub at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, up and running. So, until I can find time for a proper issue with new startups for Startup Watch, some new Quick Hits, and a proper Deep Dive essay, here’s what I’m up to professionally. Rest assured, much of it is focused on scaling sustainable mobility.

So here are 3 updates worth paying attention to:

🎉Pilots at BAT (Brooklyn Army Terminal)

Applications for the next round of Pilots at BAT, now under LACI’s leadership as part of BATWorks, are now open and will close on Feb 24. For those who need customer proof, deployment experience, and credibility to take their innovation to the next level, this is the right opportunity.

Pilots at BAT supports companies deploying technology (including sustainable mobility) in live operating environments while building traction with NYC-based partners.

Interested startups (and corporates) can join us online on February 5th at 4pm ET to learn more about the program, use cases, and application process. Registration link here. Program application here and the program overview here.

🚲 Microfreight (aka Last Mile Delivery) at BATWorks

Thursday, February 19, 5:00-7:00 pm.

This multi-stakeholder discussion from LACI evaluates the opportunity for BATWorks, the new $100M climate innovation hub at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, to become a center of expertise in decarbonized microfreight solutions. Microfreight, or small e-cargo delivery vehicles, can efficiently and sustainably transport goods through neighborhoods that were shipped via ferry, thus reducing the need for highly polluting trucks.

This convening is suitable for those with an interest in the maritime and last-mile delivery sector, including startups, environmental justice groups, non-profits, shippers, delivery services, bike shops, philanthropy, local businesses, corporates, government, etc.

Register here for this convening at BATWorks on Thursday, February 19, 5:00-7:00 pm.

☀️🔋Solar and Storage at BAT

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is looking for qualified solar energy (plus storage) developers to submit for a lease and Power Purchase Agreement for carport-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) systems at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Imagine the possibilities for a plug-and-play microgrid that could allow startups to pilot new EV charging solutions across hardware and software! Submissions due by Tuesday, Feb 24, 2026.

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I’m excited to be teaming up with Laura Fox of Streetlife Ventures to co-host a Mobility Happy Hour in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Sept 9. It’ll be a great chance to chat about our summers, mobility trends, and New York Climate Week later in the month. Join us and spread the word! Be sure to sign up here.

In this issue’s Deep Dive, we’re looking at how the US is starting to lag way behind in the EV transition, snatching defeat from the jaws of an early victory. The country that gave birth to Tesla is risking becoming an also ran if something big doesn’t change.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Atoba Energy (France): Financing mechanism for sustainable aviation fuel

• Cycling Batteries (New York, USA): Batteries designed for micromobility

• IonRoad (California, USA): Battery lifecycle management software

• Maxi Mobility (Italy): Electrification as a service for the taxi sector

• Power Shelter (Netherlands): E-bike battery charging lockers

• Resollant (Texas, USA): Novel reactor designed for clean hydrogen/syngas for aviation fuels and other applications

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• McEasy (Vol 16) raised a $3M extension to their Series A from Granite Asia

• Valar Atomics (Vol 69) raised a Series A from Blackwing (amount undisclosed)

• AIR EV (formerly AIR EVTOL, Vol 87) raised a $23M Series A from Entrée Capital and Shmuel Harlap

• MobyFly (Vol 92) raised a $12.5M Series A from the Environmental and Solidarity Revolution Fund, Crédit Mutuel, and others

• Cervo AI (Vol 111) raised a $5M Seed round from Crossbeam Venture Partners and Zetta Venture Partners

  As a reminder, the startup data set is free (for now) to subscribers. If you’re a subscriber interested in accessing the Airtable with how these startups raised $3.5 billion in follow-on funding, please let me know.

  Send me the Airtable link

📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

⛴️ In New York City, the Governors Island ferry is going electric. That’s one ferry down and many more to go.

🇨🇳 China warned its EV makers to stop the price cuts. Competition in the Chinese EV market is still absolutely cutthroat.

🚅 In the US, Amtrak’s higher-speed rail service Acela will finally deploy part of its fleet of faster trains later this month. The new trains offer almost 30% more passenger capacity and cut travel time from DC to Boston by about 15 minutes.

🔬Markets & Research

🚶‍♀️New MIT research shows that we now walk about 15% faster in cities than we did in 1980. The ubiquity of cell phones may mean that public spaces are becoming more transactional rather than community-centric.

🗽Geotab has a fantastic overview of the benefits of NYC’s congestion pricing. It’s a runaway success, even if the fee is lower than originally planned.

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🏨 According to Hilton Hotels, the availability of EV chargers is one of the highest-converting features on their website. Any EV owner will tell you the pain of trying to plan charging on a road trip.

👩🏽‍⚖️Uber may receive a report of sexual assault or harassment every in the US every 8 minutes. This explains why many have tried to scale ridehail networks by women drivers for women passengers.

🤖 Lyft plans to launch robotaxis in Europe next year with Baidu. Fresh off entering Europe via M&A, Lyft has a lot to prove on the continent.

🤠 Waymo has launched a robotaxi partnership with Avis to serve the Dallas market. Waymo and Uber (and Lyft) are now in an arms race to lock up potential partners in the robotaxi market.

👨🏽‍⚖️A Florida jury decided that Tesla was partially responsible for an accident involving its “Autopilot” technology and ordered it to pay a $243M fine. This is a precedent-setting outcome.

🌪️In other Tesla bad news: brand loyalty continues to plummet, and the new Tesla diner in LA is getting tepid reviews. But in good news, the US military may purchase Cybertrucks for missile practice, the company secured a permit to run a robotaxi network in Texas, and Elon Musk got a $29B stock grant from the board to keep him engaged.

🚢 Shipping giant Matson will no longer ship EVs. Other shipping giants may adapt their approaches in response.

🦊 Foxconn’s dreams of contract manufacturing EVs in the US appear to have come to an end, at least for now. This is eerily reminiscent of Foxconn’s broken promise to build a mega electronics factory in Wisconsin.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🔋 B2U (Startup Watch Vol 50) began construction on a 24MWh grid storage site in Texas with repurposed EV batteries. That’s enough to power about 800 homes for a month.

♻️ The assets of battery recycling startup Li-Cycle, which entered bankruptcy earlier this year, were acquired by mining giant Glencore. Li-Cycle had raised $1.5B, but Glencore purchased the assets for $40M.

🔋U.S. battery startup Lyten has agreed to buy most of bankrupt Swedish battery maker Northvolt. For more on Northvolt, see the Deep Dive Northvolt is the canary in the coalmine for Europe and North America.

🚁 Air taxi (eVTOL) company Joby bought the passenger business of Blade for $125M. The acquisition makes Joby both an equipment manufacturer and a network operator, akin to how United Airlines was once part of Boeing.

✈️ JetZero continues to gain traction, increasing the likelihood that it eventually challenges the Boeing-Airbus duopoly. For more on Boeing’s vulnerability, see the Deep Dive Boeing's Nosedive is Our Climate Problem to Fix.

🚲 Belgian e-bike maker Cowboy may be on the verge of bankruptcy (article in French). Dutch rival VanMoof entered bankruptcy in 2023…

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DEEP DIVE: THE GALAPAGOS SYNDROME IN EVs

In the early 2010s, the US was the beating heart of the EV revolution, driven by California’s bold climate policy and Silicon Valley’s appetite for disruption. Today, it risks becoming an EV island, drifting from global momentum and standards, a modern “Galapagos syndrome” in the making.

Supported by California’s policy leadership, Tesla’s bet on EVs turned out to be a global game changer. Tesla is now the world’s most valuable carmaker by a large margin and inspired dozens of other companies, from Rivian in the US to Nio in China.

That early lead is rapidly slipping away, and changes in federal policies may isolate the US market from the rest of the world. On July 29, the Trump Administration proposed to revoke a landmark EPA greenhouse gas finding that would alter the trajectory of EVs in the US. If the proposal ultimately passes, it would repeal all greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks, including medium and heavy-duty. And the federal government continues to try to undermine California’s policy making authority.

While California is still holding its own, the US overall is now behind a wide variety of markets across population size (e.g., China and Singapore), income level (e.g., Denmark and Nepal), and domestic production-oriented vs import-oriented.

If things don’t reverse course, the US runs the risk of falling victim to the Galapagos syndrome. The syndrome is inspired by Japan’s mobile phone market in the early 2000s, where domestic devices evolved in isolation from global norms, creating products highly adapted to the local market but incompatible abroad. The result: technological irrelevance for previously global cell phone players like Kyocera.

That’s the kind of impact that takes companies like General Motors and Ford and slowly turns them into marginal players. It also increases the risk that the US startup innovation ecosystem around EVs can’t compete on the global stage.

The US can still compete, but only if it re-engages with the global EV race on the terms the rest of the world is setting. The alternative is clear: an industry that innovated for the future will find itself stranded in the past.

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This issue’s Deep Dive analyzes how robots, from robotic hands and humanoids to self-driving cars, are becoming both the infrastructure and the application layer of modern mobility.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Crabi Robotics (Massachusetts, USA): Autonomous marine robotic system designed to clean marine vessels and removing biofouling

• eFoil (Sweden): Electric surfboards and accessories

• Infinx Mobility (Cote d’Ivoire): Electric motorcycles & mobile battery network

• Little Red Riding Hood (Pennsylvania, USA): Ridehail network for seniors

• ScoptVision (Belgium): Software to turn EV chargers into a grid asset

• Super Powers Mobility (Pennsylvania, USA): Electrification of off-road vehicles

• TetherIA (California, USA): Dexterous robotic hand to enable advanced physical AI

• Voltest (North Carolina, USA): EV battery health reports

• Western Magnetics Company (California, USA): US-built electric motors for drones and robotics

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Electra (Vol 5) secured a 433M EUR debt facility, bringing their total funding to over 1 billion

• Nevoya (Vol 68) raised a $9.3M Seed Round from Lowercarbon, Floating Point, LMNT Ventures, and others

• ex9 (Vol 79) raised a 2M EUR Seed Round from Femmes Business Angels, Impulse4Women/SIA, Oscar Club, ARAN Ventures, gener8tor, and others

• Estes Energy (Vol 100) raised an $11M Seed Round from Fortescue and BMW iVentures, along with Clocktower Ventures, New System Ventures, and DCVC

• Serenity Power (Vol 104) secured $100K for winning the Black Entrepreneurship Investment Prize at Startupfest 2025

  Newsletter readers include investors from Maniv, Trucks VC, and Fontinalis…but also urbanists, founders, and policymakers shaping what moves next

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

😰 In London, actress Joan Collins is up in arms about micromobility. Her diary column in The Spectator didn’t try to hide her xenophobia, with Collins noting, “many of these delivery people are allegedly the same immigrants washing up on our shores.”

🚊 In Atlanta, the CEO of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) was forced to resign over a green card delay. A sharp reminder that bureaucracy can derail entire systems.

🏭 California Forever announced the launch of a massive manufacturing-as-a-service offering. Planned cities are always full of surprises, just see the history of EPCOT.

🇨🇳 China continues to tighten its export controls for inputs used in EV batteries. For more context, see the Deep Dive The Next Cold War is Already Here.

👩🏽‍⚖️ The International Court of Justice ruled that a "clean, healthy and sustainable environment" is a human right. This provides a legal basis for smaller countries to claim reparations against large polluter states.

🔬Markets & Research

🛣️ Progressive think tank Climate and Community Institute has a new white paper on climate transportation policy. It’s a good reminder of how addicted the US is to highway spending.

Join climate investors like ArcTern, Breakthrough Energy, Keyframe Capital, Blue Bear Capital, and Montauk Climate in staying informed…

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

💧Stellantis scrapped its program to build hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vans. For more on hydrogen, see Hydrogen’s Make or Break Moment.

⚡️Hyundai became the first global automaker after Tesla to adopt the 48-volt standard. Hyundai/Kia might be the legacy carmaker most successfully transitioning into the electric era. Perhaps the fact that the company’s car history only dates to 1967 is an asset in the EV transition versus, say, the long history of Mercedes.

↘️ Tesla reported its second straight quarter of large revenue declines, with all hopes pinned on autonomy and robotics. It’s not ideal that the company might be launching its robotaxi network in SF this weekend without approval and is behind on its robotics goals.

🚉 In the US, rail giant Siemens will supply the nation’s first battery-electric trains, capable of running either on overhead catenary wire or by battery. New York’s MTA will utilize the trains on Metro-North, potentially expanding to communities on non-electrified lines, such as Danbury, CT.

🙋🏽‍♀️Uber launched "Women Rider Preferences" in LA, SF, and Detroit, letting women drivers opt to pick up women riders. A good reminder of how mobility and personal safety are inextricably linked.

🚐 Lyft is partnering with Bentler for autonomous shuttles. There’s still a lot for Lyft to figure out in autonomy.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🚙 Peer-to-peer carsharing startup Turo acquired many of the assets of Kyte. Kyte had raised over $500M in funding to scale the model of delivering rental cars to people’s homes.

🔋 Natron, the sodium-ion battery startup, may be running out of money. Nobody said building a battery value chain in the US would be easy.

🚄 Brightline, the higher-speed private rail startup in the US, is quite far from its revenue and ridership targets. Perhaps that’s why high-speed rail in other countries is generally a public good, not a private enterprise.

🔨 Former engineers from Waymo raised $80M to make construction autonomous. It will be a nice help, but the big unlock for making construction more cost-effective in the US requires policy reform.

🛴 UK-based scooter startup Bo has unveiled an e-scooter that can move at 160km/h (100mph). Luckily, the scooter isn’t really for sale…

📈 Transit optimization startup Via has filed for an IPO. After almost $1B and 13 years of history, early investors are looking to get their returns.

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DEEP DIVE: The Robots are Moving Themselves

Mobility is a vertical domain focused on the movement of people and goods, including what gets moved, where and why. Robotics, on the other hand, is a horizontal capability linked to machines that can sense, process information, and act upon the physical world.

For the last several decades, robotics and mobility hardly intersected. Those days are now firmly over. Much as AI is a fundamentally transforming finance, healthcare, and education, robotics is now becoming a core infrastructure layer of mobility.

And the robots don’t care what’s in their path. Just as AI might decimate traditional software industries, newly developed hardware will allow robots to reshape the application layer of the entire mobility ecosystem, replacing both humans and vehicles in making the world move.

Czech writer Karel Čapek introduced the concept of the robot in the 1920s. Fresh from the horrors of the first World War, Čapek’s play “R.U.R.” warned against the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives.

In the 1940s and 1950s, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had a much more optimistic assessment of robots and their potential role in society, articulating the Three Laws of Robotics.

Despite both Čapek’s fears and Asimov’s optimism, the impact of robotics on our mobility system (and world in general) was quite limited. One of the most notable applications was in factory automation, starting in the 1960s.

But the concept of a fully automated factory remained elusive. By the 1980s and 1990s, experiments had taught automakers that only a subset of manufacturing tasks could be delegated to robots; humans remained indispensable.

In the last few decades, though, the fundamental infrastructure of both software and hardware has evolved tremendously. As a result, robotics is not just fundamental supporting infrastructure, but also replacing traditional mobility form factors.

While there’s a public debate about the impact of AI on how work gets done, there has been less discussion about the impact of robotics. Every sidewalk robot improves the fleet. Every robotaxi mile sharpens the stack. Humans don’t scale this way.

As with software, the real disruption from robotics comes not from replacing one task, but from rewiring the entire cost structure of movement. When labor becomes software, when vehicles become fleets, and when delivery becomes autonomous, the economics of mobility change.

Whether this ultimately helps or hurts our sustainability goals for transportation is an open question. Either way, the robots are moving themselves and taking the entire mobility stack with them.

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🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Cervo AI (New York, USA): Software to help 3PLs automate workflows with AI automation

• Coul St (Pennsylvania, USA): Curbside EV charging network

• Headlight (Netherlands): Fleet management software

• Iron Robotics (Michigan, USA): Humanoid robotics for manufacturing and goods delivery (among other use cases)

• Peke Labs (Massachusetts, USA): Wearable, gesture-based control system (think wayfinding assistance while riding a bike, among many other use cases)

• Wattlab (Netherlands): Embedded solar to decarbonize inland barges

• Wayla (Italy): Vanpooling network

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Buupaas (Vol 25) raised funding from Yango Ventures (amount undisclosed)

• Zeem Solutions (Vol 25) secured a $5.1M grant from the Northwest Seaport Alliance

• Ionic Mineral Technologies (Vol 50) raised a $29M Series B round (investors undisclosed)

• DejaBlue (Vol 57) raised an $8.4M Seed Round from redalpine, Zeno Ventures, and Bpifrance

• SunTrain (Vol 74) announced initial backers for its Series A, including the University of Washington endowment and Collins Electric Company

• Clippership (Vol 95) raised a $4.6M Seed Round from Fifty Years and Founders Factory

• Cariqa (Vol 102) raised a 4M EUR Seed Round from Anthemis, Contrarian Ventures, and others

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🇩🇪 Berlin is inching closer to banning cars in its downtown. Look for a referendum on the topic in 2026.

🗽 New York City’s congestion pricing has reached the six-month mark. It has met or exceeded its metrics, but its future is far from certain.

🚄 California is fighting back against President Trump’s plan to defund its high-speed rail program. This will be an uphill battle for California.

🇺🇸 President Trump signed his One Big Beautiful Bill, creating massive headwinds for everything from EVs and commuter benefits to CAFE fuel efficiency programs. It’s hard to find a silver lining here.

🤔 The US Dept of Defense is becoming the biggest shareholder in MP Materials, the only operating rare earth mine and processing facility in the US. For more on the geopolitics of batteries, see the Deep Dive “The Next Cold War is Already Here.”

🔬Markets & Research

🇨🇳 Consultancy AlixPartners predicts that only 15 EV brands will be viable in China by 2030. That’s about 100 brands or so that won’t make it.

🇬🇧 Research from the UK shows that car dependency leads to loneliness, particularly in rural areas. It comes down to choice as well as more social forms of transportation.

🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🔁 Chinese battery giant CATL is bringing its battery swap solution to Europe. Don’t bet against CATL.

📲 Xiaomi, one of China’s leading tech companies, now appears to be a successful car company as well. Apple spent $10B to become a car company and then aborted mission before launching.

🙈 Tesla’s bad news continues, as CEO Elon Musk struggles to stem the decline, with the Austin robotaxi launch underwhelming and new data showing brand perception dropping in the US among Democrats and Republicans. That’s not stopping Musk from starting a third political party.

🦊 Foxconn may save a Nissan factory in Japan from closure. For more, see the Deep Dive on Foxconn.

👩‍🏭 Steel giant ArcelorMittal has dropped plans to make green steel in Germany, turning down over one billion euros of aid. This adds more headwinds to the hydrogen story, which is one of the pathways to producing green steel.

🚙 VW increased its stake in Rivian just as the EV maker announced a drop in deliveries due to tariffs. Both partners seem to need each other more than ever.

🚛 Volvo Group has now delivered 5,000 electric heavy-duty trucks. Tesla has yet to reach 200 semis delivered.

📦 Walmart has begun opening “dark stores” to get closer to customers. Scaling last-mile delivery fundamentally means putting warehouses closer to where people live.

🥡 Doordash stock is up over 100% in the last year, with its market cap exceeding $100B. Lyft, meanwhile, has a market cap of about $7B.

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🐣 Startups & Early Stage

BATX Energy (Startup Watch Vol 34) announced a battery recycling partnership with Vietnam’s VinFast. VinFast’s future is far from certain, but battery recycling is an imperative for India’s economic future.

⛴️ Photon Marine (Startup Watch Vol 24) secured access to CARB funding for its electric boat. California is setting the standard for maritime decarbonization, but look to New York/New Jersey and Washington to step up their game.

🏕️ Grounded RV (Startup Watch Vol 52) debuted its first electric RV. The vehicle leverages the GM Brightdrop electric van.

🚲 The micromobility startup Also, which spun out of Rivian, just raised $200M and reached a $1B valuation. If Lime, Bird, VanMoof, and Rad Power Bikes were the big bets of micromobility 1.0, Also might be one of the big bets of micromobility 2.0.

🇺🇸 Florida-based autonomy startup Beep claims to have launched the first autonomous public transit system in the US. While Waymo prioritizes individual riders, Beep’s system is a shared shuttle van.

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DEEP DIVE: 10 Women-Founded Sustainable Mobility Startups to Follow: 2025 Edition

In the summer of 2022, in cooperation with Sarah Barnes from Along for the Ride this newsletter documented 10 Women-Founded Sustainable Mobility Startups to Follow. It’s now become a summer tradition, with the editions in 2023 and 2024 adding another 10 startups to the mix each year.

Despite the innumerable headwinds of the last year, whether economic, financial, or social, those 30 startups continue to demonstrate their exceptional prowess. Highlights over the past year for the list alumni include funding rounds, customer traction, and technology deployment milestones.

Now, we’re proud to present the 2025 edition: 10 new, exceptional women-founded or co-founded startups tackling climate change in real, tangible ways across the mobility, energy, and logistics ecosystem..

1. Dioxycle

• Who: Dr. Sarah Lamaison (Co-Founder & CEO) and Dr. David Wakerley (Co-Founder & CTO)

• What: A deep-tech startup converting industrial CO₂ into ethylene via an electrolyzer

• When & Where: Founded in Paris in 2021; closed a $17 million Series A in July 2023 and began prototype operations by 2022–2023

• Why: Ethylene is a major feedstock for plastics, textiles, and packaging, helping supply chains reduce CO₂ and avoid fossil fuels

2. Arxax

• Who: Elham Hassanzadeh (Co-Founder & CEO), Carlo Mallone (Co-Founder & CTO), and Giuseppe Costanza (Co-Founder & CPO)

• What: Deploying intelligent electric and hydrogen refueling hubs for road freight, combo hardware + AI-driven demand forecasting

• When & Where: Based in Europe; recently raised €1 million to expand across Europe

• Why: Offers scalable infrastructure for decarbonizing heavy-duty logistics

3. Navier

• Who: Dr. Sampriti Bhattacharyya (Co-Founder & CEO) and Reo Baird (Co-Founder & former CTO)

• What: Produces fully-electric hydrofoil vessels

• When & Where: Launched in the SF Bay Area; pilot launched in March 2024 with Stripe waterfront shuttle program

• Why: Hydrofoils lift 90% of the hull out of the water. Navier boats achieve 10× fuel efficiency vs. conventional vessels.

4. Mardeca

• Who: Gabriela Joelsas Timerman (Founder & CEO)

• What: Energy-efficiency retrofits for maritime vessels

• When & Where: Founded in July 2024; operating in Europe

• Why: Helps shipping companies optimize alternative retrofit options to save fuel and cut emissions

  ---

5. E‑lixr

• Who: Nathalie Paiva (Co-Founder & CXO) and Sam Payrovi (Co-Founder & CEO)

• What: All-electric water taxi and marine ride-hailing service

• When & Where: Pilot launched on Miami’s Biscayne Bay in Sep–Dec 2024

• Why it Matters: Accelerating zero-emission urban mobility on waterways

  ---

6. Bidirectional Energy

• Who: Frances Bell (Co-Founder & CEO) and Angela Zhang (Co-Founder & former CEO)

• What: Smart bidirectional EV chargers enabling grid support

• When & Where: Began recruiting EV owners for V2G program in April 2025; partnered with Wallbox/CA Energy Commission

• Why: Allows EV owners to earn from vehicle storage while strengthening grid resilience

  ---

7. Dacora Motors

• Who: Kristie D'Ambrosio-Correll (Co-Founder & CEO) & Eric D’Ambrosio-Correll (Co-Founder and CTO)

• What: Ultra-luxury EV brand; revealed $500K+ bespoke model

• When & Where: America-based; official launch and media coverage in June 2025

• Why: First woman-founded US-based luxury EV automaker since the 1920s

  ---

8. Serenity Power

• Who: Aleisha Reese Cerny (Co-Founder & CEO) and Yvonne Liu (Co-Founder & COO)

• What: Solid oxide fuel cell systems for portable and remote power

• When & Where: University of Toronto spinout started in 2023

• Why: Offers cleaner alternatives to diesel generators in remote and harsh environments

  ---

9. Rune Aero

• Who: Nadine Auda (Co-Founder & CEO)

• What: Autonomous hydrogen-electric cargo aircraft

• When & Where: Based in Georgia; just secured a NASA SBIR Phase 2 contract.

• Why: Aviation needs a breakthrough to decarbonize

10. Gelectric

• Who: Efil Bengisu Saygi (Co-Founder & CEO) and Rıza Özdülger (Co-Founder & CTO)

• What: IoT to improve energy efficiency in maritime applications

• When & Where: Netherlands-based; deployed on multiple vessels

• Why: Shipping’s energy footprint is enormous

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Barefoote Metals (Connecticut, USA): Transforming mine waste into a resource by combining enhanced weathering with phytomining

• E-Force Marine (Florida, USA): Electric boats and electric powertrains for retrofit

• Gelectric (Netherlands): IoT to improve energy efficiency in maritime applications

• Nascent Materials (New Jersey, USA): US-made cathodes for batteries

• Nema Systems (California, USA): AI agents to accelerate robotics hardware design (e.g., autonomous vehicles)

• OBH (France): On-board helmet for shared micromobility

• Range Truck (Washington, USA): Zero-emission commercial truck dealer group

• Rune Aero (Georgia, USA): Autonomous hybrid-electric aircraft purpose-built for regional cargo operations

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Superlocal (Vol 85) was acquired by Foursquare; this is the 16th exit in the database

• Tether (Vol 90) raised a $1.5M pre-Seed round from Draper B1, Kfund, Enzo Ventures, and others

• AndrenaM (Vol 91) raised a $10M Seed round from First Round Capital and others

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🗽New York City’s mayoral primary turned out to be a battle of subway riders and car owners. Those in subway-dense parts of town generally voted Mamdani while those in neighborhoods with more car ownership went for Cuomo.

👣 In Washington, D.C., city council is evaluating whether to charge different DMV registration fees based on car weight. Many DMVs do this for commercial vehicles, but not passenger cars.

🚞 In the Bay Area, Caltrain has now logged a 50% increase in ridership thanks to electrification. The rapid acceleration from standstill for electric makes Caltrain a much faster operator.

🇮🇪 Ireland’s Department of Transport has published a new policy mandating shared mobility hubs in every local authority. Interesting move.

🇬🇧 In the UK, the H2 high-speed rail program is delayed, again. If there’s one thing Anglophone countries no longer do well, it’s rail.

🇺🇸 In the US, a federal district judge ordered the Trump Administration to release $5B in EV charging infrastructure funds. The judge ordered the release of the NEVI funds, but only to the states that brought the lawsuit.

📭 The Big Beautiful Bill continues to make its long journey through Congress. For now, the Senate Parliamentarian has decided that the language to force the auction of USPS electric trucks must be dropped from the bill.

🔬Markets & Research

🐰 Motion sickness in EVs can be triggered by higher levels of regenerative braking. Luckily, the level of regenerative braking can usually be modified by the driver.

🇧🇪 In Belgium, the CO2 of company cars has dropped by one-third in just two years. Belgium’s tax policy on company cars prompted employers to shift towards EVs.

🐢 In Bologna, the new 30 km/h only has a 60% compliance rate. But the benefits include more fluid traffic for all.

🇬🇧 The UK is still on track to reach net zero by 2050. The adoption of electric cars is having a measurable and rapidly growing effect on emissions, while progress in aviation is hard to find.

🇮🇹 How does Italy get high-speed rail installed for so much less than the US? Among many other learnings: less reliance on the private sector, including for engineering work.

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🐙 Octopus Energy and BYD have launched the UK’s first vehicle-to-grid (V2G) bundle program. V2G needs to be seamless to scale, so execution will be key to this partnership.

🦾 Tesla’s robotaxi launch in Austin has captured the interest of federal regulators. And not in a good way…

🦿Waymo continues its robotaxi ascent, launching in Atlanta. Next up is preparing to launch in NYC.

🥷 At the same time, Waymo is finding that disgruntled locals in Santa Monica are pulling out all the stops to interrupt the noisy nighttime charging process. Robotaxi charging depots may be the new urban warehouse for last-mile delivery: everyone wants the benefit of them nearby, so long as the infrastructure is in another neighborhood.

🏭 Amazon-owned Zoox has opened its first production facility dedicated to building robotaxis in Hayward, California. Waymo has the head start in robotaxis, but Zoox’s ace may end up being integration with Amazon’s goods delivery empire.

🐴 Uber is working with its ousted founder Travis Kalanick to put together a takeover bid for autonomous vehicle company Pony AI. Uber’s recent plan has been to be a network provider to multiple robotaxi companies; whether this means a change of strategy is unclear.

🔌 Uber drivers now car more about charging than they do about EV cost. Uber EV drivers have grown by 60% of the last year and only 1/3 of them have access to home charging.

🔋 Ford is moving forward with its US battery plant, even with regulatory uncertainty. This is sorely needed good news for the North American EV market.

📦 Honda will start manufacturing e-quad cycles for goods delivery. They’ll provide competition for startups like Fernhay.

🤖 DHL has started deploying robots for warehouse jobs unloading trucks. They’ll start showing up for last-mile delivery relatively soon.

🚊 Fuel cell company Ballard will provide hydrogen powertrains to Sierra Northern trains in California. For more on hydrogen’s limits, see the Deep Dive in Vol 67.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🚚 Sunswap (Startup Watch Vol 10) has deployed its first solar-powered refrigerated trucks with Tesco. Embedded solar is a certainty, even if its timing is debatable.

♻️ Moment Energy (Startup Watch Vol 48) reached full-scale manufacturing for its battery repurposing facility in Canada Battri (Startup Watch Vol 63) has launched its battery recycling facility in France. Excellent to see more North American and European supply chain capability.

🔋Phoenix Tailings (Startup Watch Vol 48) told Bloomberg that it’s aiming to IPO within the next 3 years. Gotta respect the determination.

🚁 Beta Technologies landed the first passenger-carrying eVTOL (air taxi) at JFK. Whether this is a niche application or a mass market product is still up in the air.

What do the US DOT, US DOE, US EPA, NYC DOT, NREL, and the California Air Resources Board have in common? Subscribers to this newsletter!

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The Private Giants of Climate Mobility: 6 Startups Past Series C That Haven't Gone Public (Yet)

While the media often obsesses over the next Rivian IPO, a quieter cohort of startups is building the future of climate mobility. These companies have cleared the Series C bar, raised significant capital, and proven their tech works in the real world. But they haven’t hit the public markets or been acquired…yet.

Each of these companies is likely weighing whether they have a strong enough case for an IPO (once the IPO window unfreezes) or whether an exit to a strategic is the best path forward. Here are six companies reshaping the sector from behind the scenes:

1. Candela (Sweden)

What they do: Build electric hydrofoil ferries and boats with ultra-efficient energy use, using their patented C-Foil system.

Why it matters: Maritime transport is a massive emissions source, and most electrification efforts have ignored it. Candela’s P-12 ferry can cut energy use by 80% while slashing travel times across waterways. See the Deep Dive in Vol 25 for more.

Series C: $40M raised in 2024

Customers: City of Stockholm, NEOM (Saudi Arabia), U.S. lakefront operators

2. Liquid Wind (Sweden)

What they do: Produce green e-methanol for the shipping industry using captured CO2 and renewable electricity.

Why it matters: Over 90% of global trade travels by ship. Green fuels like e-methanol may offer a scalable way to decarbonize without replacing entire fleets.

Series C: $47M in 2024

Customers/Partners: Siemens Energy, Alfa Laval

3. ZeroAvia (UK/USA)

What they do: Develop hydrogen-electric powertrains for small to mid-size regional aircraft.

Why it matters: Aviation emissions are among the hardest to abate. ZeroAvia’s engines aim to decarbonize short-haul flights, a key slice of the global aviation pie. For more, see the Deep Dive in Vol 50.

Series C: $116M Series C in 2024

Customers/Partners: American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Shell

4. Ample (USA)

What they do: Battery swapping infrastructure for EVs.

Why it matters: Charging remains one of EV adoption’s biggest friction points. Whether battery swap scales may vary tremendously by application (e.g., heavy-duty trucks vs individually-owned passenger cars).

Series C: $160M in 2021

Customers: Stellantis, Mitsubishi Fuso, last-mile delivery partners

5. Lime (USA)

What they do: Operates the world’s largest shared e-scooter and e-bike network, spanning 30+ countries.

Why it matters: Micromobility is key to replacing short car trips and reducing urban congestion/emissions. Lime is one of the few operators to reach profitability. For more, see the Deep Dive in Vol 43.

Series D: Over $300M raised; valuation >$1B

Traction: Claims positive EBITDA since 2022; IPO expected but delayed

6. FINN (Germany)

What they do: Electric vehicle subscription service with flexible terms and direct delivery.

Why it matters: EV ownership barriers remain high. FINN’s model lowers the commitment to enable electrification at scale.

Series C: $110M in 2024 followed by a $1B debt facility in early 2025

Traction: ARR €160M+

These companies may not have rung the NASDAQ bell (yet), but they're shaping the future of transport more than many public firms.

Who else in this space are you keeping an eye on for a potential IPO or M&A? Feel free to add a comment below.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Artificient (Germany): Vehicle safety software using cellphone data

• The Dandy Horse (New York, USA): Software to validate micromobility miles for employers and others

• Moddule (Washington, USA): Supply chain optimization software

• Nox Mobility (Germany): Night train network with dedicated sleeper cabins

• Sava (California, USA): Automated sheet metal manufacturing to reduce supply chain waste

• Travaras (California, USA): Travel booking platform for low-carbon travel

• Ultra (California, USA): Delivery robots, starting with warehouses

• US Coastal Service (New York, USA): Blue highway solution to move freight by inland waterway rather than trucks

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Natrion (Vol 48) secured a $250K grant from the Upstate New York Energy Storage Engine

• Shovels (Vol 50) raised a $5M Seed Round from Base10 Partners

• Glid (Vol 74) announced that its backers now include DraperU Ventures, Antler, and The Veteran Fund ($ amount undisclosed)

• ENVGO (Vol 89) raised a $2M Seed Round from Two Small Fish Ventures, with Garage Capital and angel investors

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🥺 Washington, D.C. became yet another American city to tear out protected bike infrastructure. Not good news.

🚲 New York City demanded that Citibike operator Lyft limit its e-bike fleet to a top speed of 15 miles per hour. There’s benefit in having some national regulations on micromobility; right now it’s a sub-scale patchwork of rules.

🅿️ Los Angeles City Council has made its first step toward eliminating parking minimums. It’s early in the process, but encouraging.

🔥As political protests spread in Los Angeles, Waymo robotaxis became a target for arson. Waymo captures an immense amount of surveillance data, but is quiet about what it shares with law enforcement. Over this weekend, Waymo has suspended operations throughout LA and is scaling back in others cities.

⚓️ Norway is funding one of the most ambitious maritime decarbonization efforts, including battery-powered ships that will be able to carry 850 containers. For more on the electrification of maritime, see the deep dive in Vol 29.

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

📍Apple’s new map update will learn your commute. For more on the mapping wars, see the deep dive in Vol 62.

🦿Amazon is training humanoid robots for parcel delivery. It’s not an issue of “if”, it’s an issue of “when.”

🍋‍🟩 Uber has renewed its partnership with Lime. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

🔋 Battery maker AESC is halting the construction of its US EV battery plant due to “political uncertainty and weakening market demand.” Construction of its French plant is moving forward.

🔌 The opening of Tesla’s Supercharger network to non-Tesla vehicles is going…okay. It’s proving difficult for all players to match software and hardware in a more open ecosystem.

🙈 In Tesla news, French owners have started a class action lawsuit, Cybertruck sales are getting worse, and the robotaxi launch in Austin is delayed. Shareholders are waiting to see whether President Trump will punish both Tesla and SpaceX now that he and Tesla CEO Musk are in a cooling-off period.

⚡️ Dutch car-sharing operator MyWheels has started to deploy a fleet of 500 Renaults with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities. Fleets will be a key to scaling V2G in the early years.

🎖️ Renault has begun drone production in Ukraine. Multiple European automakers are diving into the defense industry, just like during World War II.

🏍️ Chinese cell phone maker Transsion, who dominates Africa’s cell phone market, now has its eyes set on e-motorcycles. They’ll be competing with a slew of local startups, some Indian transplants, and other Chinese players.

💰As Waymo robotaxis scale, it appears that consumers are willing to pay a price premium vs Uber and Lyft. We’re at the early adopter stage, so time will tell whether this pattern holds at scale.

🚄 High-speed rail operator Eurostar has announced it will start serving Geneva and Frankfurt. The company needs to up its game as other high speed operators plan to compete with Eurostar’s use of the Chunnel connecting France and the UK.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

♻️ Bib Batteries (Startup Watch Vol 40) has announced a pan-European partnership with Bird scooters. We love to see the scaling of battery circularity.

Infinite Machine (Startup Watch Vol 93) revealed its seated scooter that will cost $3,495 when it ships later this year. Infinite is now backed by Andreesen Horowitz, so expectations are high.

🦄 Nigerian-born fintech-meets-mobility startup Moove is aiming to raise $300M at a $1B plus valuation. Being loved by both Waymo and Uber has its benefits.

✈️ Blended wing body airplane manufacturer JetZero has chosen North Carolina for its first factory. For more on decarbonization aviation, see the deep dive in Vol 50.

🚁 eVTOL startup Archer has now started piloted test flights. The pathway to commercialization now looks easier given the recent executive order from President Trump to accelerate the deployment of eVTOLs, drone delivery, and supersonic aircraft.

💡WeaveGrid has launched its V2G pilot with Toyota and Baltimore Gas and Electric, allowing customers to opt in via the Toyota app. Seamless convenience will be table stakes in making vehicle-to-grid scale.

🔁 Battery swap startup Ample has deployed with Stellantis’ Free2Move unit using electric Fiat 500s in Madrid. Battery swap is evolving slowly in cars, but at hyperspeed in micromobility, particularly in East Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

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MaaS Without Borders: Global Pilots You Should Know (and Learn From)

Imagine never needing to own a car again. Not because you gave it up, but because your phone knows exactly when, how, and with what mode you’ll get to your next destination.

That’s the premise of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS). But while the concept has been hyped for nearly a decade, execution has lagged, stymied by misaligned incentives, municipal red tape, and unproven business models.

Yet, several MaaS pilots are working…and evolving. In this deep dive, we spotlight the most promising global MaaS pilots you should know about, what’s made them stick (or not), and what it might take for MaaS to finally scale.

1. Helsinki, Finland: MaaS Pioneer with a Plateau

Platform: Whim
Launch Year: 2016
Integrated Modes: Public transit, taxi, car share, e-scooters, bike share
Business Model: Subscription + pay-as-you-go
User Adoption: ~16,000 monthly active user peak (pre-COVID)

Helsinki’s Whim app is the OG of MaaS. At its peak, users could access nearly every urban mode via a single interface, making it a textbook case for policymakers and mobility VCs alike. But Whim hit scaling walls. Despite municipal support, the economics never fully worked: thin margins and user hesitancy to ditch car ownership limited growth.

Key Learning: Integration ≠ adoption. Incentives must align among public and private operators, and true convenience must outweigh personal car use—not just match it.

2. Vienna, Austria: City-Led & Data-Smart

Platform: WienMobil
Launch Year: 2017
Integrated Modes: Public transport, taxis, e-scooters, parking
Operator: Wiener Linien (city-run transit agency)

Vienna’s approach was government-first and data-rich. WienMobil gave the city real-time insights into usage patterns and reduced private operator fragmentation. Its open architecture and consistent branding built trust; users viewed it as a public utility, not a startup experiment.

Key Learning: Public sector ownership + strong UX = better integration. Cities don’t have to build it all, but owning the customer relationship might be useful.

3. Jakarta, Indonesia: MaaS for the Masses

Platform: JakLingko
Launch Year: 2021
Integrated Modes: Buses, MRT, LRT, angkot (minibuses), micro-mobility
Key Feature: Unified QR-based ticketing and fare capping

Jakarta’s JakLingko system may be the most important MaaS rollout you’ve never heard of. With over 30 million daily trips, solving urban congestion at scale is critical. By integrating traditional modes like shared taxis with startup offerings from scaleup Grab, the platform appeals across income levels.

Key Learning: MaaS isn’t just for rich cities. In fact, lower-income, high-density cities may benefit most, so long systems are inclusive, intuitive, and priced fairly.

4. Dallas, USA: Regional MaaS, American-Style

Platform: GoPass
Launch Year: 2013 (revamped 2020)
Integrated Modes: DART rail and bus, Uber, bike share, paratransit
Strategy: Partnerships with ride-hailing, expanded microtransit

GoPass was one of the first U.S. attempts at multi-modal integration. Recently, it’s taken on a second life through microtransit partnerships in areas with poor fixed-route access. DART’s willingness to work with Uber/Lyft, and experiment with pricing, has made it a case study in flexibility over comprehensiveness.

Key Learning: In car-centric cities, MaaS must focus on access over choice. Think first/last mile instead of full replacement of car ownership.

5. Seoul, South Korea: The Everything Platform

Platform: T-Money
Unique Element: T-Money ecosystem used for buses, subways, taxis, bike share, even convenience stores

Though not branded as “MaaS,” Seoul’s T-Money increasingly functions as one. Its growing transition to digital, including via partnership with Kakao Mobility, could make it a dark horse. South Korea’s tech stack and public-private alignment make the transition to full MaaS highly plausible.

Key Learning: Infrastructure + platform + consumer behavior = fertile ground. Seoul didn’t start with MaaS. It started with excellent transit, then layered digital on top.

Where MaaS Could Go Next

The next wave of MaaS success stories may come from places that:

• Treat MaaS as infrastructure, not a consumer app.

• Provide policy carrots for shared mobility and sticks for car use (e.g., higher parking fees).

• Support open APIs to foster ecosystem innovation.

And critically: MaaS must appeal to people who don’t think of themselves as “mobility users” at all, just people trying to live, work, and move better.

So who are potential winners in the space?

• Payments operators like T-Money.

• Mapping powerhouses. Think the next Waze.

• Mobility operators like Lyft who bet that going broader on capturing a greater portion of all your trips might be more valuable in the long term than squeezing one more ridehail trip out of you.

• Your next screen free device. iPhone designer Jony Ive just sold his hardware startup to OpenAI. When they launch AI-enabled hardware, it almost certainly won’t have a screen that distracts you while you’re lost on a bike or makes you look like a sitting duck as you navigate a new subway system.

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🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Amplisi (United Kingdom): Porous-silicon anode material to improve batteries

• Anod (France): Manufacturer of an e-bike with a battery pack that can also be used to charge smartphones

• CompLabs (California, USA): AI focused on 3D spatial fields, enabling faster mechanical simulations and autonomous design optimization

• Reorder (Uruguay): Direct-to-consumer solution for restaurants, letting them bypass delivery aggregators like Uber Eats

• Suplifai (Mexico): Software to connect suppliers and customers, automating and digitizing the supply chain

• Terrafolio Analytics (New York, USA): Software integrating environmental factors into equity research

• Voltra (Canada): Cloud platform for the EV space

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• RushOwl (Vol 18) raised a $7.6M round from Gobi Partners and Alibaba Group

• Volteras (Vol 59) raised an $11M Series A from Union Square Ventures and others

• Kite Magnetics (Vol 67) raised a $2.3M Seed round from SQM Lithium Ventures and others

• Floatech (Vol 71) raised a 1M EUR Seed round from Big Sur Ventures, Suma Capital, and others

• Alrik (Vol 79) raised a 6M EUR round from People Ventures and Pi Labs

• Weav3D (Vol 104) raised a $2.5M round (investors undisclosed)

What do Cameroon, Hungary, Namibia, Pakistan, and Ecuador have in common? They’re all countries where subscribers to this newsletter live.

📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🌆 Denver just cleared its first hurdle in eliminating parking minimums for new construction projects. You love to see it.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia’s planned city NEOM has green hydrogen for sale, but apparently not enough takers. Another data point to suggest that hydrogen may be more of a niche application.

💂‍♀️ London’s congestion pricing will get 20% more expensive next year. EV drivers will have to start paying as well, but with a 25% discount.

🤒 A judge has ruled that NYC’s congestion pricing can continue at least through the end of this year, stymying the US DOT. The federal government hasn’t yet made a convincing case to the judiciary for ending the program, which is becoming more popular with New Yorkers every month.

🚶‍♀️Washington State became the first in the nation to have “shared streets” laws, allowing cities to prioritize pedestrians and cyclists over automobile drivers. For more on the history of who owns the road, see the Deep Dive “Jaywalking is a Scam.”

🐥Texas has legalized kei cars, the pint-sized Japanese vehicles that are becoming cult favorites in the US. The US is now up to 28 states, but very far from the federal government being comfortable with them.

🥊 In California, auto dealers are fighting Honda and Sony’s plan to distribute their Afeela EVs direct-to-consumer. VW is facing a similar challenge with Scout.

🚉 The Trump administration has appointed “Train Daddy” Andy Byford to lead the Penn Station overhaul. Byford was the beloved leader of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority before ending up at Amtrak.

🇨🇳 The US government banned the sale of certain powertrain parts to COMAC, the would-be Chinese competitor to Boeing. While this may be a bandage on Boeing’s giant wounds, it may also prompt COMAC to fast-track domestic powertrain suppliers and invest in alternative propulsion technologies.

🎢 The US Senate passed a resolution to revoke California’s clean air waiver, which allows the state to set its own emissions targets. California has announced it will sue.

🔬Markets & Research

🚉 The US Transportation Research Board (TRB) has a new paper on The Future of Commuter Rail in North America. There’s a lot of hard work to get American regional rail systems back on track.

🔌 The American Economic Association has a study on time-of-use pricing for EV charging. They advocate for centrally managing charging to avoid the “shadow peaks” in demand that can kick in the minute that electricity rates drop.

🚲 Wired Magazine shows how e-bike lending libraries are going mainstream. They’re especially useful for lower-income consumers, who might not be willing to spend on an e-bike until they’ve had some experience with how useful they can be.

🤖 Goldman Sachs projected the future of China’s robotaxi market. They don’t -foresee a winner-take-all scenario, at least in the next decade, with leader Pony AI projected to win a 30% market share.

🛌 French nonprofit Réseau Action Climat has a great overview (in French) on the resurgence of night trains. They cost less than a high-speed train or flight, and help budget travelers avoid paying for a hotel night.

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

📈 BYD is now outselling Tesla in Europe. Just under two years ago, Tesla’s Model Y was the best seller on the continent, it’s now fallen to number 30.

🤔 Tesla’s bad news included a lawsuit about faulty odometers. Historically, the legal system has doled out harsh penalties to those who manipulated odometer readings.

😨 Tesla’s robotaxi launch in Austin this month may determine the future of the company. Tesla skeptics and fans agree that the company’s future isn’t being a leader in EVs. Tesla’s going to have to prove its worth in self-driving and hardware-linked artificial intelligence to justify its valuation.

🦾 Amazon’s Zoox unit will begin testing its robotaxis in Atlanta later this summer. While Google/Waymo and Tesla are deadly clear about their ultimate robotaxi goals, Amazon is still cagey.

🛺 Stellantis has announced the Fiat TRIS, an electric 3-wheeler for goods movement in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The company is building on its micromobility leadership thanks to the Citroën Ami.

🚄 Uber is partnering with new rail startup Gemini on the new Channel Tunnel rail project to rival Eurostar. As a new and unknown player, Gemini can lower the cost of acquiring new customers by tapping into Uber’s huge existing base.

🔋Chinese battery giant CATL listed shares on the Hong Kong exchange, becoming the biggest listing of the year so far. While the company is on the Pentagon blacklist, that hasn’t stopped companies like Tesla and VW from buying their batteries.

💪 CATL is also now incentivizing its suppliers to reduce scope 3 emissions. A good example of how far CATL is willing to go to maintain its leadership in batteries.

🌊 Mining giant Rio Tinto is making a massive bet on extracting lithium from brine in Chile. The approach provides momentum for startups like Olokun Minerals, who are aiming to show that one of the key inputs to batteries can be sourced from brackish water.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

⛴️ Artemis Technologies (Startup Watch Vol 95) has put its first electric ferry in service. Artemis is one of a handful of electric maritime startups integrating hydrofoil technology.

🚚 Over 100 of Nikola’s hydrogen trucks, which weren’t acquired by Lucid, are now on the auction block. For the true believers in hydrogen trucking, this is a chance to acquire assets on the cheap.

✈️ Hybrid-electric plane manufacturer Ampaire secured FAA G-1 approval for its propulsion system. This is a huge milestone for electric aviation. G-1 approval is the Feds essentially saying they believe your design is airworthy; the subsequent G-2 approval is the Feds saying they believe your proposed manufacturing will result in compliance with the design in G-1.

DEEP DIVE: Why California High-Speed Rail is Still Worth Fighting For

In early May, US President Donald Trump announced that the federal government was “not going to pay” for California’s High Speed Rail project. His statement comes three months after the federal government announced an audit into California’s spending of $3.1B in federal funds for the train.

His criticisms about the cost overruns of the project aren’t unfounded: what was originally meant to be a $33B project is now triple that cost in the best-case scenario. And the sequencing means that smaller cities like Merced and Bakersfield will get high-speed rail service long before San Francisco and LA do.

In most other countries, withdrawal of federal support would be the death knell for the project. In fact, in most countries, high-speed rail is only undertaken by the federal government. California, however, is still committed to the project: a few weeks back the state announced it will welcome private sector financing. This opens the door to both private equity funds (Fortress has invested in Brightline) as well also foreign operators like SNCF from France or Japan Railways Group.

After cost overruns and delays, why is this project worth fighting for?

First, because America can’t give up on infrastructure projects just because it’s no longer good at them. We know that the US struggles to build infrastructure anywhere near as efficiently as most of Europe and Asia. That’s not a problem to be avoided, that’s a problem to be attacked head-on. California may well find that private investors demand some sort of permitting reforms as part of their investment in the project.

And second, nobody has ever regretted having high-speed rail up and running. Morocco, for example, opened up its first high-speed rail line in 2018, connecting Tangier and Kenitra, with connections to Rabat and Casablanca underway. Last month, the kingdom approved a $10B extension of the rail to Marrakesh.

And finally, high-speed rail is one of the best hedges against the unknown trajectory of decarbonizing short-haul aviation.

Rail is significantly more energy efficient than aviation, and results in significantly fewer emissions.

Moreover, high-speed rail is one of the most effective ways to reduce short-haul plane travel. Whenever high-speed rail has connected cities in 4 hours or less, it has reduced the number of short-haul flights by at least 30%.

Today, San Francisco Airport (SFO) and LAX alone have over 1,400 flights per week, and that’s before including smaller airports like Oakland, San Jose, Burbank, etc. If we achieved a 30% reduction in those flights, those 420 avoided flights per week would add up to 418,080 metric tons of CO₂ avoided per year. That’s the equivalent of taking 100,000 cars permanently off the road. That’s worth fighting for.

What do climate investors like ArcTern, Breakthrough Energy, Keyframe Capital, Blue Bear Capital, and Montauk Climate have in common? Subscribers to this newsletter!

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This issue’s Deep Dive is on the continual growth last-mile delivery, with smart operators reducing their vehicular footprint to minimize costs and maximize throughput.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Anactisis (Pennsylvania, USA): Polymer-based materials to recover critical minerals from industrial waste streams

• EVIA AERO (Germany): Zero-emissions regional airline

• ExploreTech (California, USA): Software to improve the discovery of minerals used in batteries

• LoneReport (California, USA): Automated ESG reporting, including for supply chains

• Nice Car Company (California, USA): EV retrofits of vintage cars

• Omnifold (California, USA): AI to improve the efficiency of supply chains

• Zero5 (California, USA): Turning parking spaces into smart infrastructure hubs

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Alt Mobility (Vol 26) raised a post-Series A Bridge Round from Beyond Capital Ventures (amount undisclosed)

• Currents (Vol 78) secured an investment from E8 Angels (amount undisclosed)

• Zero Homes (Vol 99) raised a Seed Round from Exelon (amount undisclosed)

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🫨 The New York Police Department has acknowledged that its recent bike crackdown isn’t based on data, but sentiment at community meetings. A good example: two weeks ago, over 100 protestors gathered outside Central Park to push for a ban on e-bikes in city parks.

↗️ Meanwhile, in London, cycling is up by more than 50% in the past two years. Since 2017, motor traffic has fallen by 34%, well ahead of the target of a 25% reduction by 2030.

👫A new trade group has formed to protect parts of the Inflation Reduction Act: the American Fleet Leadership Coalition. Republicans in the House continue to debate how much of the IRA to dismantle.

The US Senate is moving closer to ending California’s emissions waiver. A sign of how much things have changed: It was Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, who set the precedent for the waiver.

🔬Markets & Research

✈️ Silicon Valley Bank has released its annual Future of Climate Tech report. Per SVB, sustainable aviation fuel may be at the peak of expectations on the Gartner hype cycle.

🚗 The International Energy Agency (IEA) released its annual Global EV Outlook. Last year, over 20% of cars sold worldwide were plug-in; the US, at 10%, now trails Thailand and Vietnam, along with China and much of Western Europe.

🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🍎 Apple has rolled out its new CarPlay software, which effectively takes over the entire dashboard and replaces native infotainment systems. Apple will try to own the interface between cars, chargers, and the electrical grid.

🏭 Google’s Waymo unit has announced a factory partnership with Magna. While Google won’t be building robotaxis from scratch, its partnership with Magna suggests it’s getting serious about quality production.

🔮 GM has claimed a breakthrough in lithium manganese-rich (LMR) batteries that would allow for technology decoupling from China. Battery breakthrough announcements are often more noise than signal.

🇦🇺 Mitsubishi may source EVs for the Australian market from Foxconn. For more, see the deep dive “The Fox(conn) is Guarding the Henhouse.”

↘️ Tesla’s Model Y refresh may be failing to win over drivers. Things will get worse for Tesla before they have any hope of getting better: a new website Tesla Employees Against Elon, further reports of the Cybertruck being a dud, ongoing sales declines in Europe, and a viral video of a 98 year old WWII vet declaring himself once again ready to go to war to fight fascism.

👩🏼‍🍳 Chipotle’s President joined Tesla’s board of directors. While the timing coincides with the imminent launch of Tesla’s diner in LA, joining Elon Musk right now will raise some eyebrows.

🫆 Elon Musk’s The Boring Company is aiming for an Amtrak tunneling contract. This comes as the government seems eager to procure more from SpaceX’s Starlink.

😕 Uber drivers at LAX are increasingly desperate, with the good old days of higher pay now long gone. Uber passenger volume at LAX is likely to fall next year, when the airport (finally) gets its automated people mover connecting the airport to LA’s growing metro system.

🚌 Uber has launched a new “route share” feature for commuters. As noted on social media, this competes with buses.

🚲 Lyft appears to have won the contract to take over LA’s bikeshare program. One of the strategic priorities for LA, no matter the operator, is to deploy more e-bikes.

🇪🇺 DoorDash is buying European rival Deliveroo. Deliveroo is a sick patient but helps DoorDash become more of a presence in Europe and the Middle East.

🛩️ JetBlue has sold off its corporate venture capital arm. The airline is going through a major reorganization to return to profitability.

🛬 In an effort to correct Boeing’s tailspin, the company has appointed Wisk CEO as head of product development at its commercial airplanes unit. For more, see “Boeing’s Nosedive is Our Climate Problem to Fix.”

💀 Bike manufacturers in the US, already few and far between, are closing down production in response to Trump’s tariffs. The interview with Steve Kaczmarek, the founder of Borealis Fat Bikes, is a sobering example of long-term economic theory meeting near-term market realities.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🛤️ Sun Ways (Startup Watch Vol 66) has deployed its first “solar embedded in railway tracks” pilot near Neuchâtel, Switzerland. An interesting step before solar becomes embedded in vehicle exteriors across cars, trucks, trains, and other vehicles.

🚁 Archer has announced that it will be the official air taxi (eVTOL) provider for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. As journalist Alissa Walker points out, the 1984 Olympics in LA did a notable job managing traffic between venues without air taxis.

🏆 Slate, the startup featured in last issue’s deep dive, now claims to have 100,000 reservations. The company has been a prolific digital advertiser.

📥 Passenger train startup Brightline has announced a co-working offering. The partnership with Industrious covers both stations and train cars.

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DEEP DIVE: Last-Mile Delivery is Shrinking as it Grows

The first known usage of the phrase “private burrito taxi” dates to July last year on X (Twitter). The subsequent debate devolved into a digital shouting match focused on the relative costs and benefits of delivering a 1lb burrito by a 4,000-pound car.

Over the last decade, and especially since COVID, last-mile delivery of parcels, food, and everything else has exploded. The World Economic Forum and McKinsey estimate that congestion will rise by 21% this decade as a result of our love for last-mile delivery.

So, how are logistics players evolving? Delivery is getting small. By avoiding the 4,000-pound car and shifting to a two-wheeler (e.g., moped, motorcycle, bike/e-bike), logistics players are both reducing capital expenses and speeding up deliveries, saving time on both driving and parking.

DoorDash recently shared a treasure trove of data about its food delivery operations, with a city-level breakdown of delivery by 4-wheeled versus 2-wheeled vehicles. According to the company, the share of deliveries by 2-wheelers in their network tripled over the last three years, albeit with huge variation by city.

Part of this disparity between cities is driven by congestion levels. The more a city suffers from car congestion, the more likely that a driver or fleet operator will see significant benefit in downscaling from a 4-wheeler to a 2-wheeler.

What will drive further growth of 2-wheelers for delivery? For starters, city policy. The more a city commits to infrastructure like dedicated bike lanes, the more logistics players shift to 2-wheelers.

We’re still at the early stages of this transition in the US, and e-bikes aren’t a panacea. For parcel delivery, with centralized depots and higher volumes, 4-wheeled micromobility may be the better solution. Last year, New York City approved the use of European-style e-quads for use on city streets, aiming to reduce congestion from medium-duty vans.

The shift towards last-mile delivery for everything from burritos to prescription drugs may be inevitable. Thankfully, we’re starting to use the right tools to avoid potential increases in congestion and pollution. Here’s to the “private burrito taxi” becoming the “private burrito bike.”

Ever wondered what about the most beautiful and saddest parking garage in the world? Detroit’s Michigan Theatre, built in 1926, was gutted in the late 1970s to become a parking garage.

This week’s Deep Dive looks at Slate Auto, with more details about how the electric pickup startup is adopting some “minimum viable car” concepts.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Bulbul Drone Delivery (California, USA): Delivery drones for remote and rural areas

• FreightiQ (Michigan, USA): Software to enhance the efficiency of freight brokerage

• Magic Lane (Netherlands): Mapping and navigation for developers

• RedGet.io (Bulgaria): Maritime software for GHG monitoring and compliance automation

• TimeTick (California, USA): IoT software to improve EV charger reliability

• Volektra (California, USA): Electric motors without rare earth metals

• Volonaut (Poland): Manufacturer of personal hoverbikes

• Wiser Machines (Georgia, USA): Software to improve the efficiency and sustainability of manufacturing processes

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Kofa (Vol 8) raised $8.1M in a pre-Series A from E3 Capital, Injaro Investment Advisors, and others

• Vonzu (Vol 10) was acquired by Moova; this is the 14th exit in the database

• Phoenix Tailings (Vol 48) raised an additional $33M for its Series B from Builders Vision, Yamaha Motor Ventures, and others, bringing its Series B total to $76M

• Pando Electric (Vol 61) secured a $5.4M grant from the California Energy Commission

• Durin (Vol 92) raised a $3.4M pre-seed round led by 8090 Industries, with 1517, Andreessen Horowitz, Day One Ventures, Lux Capital, and others

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

👮🏼‍♀️New York City may write criminal summonses, not traffic citations, for cyclists. The NYPD’s increased focus comes as e-bike and e-scooter usage continues to rise.

🤖 In the California Assembly, bill AB33 would require human drivers in autonomous vehicles delivering items to residences or businesses. One nuance lost here is how different a medium-sized Rivian van is from a Nuro-like delivery robot.

🌊 The Trump administration’s plan to approve seabed mining continues to create a backlash. The move pits the US against the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority.

🐻 The US House of Representatives voted to rescind California’s ability to mandate heavy-duty truck emissions. California has made some concessions but still wants to push for only zero-emissions truck sales by 2036.

💸 The House has released its portion of the massive Republican policy bill. It includes gutting many existing programs and charging EV owners a $200 fee per year, versus $20 per year for those driving internal combustion engine vehicles.

🔬Markets & Research

✈️ Transport & Environment has a new report showing that European aviation emissions are back to pre-COVID levels and growing quickly. The report aims to close loopholes in European emissions measurement next year.

🏪 A new study looks at the importance of retail proximity in shopping behavior. Stores in close proximity don’t shift people away from e-commerce, but do increase the likelihood of walking rather than driving.

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

👀 Tesla’s board may have begun a search for a CEO to replace Elon Musk. Every board has its limits.

🤔 Legendary tech journalist Kara Swisher has suggested that the answer for Tesla is to buy xAI. The idea would firmly focus the company on AI and likely mean giving up the dream of being a leading carmaker.

🔋 Chinese battery giant CATL, not to be outdone by BYD, has proposed a 5-minute charging battery. Another sign of China’s dominance in the space…

🤖 Waymo noted that it’s willing to offer its robotaxis for personal ownership. If done at scale, this would majorly blunt one of Tesla’s few potential competitive advantages in the robotaxi wars.

😲 Ford has apparently canceled its fully-networked vehicle software brain that would have been crucial in new electrical architectures. This sort of software is no longer optional, so let’s hope Ford is lining up partners to supply this, similar to the Rivian/VW tie-up.

👟 Spanish renewable energy giant Acciona is making shoes out of recycled wind blades. That’s a way to turn old infrastructure into the original mobility product.

⚡️Lyft has revealed that over half of its bikeshare rides by members are now e-bikes. The company claims that e-bikes also help drive profitability.

⚖️ The FTC is suing Uber over its subscription product. An example of where consumer protection aligns with the bipartisan desire to reign in large tech companies.

🎪Uber is tying up with VW’s Moia unit to launch a robotaxi service. Uber has what feels like dozens of partners in the robotaxi space at this point.

🏎️ Nascar continues to roll out details about its upcoming electric race car. The league is committed to zero-emissions by 2035.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🚄 Brightline, America’s private passenger rail operator, posted a half a billion loss for 2024. Revenue is still growing rapidly, so here’s to hoping for a pathway to profitability.

🛩️ Swedish electric plane maker Heart Aerospace has decided to drop its Swedish operations and focus solely on the US. The company’s US HQ in Los Angeles will now become its global HQ.

📦 EAV, one of the leading players in building e-cargo bikes, has entered administration and accepted a buyout offer. Whether competitors like Fernhay and VOK can achieve profitable growth is still an open question.

🍩 Food truck franchisor DonutNV has launched its first battery-powered food truck. The battery systems come from Joule Case, a startup that has mostly financed via crowdfunding.

🚂 Carbon capture startup Remora is now firmly focused on decarbonizing rail. Remora’s solution would allow diesel trains to be retrofitted with carbon capture technology.

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DEEP DIVE: Jeff Bezos is funding a would-be EV breakthrough

The last issue noted that “Slate was unveiled as a Michigan-based manufacturer of budget electric pickup trucks. Jeff Bezos is a major backer and many execs have a background at Amazon.”

Since then, Slate has gone on a full-throated PR offensive. One of the things that stands out about the message is how aligned it is with the concept of “minimum viable car.” For more, see the Deep Dive “Is Minimum Viable Car a Pipedream?” As Slate gears up to take down everyone from Tesla and Rivian to Ford and GM, here’s what we’ve learned:

• Product: Slate is decidedly no frills: roll-down windows, manually adjustable rearview mirrors, no radio, no internet connectivity, and one paint color. A 53 kWh capacity battery pack comes standard, which should be good for about 150 miles of range. That compares to about 92 kWh from the comparable Rivian and 123 kWh from the Tesla Cybertruck. You are encouraged to pick from a huge list of options to customize to suit your tastes. Want something different than the slate gray exterior? Pay for a customized vinyl color wrap.

• Price: Slate aims to sell its bare-bones EV pickup trucks starting at $27,500. If the federal EV tax credit sticks around, that means a $20K price. The average new car buyer in America pays ~$50K, with pickups often being significantly more expensive. The Rivian RT1 starts at $71K, the Tesla Cybertruck at $70K, and the Ford F-150 Lightning (electric) at $50K.

• Manufacturing: Slate aims to begin delivery by the end of 2026, with the product built in a brownfield factory in Indiana. Interestingly, instead of buying one of the many idled car factories or going the contract manufacturing route, Slate bought an idled printing factory. While this approach requires massively investment, it suggests that a unique manufacturing approach may be vital in driving costs down below rivals like Rivian and Ford.

• Leadership: The company eschews appointing anyone with the (co) founder title. CEO Christine Barman, a former Chrysler exec, is among the few women CEOs in the industry, even after over a decade of Mary Barra’s leadership at GM. The rest of the company’s leadership roster includes lots of folks from Amazon, Harley-Davidson, Tesla, and Rivian.

• Funding: The company has closed a $111M Series A and has reportedly closed a Series B, though the size of that round hasn’t been disclosed. That suggests a lot more work to be done. Rivian, for example, raised $10B in private funding rounds.

Betting that the world needs yet another car manufacturer is always a huge leap of faith, even when you’re focused on disruptive innovation. As intriguing as Slate Auto is, don’t count out the competitive pressures from legacy players in the US (e.g., Ford Ranger), other startups like Telo Trucks, and, most importantly, the ever-looming threat from Chinese players like BYD.

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🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• 2DaLoop (Michigan, USA): Software to improve battery recycling

• Elementrailer (Washington, USA): Motorized electric trailer designed to assist EVs while towing

• ManaBattery (Colorado, USA): Sodium-ion batteries

• MetaLearner (California, USA): AI to improve supply chain efficiency

• Undelay (Georgia, USA): Software to make legacy airport operations more efficient, including taxi queues

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Crux (Vol 53) raised a $50M Series B from Lowercarbon, along with Andreessen Horowitz, Ardent Venture Partners, and others

• Goodwings (Vol 63) raised a $3M Seed Round from Global Cleantech Capital, JTB Corp, and others

• Plug (Vol 69) raised a $6.7M Seed round from Floodgate, Autotech Ventures and A*, along with Virta Ventures, Cleo Capital, Toba Capital and others*

📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🚲 How did Bentonville, Arkansas become Bicycle City, USA? Hint: Thanks to support from the Walton family, of Walmart fame.

💯 NYC is celebrating 100 days of congestion pricing. One of the newest states: complaints about excessive car honking are down by 70%.

🚄 The US Dept of Transportation is canceling a $60M planning grant for high-speed rail in Texas. Red state projects are also getting the axe…

⚓️ The International Maritime Organization (IMO) reached a landmark agreement for net-zero shipping targets. The US withdrew from the negotiations…

↘️ Flights from Europe to the US are in double-digit declines. Tourism to the US is likely to take a big hit given the current political environment.

🇨🇳🇪🇺 China and the EU are beginning to discuss a new EV trade framework based on minimum prices. The US tariffs are prompting China and the EU to consider a more cooperative relationship.

🚉 The US federal government is taking over the Penn Station rebuild from New York state. New York state is likely happy to have the feds run the project, so long as it actually gets done.

🇨🇳 China is cracking down on carmaker advertisements for “autonomous driving” and other advanced driver assistance terms. The federal government will play a bigger role in approving new software upgrades for existing vehicles.

🛬 In response to tariffs, China is stopping its airlines from buying Boeing planes. This exacerbates Boeing’s woes…

🔬Markets & Research

↗️ In the US, EV sales were up in Q1. Other automakers are gaining, while Tesla sales are down.

🌬️ Local air pollution improved dramatically following the electrification of Caltrain in the Bay Area. Caltrain’s electrification is like NYC congestion pricing: the longer it’s in place, the more positive benefits we see.

↘️ Gallup polling reveals that EV interest in the US is waning. The politicization of EVs may be at play.

🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🏰 Lyft indeed acquired FREENOW. Lyft now has a European base.

🥊 Tesla allegedly had a team to squelch driver complaints about EV range. The feds are unlikely to intervene.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

⛴️ Arc Boats (Startup Watch Vol 4) has signed an agreement to convert a Port of LA tugboat from diesel to electric. Arc is known for recreational boats, so this commercial work would be an additional revenue stream for the startup.

🛳️ Electric ferry maker Artemis Technologies (Startup Watch Vol 95) entered the US market with a bang, signing Delta Marine as a customer. Delta Marine, from Washington state, runs the largest fleet of passenger ferries in the US.

🛻 Slate was unveiled as a Michigan-based manufacturer of budget electric pickup trucks. Jeff Bezos is a major backer and many execs have a background at Amazon.

👁️ BluSmart, a recent EV Indian rival to Uber, shut down. The company is in the midst of a fraud investigation.

🔋Sodium-ion battery startup Bedrock Materials, which raised a $9M seed round a year ago, is shutting down and returning capital to its investors. Hats off to the founding team for showing true leadership.

🛤️ Autonomous rail startup Parallel Systems raised a $38M Series B. The company’s novel approach allows electric trains to better compete with trucking.

🚛 In a surprise move, Lucid won the bankruptcy auction for Nikola’s assets. Both companies have industrial operations nearby in Arizona.

🚙 Canoo founder Tony Aquila was the only bidder in the bankruptcy auction for the company’s assets. Aquila plans on pursuing defense opportunities for the electric truck maker.

🛴 Redwood Materials secured a battery supply agreement with Lime. Redwood certainly has lots of the right supply agreements in place.

🧑🏽‍💻 V2G software startup Nuvve is in talks to buy Fermata. The deal would give Nuvvee software on the cheap.

*Disclosure: I am an investor in Plug, and affiliated with Virta Ventures, who is also an investor in Plug

If you’re in LA, come say hello next week at Curbivore on April 10 and 11. It’s one of my favorite ways to stay up to speed around all things curb-related, whether food delivery, scooter parking, or EV charging… You can register here.

This week’s Deep Dive is a short and sweet look at the impact of tariffs on sustainable mobility aspirations in the US.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Accelevate Solutions (Nevada, USA): Energy performance software analytics to optimize fleet operations

• Dacora Motors (New York, USA): Emerging manufacturer of luxury electric cars

• flyvbird (Germany): On-demand electric aviation service for regional airports

• OpenTug (Washington, USA): Software to improve the efficiency of maritime logistics

• Serenity Power (Canada): Solid oxide fuel cells for heavy-duty transportation

• Weav3D (Georgia, USA): Continuous composite forming technology for lightweight automotive parts

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Evident Battery (Vol 70) raised a $3.2M Seed round from Ibex Ventures, Automotive Ventures, and others

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🐻 Berlin is considering banning cars from the city center. This comes after Paris voters approved converting an additional 500 streets to pedestrian-only.

🥷 In London, thieves have built a sophisticated system of stealing batteries from Lime scooters to build makeshift e-bikes. As with NYC, battery safety looms large for micromobility.

🚄 London approved final plans to connect the capital to Cologne, Lyon, Frankfurt, and Geneva by high-speed rail. Train operator Virgin is likely to be the first to share the Channel Tunnel with legacy operator Eurostar.

🗺️ New York City has a new subway map that design purists love. It’s the first new map in almost 50 years.

🗽With Trump’s extended deadline to end NYC congestion pricing still looming, Republican state senators in New York have introduced a bill to transform the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and end congestion pricing. Meanwhile, NBA Hall of Famer Walt Frazier is one of the many New Yorkers who sing its praises.

🔥 The January stationary battery storage fire at Moss Landing (California) continues to raise safety questions. Battery storage is a lynchpin of connecting renewables like solar and wind with our growing demand for EVs and data centers, so getting this right is paramount.

🚲 The City of Houston is paying to rip out bike lane infrastructure that Harris County paid for. Residents are frustrated that the city undertook the work without any public notice.

💧The US Department of Energy is considering canceling hydrogen hubs grants, but only those ones in Blue states. For more on the Hydrogen Hubs, see Vol 67.

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🔬Markets & Research

🚉 NYU-Marron’s Transit Costs Project released a fantastic report on how to invest smartly in America’s commuter and intercity rail networks. As shown by Caltrain, electrifying rail can vastly improve speeds and drive ridership.

🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

↘️ Tesla had a disastrous Q1, as did Rivian. With Rivian, there’s a credible product plan for the future.

🚐 Chevrolet is offering a massive $25K discount on its slow-selling all-electric Brightdrop vans. The discount preceded the US tariff announcement, so things may change.

🤳🏽 Lyft may be in talks to acquire the FreeNow taxi app from BMW and Mercedes. This would be Lyft’s first step outside of North America.

🛴 Lime CEO Wayne Ting took a bold political stance online, criticizing the US administration and Elon Musk’s Tesla. He’s one of the few CEOs to speak openly.

🇪🇸 Spanish airline Vueling is canceling Madrid to Barcelona flights due to competition from high-speed rail. High-speed rail volumes between the two cities grew by over 30% in 2023.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🚲 Rivian spun out a micromobility startup called Also, backed by over $100M in funding from Eclipse. This is an astute way to manage two businesses (automobiles and micromobility) that have significant technology overlap, but vastly different economics.

⚖️ Nikola founder Trevor Milton was pardoned by President Trump. Following his 2022 fraud conviction, Milton made his first six-figure donation to Trump two years later.

🤝 Nash (Startup Watch Vol 4) acquired Singapore’s Kosmo, a last-mile delivery platform. Lots of startups are for sale right now, and other bigger startups are often the most logical buyers.

💦 Syzygy Plasmonics, after slashing about 60% of its staff, is in the midst of a $100M raise. The raise supports a pivot away from hydrogen towards chemicals and sustainable aviation fuel.

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DEEP DIVE: THE TARIFFS ARE HERE

In the first few weeks of the new US administration, it became clear that EV policies were on the chopping block. Manufacturers responded accordingly by canceling previously announced plans to build batteries and EVs in the US.

Things entered overdrive earlier this week when President Donald Trump shocked the world with new tariffs. These tariffs will impact everything from geopolitics to kitchen table issues, today and decades into the future.

That includes impacting our ability to build a supply chain for clean manufacturing in the US (e.g., batteries and EVs).

So where are we after this week’s announcement?

• China has retaliated, in part, with export controls of rare earth minerals, critical for use in the battery economy.

• The Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney declared that his country’s historically deep alliance with the US “over.” That’s all the more important given that mineral-rich Canada has significantly more know-how in sustainable mining and processing than the US.

• Word leaked that the US is considering approving deep-sea mining to access critical minerals. Critics argue this is both legally and environmentally dubious.

• Car makers have begun temporarily idling factories; all are evaluating the need for factory closures and increasing prices. Bike makers are scrambling to realign their supply chains.

And how does this all play out? I shared some initial thoughts about this a few years ago:

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This week’s Deep Dive looks into how quickly ferries are going electric on every continent.

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🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Blueshift (Massachusetts, USA): Redox chemistry to extract minerals from industrial waste

• BusPas (Canada): Hardware and software for cities to improve mobility

• Celluol (France): Using bacteria to more efficiently produce corn ethanol

• Evera (France): EV fleet subscription service

• GoodMaps (Kentucky, USA): Software to improve indoor mapping and movement

• Longbow Motors (United Kingdom): Electric sports car manufacturer

• Mothium (Spain): Emerging manufacturer of micromobility for goods delivery

• Motoring Labs (Indiana, USA): Computer vision technology to improve commercial fleet and warehouse operations

• Zed Motors (Benin): Battery swap network for micromobility

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• theion (Vol 47) raised a $16.4M Series A from Team Global, Enpal, and Geschwister Oetker

• Evenergi (Vol 50) raised a $15M Series A from Remarkable Ventures, Aligned Climate Capital, and Ecosystem Integrity Fund ($5M of which was noted in Vol 69)

• DG Matrix (Vol 73) raised a $20M seed round from Clean Energy Ventures, with ABB, Chevron Technology Ventures, Piedmont Capital Investments, and Cerberus Capital Management

• SunTrain (Vol 74) raised $112K from crowdfunding on Republic, alongside raising over $1M in venture capital from LvlUP and others

• nlcomp (Vol 83) raised 600K EUR from CDP Venture Capital and Samer & Co. Shipping

• Elm AI (Vol 94) raised its seed round (amount undisclosed) from Beta Boom, Boro Capital, Working Capital, and others

As a reminder, the startup data set is free (for now) to subscribers. If you’re a subscriber interested in accessing the Airtable with how these startups raised $2.6 billion in follow-on funding, please let me know.

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🗽In New York City, congestion pricing continues to prove its worth, including an almost 70% reduction in noise complaints and not rerouting traffic to other boroughs. The NY Governor plans to defy the Trump administration’s demand to end the program by Friday, March 21.

🚉 Speaking of NYC, a new group called Grand Penn Community Alliance is pushing for Madison Square Garden (MSG) to be relocated, allowing Penn Station to grow and flourish. There have been four locations for Madison Square Garden so far, so moving it again shouldn’t be considered sacrilegious.

🚨The US federal government continued its rapid dismantling of sustainability initiatives: the EPA will aim to roll back tailpipe emissions, the US DOT head Sean Duffy has ordered the agency to review all green infrastructure grants, and the DOT is also threatening to withhold funds for the NYC metro system. And that’s all before tariffs bring sheer chaos to the auto sector.

🚄 The CEO of Amtrak is stepping down. A few weeks ago at a conference, Musk said “Amtrak is a sad situation” and that privatizing it would be the only way to have a feedback loop for improvement. Musk may be unaware that most successful passenger rail operators in other countries are publicly owned.

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🔬Markets & Research

↗️ EV sales are up 20% year to date in the US versus 30% globally. The federal administration can slow things down, but it’s impossible to stop the EV transition.

🏭 What happens if the US government repeals the federal EV tax credit? Sales slow down some, but jobs get decimated as new and existing factories close.

🔌 According to Consumer Reports, Tesla and Rivian run the most reliable charging networks in the US. Over time, retail operators like Starbucks, Walmart, and Whole Foods will understand the customer profitability impact of poor charger reliability from legacy networks and demand changes.

🗽The National Bureau of Economic Research has a new paper out on The Short-Run Effects of Congestion Pricing in New York City. You love to see it.

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🤯 BYD shocked the world with its plans to charge EVs in 5 minutes. Few players have the credibility to make this happen at both the vehicle and charger level. BYD will build up a nationwide network in China of up to 4,000 chargers operating at a peak standard of 1 megawatt!

📡 Apple is inching away from plug-in charging and towards wireless charging. Many charging innovations start on Apple phones before they hit electric vehicles.

🧨 Tesla’s problems continue to multiply: a cratering stock price, accounting questions, a brutal viral video takedown from Mark Rober on its autonomous capabilities, and at least one notable shareholder asking for CEO Elon Musk to step down. US Attorney General Pam Bondi has labeled the growing spate of Tesla vandalism as “domestic terrorism.”

🔂 Toyota group member Toyota Tsusho shelled out almost $1 billion to buy a metal recycler. The company aims for a closed loop of metals used in automotive.

🚗 Toyota unveiled its 4-wheeled micromobility vehicle for Europe: FT-Me. It will rival Stellantis’ Citroen Ami and the Renault Duo.

🚙 Not to be outdone, Stellantis partnered with 'Light Urban Vehicle' startup Luvly to evaluate how to use its electric flatpack technology in future vehicles. If anyone can figure out how to scale IKEA flatpack vibes in micromobility, it’s Stellantis.

🚐 The new venture capital fund Leitmotif turned out to be fully backed by VW. Interestingly, Leitmotif invested in Harbinger, a rival of VW-backed Rivian.

🥊 Bolt, the European ride-hailing star, is entering the North American market to take on Uber and Lyft. Time will tell whether this is just a nice story for the upcoming Bolt IPO or whether they’re in it to win it.

🤪 Ousted Uber founder Travis Kalanick said the company erred by giving up its robotaxi program. Kalanick seems to have forgotten how far behind Uber was in the robotaxi race.

🏕️ Airstream has unveiled its first fully electric trailer. The unit is powered by 600-watt solar panels and a 10.3 kWh lithium battery pack.

✈️ JetBlue will be the first regular user of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) at JFK. So far, LAX and SFO are leaders in offering SAF to airlines.

↘️ Stock in electric 2-wheeler maker Ola Electric is off 60% from its peak. Call it the revenge of the incumbents, as gas-powered rivals have finally learned how to start making electrics.

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🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🦾 AI startup Hugging Face teamed up with Yaak to expand LeRobot capabilities to allow robots and cars to autonomously navigate environments like city streets. Given the billions being plowed into AI, it’s inevitable that some of that money will compete against Waymo.

🗺️ Tern AI has unveiled its low-cost alternative to GPS. For more on the maps wars, see the Deep Dive in Vol 62.

👩🏻‍🔧 A Bronx shop is the repairer of last resort for all remaining Fiskers. Expect to see Fiskers multiply in NYC as Uber and Lyft drivers take advantage of rock-bottom lease prices.

🚁 Joby has partnered with Virgin Atlantic to launch an air taxi network in the UK. Joby’s rival, Archer Aviation, has similar deals with United and Southwest.

DEEP DIVE: IT’S BATTERIES VERSUS THE SHARKS, AND THE BATTERIES ARE WINNING*

As we decarbonize our transportation system, two heuristics around vehicles come up time and again:

• Smaller vehicles (e.g., bikes, cars) go electric before larger vehicles (e.g., trucks)

• Surface vehicles (e.g., cars) go electric before maritime and aviation**

In Volume 29 of this newsletter, the Deep Dive looked into The Big Picture on Maritime Decarbonization. What’s been impressive since then is the degree to which large boats, namely ferries, have been going electric. This has come down to two key factors: policy leadership across markets to mandate that ferries go zero-emissions, and prolific innovation from both legacy players and startups.

While not widespread, mandates for ferries to go electric (or at least zero-emissions) are definitely a global phenomenon, with California, Norway and Singapore off to an early lead.

Deployment, however, has been much broader. There are now believed to be over 500 electric ferries in service globally. This summer, South America will see the launch of the world’s largest electric ferry, capable of carrying 2,100 passengers and 250 cars. And in less than two years, the first electric ferry service connecting Africa and Europe is due to launch, bringing electric ferries to every continent.

What’s still up for grabs is whether this market ends up being led by incumbents like Danfoss and Siemens or whether venture-backed startups ultimately win. As evidenced by Ola Electric’s challenges, legacy 2-wheeler manufacturing companies have caught up quite quickly to the electric era. On the other hand, BYD didn’t build its first car until 2005 and is now the EV king globally, ahead of the century-old incumbents.

Either way, I expect that venture funding in this sector increases over time as bets in technology (e.g., battery chemistry, hydro-foiling, embedded solar) and business models (e.g., vehicle-to-grid monetization) continue to abound.

*For further background on the batteries versus sharks battle, Google is your friend

**With the caveat that the long-term outlook for large maritime and aviation is still unclear

Amidst all the bad news on Tesla, this issue’s Deep Dive looks at the good news: all those leaving Tesla to become cleantech startup founders.

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🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Cariqa (Germany): EV charging marketplace

• ECHO Solutions (Texas, USA): Marine carbon capture to create hydrogen

• Electric Outdoors (Michigan, USA): Off-grid solar-based EV charging for camping

• Flete (Iowa, USA): Fleet management SaaS

• HydroHaul (Massachusetts, USA): Hydrogen marketplace linking consumers with producers

• Maritime Fusion (California, USA): High-temperature superconducting fusion reactors for maritime

• Parthian Battery Solutions (West Virginia, USA): Second-use battery recycling for EVs

• Pila Energy (California, USA): Home-based battery mesh network to support energy needs, including EV charging

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• GageZero (Vol 51) sold a portfolio of its assets to EVRealty (Vol 49)

• Dustmoto (Vol 74) raised $1.2M from crowdfunding

• Chargitect (Vol 81) raised a 500K EUR pre-seed round from StartupLab, Sarsia, and Lyse

• Aerofuse (Vol 89) raised an $800K pre-seed round from The Veteran Fund, DraperU Ventures, Soma Capital, Climate Capital, and others

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🇬🇧 London neighborhoods that resisted the expansion of the ultralow emissions zone have been those that have benefited most from lowered air pollution. A frequent pattern in transit projects…

🗽New York City’s congestion price zone might have boosted the local economy by almost $1 billion in one month. Trump is hoping to dismantle it later this month, but NY’s ready for a fight.

🍫 Brussels is dragging its feet on implementing its Low Emissions Zone. Part of the challenge may be that residents feel like traffic calming measures have gone too far.

🔁 Massachusetts has launched a 2-year vehicle-to-grid pilot. You love to see it.

🇳🇴 Meanwhile, Norway has finally given permission for zero-emissions zones, with Olso, Bergen and Trondheim ready to move forward. It’s overdue but welcome!

🇸🇪 In Sweden, over 60% of new cars sold last month were plug-in. Meanwhile the US is at 10%….

🇪🇺 The European Union watered down rules on EV adoption. This is a slowdown but the bloc remains committed to the EV transition.

🔬Markets & Research

🚌 Half of all transit buses sold in the EU last year were zero-emissions. Sales of diesel-powered transit buses may stop before the end of the decade.

🔋According to the International Energy Agency, global battery demand hit over one terrawatt hour. Battery demand is fundamentally about transportation: EVs account for 85% of the global battery market.

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🚲 Doordash gave a data-driven peek into its use of two-wheel bikes for delivery. Because using a 4,000 pound car to deliver a 2 pound pizza isn’t particularly efficient.

🪨 Mercedes has started road testing the solid-state battery from the startup Factorial. The more different types of battery chemistries we have, the more robust and resilient our options for transportation decarbonization are.

🙅‍♂️ Elon Musk-led DOGE is cutting almost half of the team that oversees autonomous vehicle regulation in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). As a reminder, he’s apparently allowed to self-manage his own potential for conflict of interest, including for Tesla and government contractor SpaceX.

🚕 Tesla has applied for a permit in California to run a ride-hailing network, a precursor to a purported robotaxi network. Meanwhile, still no word from Tesla about any regulatory applications for driverless testing or deployment in California…

🚮 Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz has donated a fleet of Tesla Cybertrucks to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. It’s unclear if he’s trying to punish the city.

🕐 After the collapse of Nissan’s merger with Honda, Nissan may get rid of its CEO. A long, distracting saga for a company that was once a leader in EVs.

🛢️ BP is slashing its investment in renewables. RIP beyond petroleum.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🛩️ JetZero is partnering with Delta Airlines to develop its blended-wing-body design aircraft, a much more fuel-efficient design that’s never been used in mass aviation. See the Deep Dive in Vol 50 for more on aviation decarbonization.

✈️ Electric aircraft startup Eviation, which had raised over $200M, has had to put its business on pause as it tries to secure new funding. The sector could face more headwinds if the federal government pulls back on energy and defense contracts.

🚙 Struggling electric automaker Lucid fired its CEO. The fates of Lucid and Rivian continue to diverge: Rivian found safe harbor in its relationship with VW. It’s not clear to what degree Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns about 60% of Lucid Motors, is willing to indefinitely cover losses.

↘️ After being acquired by Marc Lore’s Wonder, Grubhub is letting go of 20% of its staff. Just over a decade ago, Grubhub had a 70% market share. Today, it’s down to about 6%.

📦 European startup Relay is aiming to build a DHL-like network of gig workers on bikes. Parcel networks continue to look at how to downsize in urban environments from vans to micromobility.

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DEEP DIVE: Teslarati, 2025 Climate Founders Edition

It would be logical to spend a deep dive on how quickly Tesla’s problems are mounting: its stock price is cratering, sales are collapsing, and it’s a target of an increasingly visible consumer boycott. But as painful as the stock drop is, the company’s board may feel that Tesla without Elon might mean an even bigger, and more permanent, drop in stock price.

Given that 2025 seems to be starting out with lots of bad news, I’m choosing to spend this edition celebrating the good news. Last year, I did a Deep Dive on Tesla and SpaceX alums who had founded climate related startups.

Founders from the 2024 edition have been making huge strides since then: Curo raised its pre-seed round, Glimpse raised a $10M Series A, Noya announced a partnership with Johnson Matthey, and H3X raised a $20M Series A.

So what better way to find a silver lining in 2025 than to find a fresh crop of Tesla alums who are contributing to building something new in climate? Without any further ado, here’s the Teslarati 2025 Climate Founders list.

As the months progress, expect more and more Tesla employees to jump ship. And that’s even more good news given that some of them will become climate founders.

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Reminder! Enduring Planet (where I serve as a venture scout) has launched Enduring Planet CFO, a trusted startup partner for bookkeeping, accounting, financial planning and analysis, and fundraising.

This week Deep Dive is the obituary of the hydrogen-powered plane.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Airship Industries (California, USA): Autonomous airships for cargo hauling

• Ichiban Motorcycles (Japan): Emerging manufacturer of electric motorcycles

• FleetGlue (California, USA): Hardware-agnostic fleet management software for mobile robot operations

• Joint AI (California, USA): Software to automate multichannel freight operations to drive efficiency

• KAV Helmets (California): Mass-customized production, starting with custom 3D-printed cycling helmets

• Lunatrain (California): Overnight sleeper train service

• Saferide (Nevada, USA): Aftermarket safety hardware for cars

• Selar (France): Sustainable cruise expeditions serving the the polar regions

• Sunchem (California, USA): Technologies for the precision separation of critical metals used in batteries

• Valo (California, USA): Electric hydrofoil technology

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💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Fetii (Vol 24) raised a $7.4M Seed round led by Mark Cuban, with Y-Combinator and Goodwater Capital

• About Energy (Vol 57) raised a 4M GBP funding round (investors undisclosed)

• Spark e-fuels (Vol 58) raised a 2.3M EUR pre-Seed round led by Nucleus Capital, with Zero Carbon Capital, IBB Ventures, Chemovator, Voyagers.io, and 1.5° Ventures

• Valar Atomics (Vol 69) raised a $19M Seed round led by Riot Ventures, with AlleyCorp, Initialized Capital, Day One Ventures, and Steel Atlas

• Bingo Tech (Vol 93) raised $1.9M from Trucks VC

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🚲 New York City is fulfilling its promise to let delivery workers swap out fire-prone e-bikes with UL-certified options. That’s leadership.

🏙️ Portland has released an RFI to explore a micro-delivery hub pilot in a city-owned parking garage. That’s also leadership.

🚄 The Trudeau government in Canada committed to building high-speed rail connecting Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City. This has long been a “no brainer” infrastructure project, but getting it across the finish line will fall to subsequent Prime Ministers.

😡 The US General Services Administration (GSA) may shut down EV charging at federal properties and sell EVs purchased by the federal government. This is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

😤The US Department of Commerce may take over the US Postal Service. While the clear risk to the electric van program falls within the scope of this newsletter, the broader risk is a potentially catastrophic development for vote by mail.

🤬The Trump administration continues to pursue various tariff policies that would add thousands of dollars to the cost of cars. If you’re wondering whether that’s good long term: Ford and GM stock are both down by more than 10% over the last month.

😡 The Trump administration appears to be strong-arming Ukraine into giving up mineral rights. Deep Dive “The Next Cold War is Already Here” outlines why countries are scrambling to secure long-term supply of minerals used in batteries.

😖Following a spate of air crashes, the US FAA now has a team from SpaceX trying to help modernize the US air traffic control system. Meanwhile, a coalition of aviation industry and union groups re-iterated their long-standing request to boost staffing levels that everyone agrees are painfully overstretched.

😠The US federal government announced plans to try to kill NYC’s congestion pricing program and California’s high-speed rail program. Neither state is going back down without a fight.

🔬Markets & Research

🚕 A new University of Michigan study again shows ridehail customers use Uber and Lyft in a way that undermines public transit. If you don’t get a handle on this now, it gets infinitely harder when robotaxis scale…

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🤖 BYD announced that it will offer its “God’s Eye” self-driving technology on most of its cars without additional cost, including some cheaper models. This kind of move can destroy profit pools that players like Waymo and Tesla were banking on.

🇨🇳Tesla is having difficulty getting “Full Self-Driving” driver assist software approved in China. There are always casualties in a trade war.

📲Tesla is allowing 3rd party chargers in its own navigation ecosystem so long as they hit a 90% charging success rate and hit frequency targets. Another move that will force players to invest in charger operations and maintenance.

🪧Anti-Musk activists are protesting at Tesla stores, vandalizing SuperChargers, and egging Cybertrucks. Tesla sales are crumbling, but a very stale product range is probably more to blame than Musk’s politics…for now. Things could get very uncomfortable for Tesla sales in overseas markets and with fleet customers.

🧟‍♀️Japanese investors are preparing a proposal to sell beleaguered Nissan to Tesla. This wouldn’t make strategic sense for either company.

📈Rivian reached its first gross profit. A huge success, but reaching operating profit was predicated on a lower-cost model built at a new plant with support from the US Dept of Energy Loan Program Office. The loan is now in jeopardy.

🥊 Uber sued Doordash over anti-competitive practices. Uber’s inability to gain back market share from Doordash in food delivery underscores how powerful a Doordash/Lyft merger could be.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

👋Peer-to-peer carshare operator Getaround abruptly shut down its business in the US. Rival Turo formally withdrew its long-awaited IPO plans.

🛴Lime inched ever closer to an IPO, claiming 30% annual growth in gross bookings and a second year of positive free cash flow. Even with an IPO, Lime investors won’t likely be getting a great return.

📌 Humane, whose AI Pin was unveiled just over a year ago, has been absorbed by HP in a fire sale. Keep an eye on how technologies like this can help users on the go seamlessly navigate mobility decisions across public transit, scooter, and bike.

🚁eVTOL maker Archer secured another $300M and FAA approval for its pilot training program. Archer is one of the rare SPAC examples that is now trading fairly close to its initial stock price.

🚄 Revenues at Brightline, America’s not-quite-high-speed rail experiment in Florida, grew over 100% last year. The company is ordering more railcars to meet demand, but whether it will reach profitability is an open question.

🛬 DEEP DIVE: R.I.P. TO THE HYDROGEN-POWERED PLANE 💦

In April of 1997, Mercedes owner Daimler-Benz shook up the auto industry with an investment in Canadian fuel-cell company Ballard.1 The company projected that by 2005, 100,000 of its cars sold each year would be hydrogen-powered. Given that Mercedes sold about 700,000 cars per year at the time, the entire auto industry paid attention.

And so did US politicians. In 2004, US President George Bush committed to a national program to ensure that it would be “practical and cost-effective for large numbers of Americans to choose to use clean, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2020.”2

The actual result? After almost a decade on the market, sales of fuel-cell cars in California reached only 600 vehicles in 2024, down from 3,119 in 2023 (California is effectively the only state in the US where fuel-cell cars are sold in real numbers). In California, Toyota is almost giving away hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars for free.3 Other automakers have given up on fuel-cell cars, including Mercedes.

Meanwhile, battery-powered electric cars accounted for 21% of all new cars sold around the world last year. No worries, hydrogen proponents claimed. The *real* transportation application for hydrogen would be in aviation, maritime, and heavy-duty trucking.

So it was not great news for Team Hydrogen when Airbus announced earlier this month that it had delayed the commercial launch of its hydrogen plane from 2035 to “the late 2040s.”4 Boeing is even more dubious about hydrogen5; given that it lost $12B last year, it has other emergencies to worry about. (For more on why Boeing is a geopolitical and a climate risk, see the Deep Dive in Vol 76).

It’s not just Airbus and Boeing that are growing more dubious on hydrogen. Destination 2050, a sustainability initiative for the European aviation sector, unveiled its first decarbonization pathway in 2021 which showed hydrogen-powered planes accounting for 20% of the net emissions reduction by 2050. Earlier this month, it updated that figure to 6%.

And things are similarly dubious on the startup front. The Deep Dive in Vol 50 (March, 2023) profiled several startups in both hydrogen and electric. It’s been fairly slim pickings for the hydrogen crowd since then. Universal Hydrogen, which raised over $80M, went bankrupt last year. And ZeroAvia continues to attract funding, but calling them a hydrogen player is somewhat misleading: though the company started as a hydrogen-powered plane, it has since added selling electric propulsion systems to others.6

This isn’t to say that the idea of sustainable aviation is dead. Instead, it implies that the pathway is getting clearer. As shown above, the electrification of short-haul aviation continues at a swift pace. And sustainable aviation fuel continues to secure significant investment as the likely pathway for long-haul aviation.

Just as with automotive, hydrogen may be more of a distracting mirage rather than a genuine technology alternative. Time will tell whether the same happens in long-haul heavy-duty trucking and maritime.

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So here we are: the 100th issue. And for this Deep Dive, I’ve opted not to focus on the dramatic political shifts in the last few weeks and their impact on sustainable mobility. The TLDR is that sustainable mobility involves interactions between assets (e.g., zero-emissions cars, zero-emissions plane charging infrastructure) and behaviors (e.g., using a mapping app to realize the bus gets you faster there than your car). At the asset level, the Trump administration is as powerless as anyone else against the ongoing decrease in battery costs; every long-term projection shows EVs being cheaper (and higher performing) than internal combustion engine cars. EVs are mature enough globally that trying to slow their progress will only result in economic and environmental damage in the US. More to come in a subsequent Deep Dive.

So to celebrate issue 100, today’s Deep Dive analyzes which sustainable mobility startups got funded in 2024. Armed with dry powder, these startups should give us hope for what progress can be made, especially in the face of political headwinds in the US.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Estes Energy (California, USA): Chemistry-agnostic battery platform with a US-supply chain

• evPower.ai (Israel): Operator of a bidirectional EV charging network

• Flitedeck (Germany): A digital cockpit for bicyclists (notably, the company has been funded so far via an OnlyFans account. Link safe for work)

• HiveLink (France): Interactive displays for public transit

• OpenRoad (California, USA): Hardware and software platform for high-speed EV charging

• Pleevi (Belgium): Charging management software for large charging facilities

• Tubular Network (Texas): Interconnected system of tubes that can autonomously transport packages between buildings

• Vivant Cycleworks (California): Emerging manufacturer of e-cargo bikes

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• FlexCharging (Vol 27) was acquired by Accurant’s FlexEnergi unit. This is the 13th exit in the dataset

• Presto (formerly ChargePass, Vol 48) raised a $15M Seed round from Union Square Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Powerhouse Ventures, and Jetstream

• ENAPI (Vol 78) raised a $7.5M Seed round from Voyager Ventures, Project A, Seedcamp, and helloworld

• Dreamfly Innovations (Vol 88) raised a $1.4M Seed round from Avaana Capital and SunICON Ventures

As a reminder, the startup data set is free (for now) to subscribers. If you’re a subscriber interested in accessing the Airtable with how these startups raised $2.5 billion in follow-on funding, please let me know.

Send me the Airtable link!

📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

👍 In NYC, congestion pricing continues to deliver good results across vehicle traffic, subway and bus ridership, foot traffic for retailers, and now has support of 60% of New Yorkers. Whether the potential new Federal Transit Administration secretary kills it is anyone’s guess.

👌🏾In California, Caltrain’s commuter rail notched a 41% increase in passenger volumes after switching to electric. In another nice bonus, the electricity costs are about 15% less than what Caltrain had expected.

💲At the state level, California’s high-speed rail program faces a $6.5B funding shortfall. Trump said he may investigate the project.

🚄 China has unveiled a prototype of the world’s fastest train, hitting an operational speed of 400 km (~250 miles) per hour. Meanwhile, Acela only hits 240 km (150 miles) per hour.

🪦At the US federal level, the transportation policy changes in the last two weeks have been astounding: The US withdrew (again) from the Paris Climate Accord. President Trump ordered the elimination of the federal “electric vehicle (EV) mandate”. While there is no federal EV mandate, it’s likely to mean that federal fuel economy standards get watered down or eliminated. The new DOT secretary made his first attack on any agency work relating to climate change. And trade allies Canada and Mexico were threatened with what the Wall Street Journal called “The Dumbest Trade War in History.” Those tariffs are currently on hold, but if they become real, expect chaos in the EV industry.

🔬Markets & Research

💧The European aviation sector’s decarbonization roadmap got its first update since 2021, with a dramatic reduction in the deployment of hydrogen as a fuel for planes. Sustainable aviation fuel and hybrid electric for short-haul appear to be the winners.

🤖 The Driverless Digest did a great overview of Waymo vs Uber. Author Harry predicts that Waymo ultimately offloads network operations to Uber or someone else. See a hint of this with Uber’s announcement to add Waymo to the mix in Austin.

🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🦾 Speaking of Waymo, they’ve added 10 new cities to their 2025 plan. They’re just testing there…for now.

☯️ Tesla’s earnings call for Q4 and the full year 2024 was exactly what everyone expected. Bulls heard Elon Musk’s plan to create the AI behemoth for the physical world, from self-driving to intelligent robots. Bears heard an executive team unable to acknowledge why a 70% deterioration in profitability last quarter was of any concern.

🐂 For the Tesla bulls: In addition to Musk suggesting a $30 trillion valuation, he committed to launching the company’s robotaxi network in Austin by June. It’s also conceivable that Musk redirects federal policy to prioritize Tesla’s lower-grade autonomy technology over Waymo’s more safety-minded approach.

🧸 For the Tesla bears: Since the earnings call, Tesla’s January sales vs the prior year were down by 11% in China, 63% in France, almost 60% in Germany, and by 10% in the US. Tesla’s very light Model Y refresh only underscores how long in the tooth the vehicle is.

🐢 Tesla expects to finally reach mass production of its Semi Truck by the end of this year. That’s another calendar year for Volvo Group and Daimler to build their lead in EV semis.

♟️Uber announced great earnings and activist investor Bill Ackman took a $2B stake in the company. Ackman is known for bitter courtroom battles, but he came out of the gate heaping praise on Uber’s current management.

💦 Renault’s CEO, testifying before a French parliamentary committee, noted “there is no market for hydrogen vehicles.” The testimony is linked to Renault’s plan to shut down its joint venture that makes hydrogen vans.

😨 Nissan canceled its planned tie-up with Honda, balking at the idea of becoming a Honda subsidiary. This ups the chances that Nissan eventually ends up a subsidiary of Foxconn; see the Deep Dive “The Fox(conn) is guarding the Henhouse” for more.

📫 GM’s robotaxi unit Cruise is laying off half its staff. The remainder of the staff will be folded into GM operations.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

👋 Norway’s Freyr abandoned its plans to build a $2.6B battery plant in Georgia. As global trade barriers increase, expect disruption in manufacturing plans.

🛩️ ZeroAvia’s electric plane moved one step closer to full FAA certification. One step closer to short-haul aviation being a battery affair…

🚢 Corvus Energy is helping build the first world’s fully electric offshore vessel. Many inland waterway vessels (e.g., ferries) are going electric, but this is taking batteries out into the open seas.

🚄 Brightline West launched a $2.5B bond sale to finance part of its LA to Vegas high-speed rail plan. It aims for standard one-way ticket price of $119, but the opening has been pushed to after the LA Olympics.

🏴‍☠️ Beleaguered electric truck maker Nikola is expected to imminently undertake bankruptcy proceedings. It’s unlikely that someone will buy the remaining assets.

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DEEP DIVE: WHAT GOT FUNDED IN 2024 AND WHY

Rather than focus on potential doom and gloom, this Deep Dive analyzes the companies in the Startup Watch that received fresh capital in 2024. Armed with dry powder, these founders should give us hope about what can be accomplished for sustainable mobility in 2025 even amidst American and global headwinds.

Of the 788 companies in the Startup Watch database from inception in 2021 to the end of 2024, 104 announced a subsequent funding event in 2024 and 4 had an exit. Of the funding events, 10 didn’t disclose the amount raised. The remaining 94 startups raised $761M, for an average of $8M per company.

Ten startups nabbed over one-third of that capital and, notably, only two of those could be described as software plays. The rest all involve some sort of physical product.

Geography-wise, startups based in California secured 34% of the funding, with the UK (11%), Germany (11%), Massachusetts (10%), and New York (7%) rounding out the top players. East Africa, led by Kenya, continues to be an emerging hotbed of activity.

In terms of sub-sectors, batteries, trucking, and EV charging account for over half the dollars, which looks similar to 2023 fundraising.

So what does that tell us about this year?

• 🔋 The nearshoring of the battery economy in the West is imperative and garners bipartisan support in both North America and Europe. Getting both the institutionalization of battery R&D and manufacturing will be a herculean challenge, but tensions with China don’t look like they will cool anytime soon. This continues to be a huge opportunity in everything from using AI to identify sustainable mining sites in North America to building the next Redwood Materials for battery recycling.

• 🚛 On the heavy-duty side, there’s still a meaningful opportunity for new entrants, given how much the entire ecosystem needs to change as Volvo and Daimler (and BYD) scale EV trucks- think everything from the massive charger challenges to labor issues integrating autonomy.

• 🚙 The electrification of cars is no longer a venture business. A decade ago you could raise billions for a car startup like Lucid. No more. Future deal activity in this space is more likely to be M&A, as outsiders like Foxconn ponder buying companies like Nissan or as legacy players consolidate in an attempt to counter the dominance of China’s EV players.

• ✈️ On the aviation front, the US government can’t let Boeing fail, but it probably wouldn’t be opposed to a new domestic player joining the scene. And it’s more than likely that a new player would leapfrog Boeing and its suppliers on the powertrain front. Take Anduril, which is out for a $2.5B raise and has deep connections to the Trump administration. Given Anduril’s ties to eVTOL player Archer, it doesn’t take too many product cycles to see how Anduril could start making Boeing sweat, first on the defense side, and then potentially on civil aviation.

• 🚢 Sustainable maritime, which is about half of the “other” category, is still under the radar. While large portions of the maritime decarbonization will be PE or project finance deals, this continues to be an area ripe for startup-led disruption.

2025 is likely to be a tough year. But in an environment where the US federal government is turning its back on all things climate, it’s an opportunity for startup founders and investors to refocus on fundamentals: scaling a startup often comes down to having a superior costs and performance versus legacy companies.

Here’s to the next 100 issues…and thanks for being along for the journey thus far…

Thanks to all of you who reached out over the last dozen days about the devastating wildfires in LA. I am grateful to be safe and unharmed, but all of us in LA are grieving for those who lost so much and for the impact on our area.

This week’s Deep Dive is about what we’ve learned from two weeks of congestion pricing in NYC, one of the biggest mobility experiments in the US this century.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Altrove (France): Synthesized manufacturing of critical minerals, including for EV batteries

• ChargeBoat (California, USA): Maritime electric charging network

• Deflect (New York, USA): Hardware solutions to improve fuel efficiency of rail operations

• Dockflow (Belgium): Maritime logistics software for traceability and circularity

• Mevco (Australia): Converts utility vehicles to electric for mining operations

• Pawnee Mobility (Texas, USA): Hybrid-electric vehicles for the defense industry

• Stralis Aircraft (Australia): Emerging manufacturer of hydrogen-powered aircraft

• Webreathe (France): Software for public transportation, including passenger counting

• Zero Homes (Colorado, USA): Software platform to help homeowners go all-electric including EV charger install

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Moment Energy (Vol 48) raised a $15M Series A from Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Voyager Ventures, as well as Version One Ventures, Overture Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, MCJ, Climate Capital, and others

• Metafuels (Vol 49) raised a $9M Series A from Celsius Industries, Energy Impact Partners, Contrarian Ventures, and others

• Muon Vision (Vol 64) raised a $2.5M Seed Round from Azolla Ventures, Lamar Legacy LP, and Starshot Capital

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🇳🇱 Amsterdam launched its zero-emissions zone on January 1. You love to see it.

🔋In Los Angeles, cleanup in wildfire areas requires a new skill set: learning how to dispose of damaged electric vehicles. Fires in ICE vehicles are much more common than in EVs, but EV fires are more difficult to extinguish.

🚆California has unveiled its statewide plan for electric passenger rail. This is mostly symbolic but does provide regional planning authorities with a sense of where state priorities are heading.

🫳 California has withdrawn multiple requests from the EPA for potential policies relating to zero-emissions truck fleets, zero-emissions ferries and zero-emissions trains. California consistently makes smart calculations about which battles are worth fighting in DC; the state will focus more on rulemaking that doesn’t require federal approval.

🇨🇳 The Biden Administration has a new rule that effectively bans Chinese cars on national security concerns related to software from “countries of concern.” For more context on this challenge, see the Deep Dive in Vol 41: The Next Cold War Is Already Here.

✈️ The Trump Administration’s choice for Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, earned bi-partisan support during his Senate confirmation hearing. Duffy noted the need to give “tough love” to Boeing and suggested that EVs should pay for road use, given that the gas tax funds much of road spending.

☄️The Trump Administration’s choice for EPA, Lee Zeldin, seemed keen to align with the Supreme Court’s Chevron ruling. While the stance was expected, it’s tough to predict when, where, and how the Administration will roll back environmental protections.

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🔬Markets & Research

📈 The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has its 2024 update on the zero-emissions vehicle transition. On a percentage basis of new cars sold, the US is not just trailing the EU and China, but also New Zealand, Vietnam, and Thailand.

🙈 ProPublica has a deep dive into the failures of The Boring Company in Las Vegas. I’ve used Vegas Loop multiple times and consistently find it underwhelming and disappointing.

🚌 New data from the US Federal Transit Administration shows a continued decline from the peak of public transit ridership since 2014. This report is a fantastic quantitative overview of the nation’s public transit system.

🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🔌 EV maker Polestar is bracing for a rough 2025. The spinoff of Volvo Cars, itself a subsidiary of China’s Geely, may find that its China links close the door to the US market access.

🤷‍♀️ A video surfaced this week showing Tesla’s “self-driving” system unable to identify a train. While Tesla claims to be leading in self-driving vehicles, anecdotal insights and hard data suggest otherwise.

🚚 Amazon UK has announced the country’s largest purchase of electric heavy-duty trucks. The orders go to Mercedes and Volvo Group, not Tesla or startups.

🚲 Bosch is making e-bike batteries with remote disabling to deter theft. Ask any e-bike owner and they’ll tell you that theft is one of their biggest concerns when on the road.

👋 As part of a Honda-Nissan merger, Honda wants to buy out Renault’s 35.7% stake in Nissan. This would likely please both Renault and Nissan.

🏦 The DOE Loan Program Office finalized its $6.6B loan guarantee to Rivian to build a factory in Georgia, as well as a $1.7B loan guarantee to clean hydrogen startup Plug Power and a $1.7B loan guarantee to Montana Renewables for sustainable aviation fuel production. Whether the DOE Loan Program office undertakes any new loan guarantees under the Trump Administration is anyone’s guess.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🤖 Self-driving heavy-duty truck startup Aurora is suing the US federal government over a rule that requires warning triangles on the road when a semi is stopped on the side of the road. With the automation of driving, some rules will inevitably have to change.

💰Medium-duty EV truck maker Harbinger raised a $100M Series B. That’s a nice vote of confidence.

💧The board of hydrogen-truck startup Hyzon has voted to dissolve the company. Hydrogen’s window of opportunity to be a fuel in surface transportation is closing.

🚁 eVTOL startup Beta Technologies now has 46 charging sites live across the US. Charging networks may end up being strategic for airports and flight operators in the same way that the charging network serves a vital strategic advantage for Tesla.

🚗 Swiss startup Microlino has announced plans to bring its microcar to the US. While microcars/kei cars are having a moment in the US, oversized cars and trucks are having a much bigger moment.

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DEEP DIVE: CONGESTION PRICING BY THE NUMBERS

Two weeks ago, after almost two decades of preparation, NYC made history by launching the first zone-based congestion pricing mechanism in the US.

How long it will last is anyone’s guess. Republican lawmakers have met recently with Donald Trump to push for its reversal. Given that the new Administration starts tomorrow, now is as good of a time as any to quantify the impacts of congestion pricing in NYC.

When evaluating the impact of congestion pricing, you hope to see at least two different things:

1. A reduction in the number of people using private cars, with a commensurate increase in usage of public transit, micromobility, and active transit.

2. Improved service within the zone with faster and more predictable travel times. Public support often comes down to “well, sure, it costs me a bit more, but the travel times are so much faster.”

On both accounts, the early signs with one full week of data are good.

In terms of traffic reduction, early signs are that we’re seeing just over a 7% reduction in vehicles. That’s good, but not as strong as what London saw (14% in year one) and below the gold standard of 20%. The plan had initially foreseen a $15 fee, but Governor Hochul launched a watered-down version with a $9 fee. Greater reductions will likely be seen if and when the fee increases to $12 in 2028 and then $15 in 2031.

Service within the zone is dramatically improved over the baseline, both in terms of how much time it takes to enter the zone from, say, the Holland Tunnel or Lincoln Tunnel, and by how much time it takes to traverse the zone.

As congestion pricing continues, expect several business implications:

• Growth in last-mile logistics via micromobility, as delivery services bypass the use of vans

• A boost for so-called Blue Highway efforts to shift goods movement toward maritime

• Heightened value from mapping, real-time traffic information, and routing algorithms that differentiate by vehicle type, time of day, etc.

• A shift in both B2B and B2C deliveries to after-hours, taking advantage of off-peak congestion pricing, through solutions like parcel delivery lockers

• Uptake in leasing, usage, and ownership of micromobility by commuters

• Increased use of measurement, verification, and enforcement software

• Growth in mobility aggregators that help commuters plan and pay for variable commutes

NYC is America’s most transit-oriented city. May congestion pricing in NYC keep shining a path for other American cities about car ownership as an option rather than a necessity.

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I’ll be at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on January 8th. Send me a message if you’ll be there and want to meet up.

This week’s Deep Dive is all about what you should check out at this week’s CES for all things sustainable mobility.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Allkemie (Virginia, USA): Green graphene for batteries and other applications

• DC Grid (California, USA): Off-grid DC-based energy solutions for EV charging, from Amply founder Vic Shao

• Flynt (Netherlands): Emerging manufacturer of electric vans

• Mobius Fuels (Texas, USA): Recycled, low-carbon fuels, focused on maritime

• Staxel (Michigan, USA): Micro warehouse fulfillment using robots

Fun fact: Newsletter subscribers live in 49 US states.

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💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Seabound (Vol 25) and Fleet Robotics (Vol 74) both raised an undisclosed amount from Elemental Impact

• Phoenix Tailings (Vol 48) raised a $43M Series B from BMW iVentures, Yamaha Ventures, Envisioning Partners, MPower, and Escape Velocity

• Hive Power (Vol 61) raised a 3.5M EUR Seed round from Axpo, Creadd Ventures, and Technologiefonds

As a reminder, the startup data set is free (for now) to subscribers. If you’re a subscriber interested in accessing the Airtable with how these startups raised $2.4 billion in follow-on funding, please let me know.

Send me the Airtable link!

📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

🗽New York City will indeed make mobility history today with the launch congestion pricing. For more, see Volume 49: Is New York City on the Cusp of Making Mobility History?

🪙 New York State, meanwhile, also made history with its new Climate Superfund. Notionally, the fund taxes heavy polluters, rather than individual taxpayers, to help pay for climate recovery efforts.

😢America suffered terrorist incidents on New Year’s Day in New Orleans and Las Vegas. In both cases, the perpetrators rented electric pickup trucks from peer-to-peer car-sharing app Turo for their crimes. In a move that likely raised eyebrows at privacy-obsessed Apple, Tesla’s Elon Musk sent vehicle surveillance materials directly to Las Vegas police.

↘️ Tesla notched a sales decline in 2024, its first in a decade. The overall global EV market grew 25%, so Musk’s push into robotaxis really may make or break the company.

🪦 Air taxi (eVTOL) startup Volocopter, which had raised more than $600M, filed for insolvency. The company still keeps up hope for a financial lifeline.

🐦‍🔥Meanwhile, air taxi startup Lilium actually did get a lifeline from European and American investors. Details are scarce, including who the new financiers actually are.

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DEEP DIVE: YOUR CHEAT SHEET FOR CES 2025

For many in tech, CES is one of the “can’t miss” events of the year. A lot of what is happening at CES 2025 this week is known ahead of time, so here’s your cheat sheet for what matters at CES 2025 for where climate tech meets logistics, supply chain, transportation, and mobility. Whether you’re heading to the show and want to know what to check out or whether you’re bypassing Vegas but want to know what you missed, this is what’s worth your time and why.

Micromobility and Automobiles

Expect a more subdued vibe at this year’s CES. We’re a few weeks away from a new Presidential administration in the US, one that has promised a very different stance on almost anything. Most players are taking a “wait and see” approach for everything from tariffs to EV mandates.

• Honda’s EV strategy has had more pivots than you can count and now the pressure is on, as the company may have to bail out Nissan as well. The company promises to give an update on its “Zero” strategy as well as an update on its Afeela JV with Sony.

• Suzuki stopped selling cars in the US in 2013, but that’s not stopping the Japanese company from showing off its “Versatile micro e-Mobility Platform concept.” If anyone can figure out how to get autonomous delivery robots to scale, it’s the plucky automaker that likes to make things as small as possible.

• Segway will show off its first two e-bikes for the US market. China’s Segway/Ninebot is one of the 800-pound gorillas in micromobility but whether they’re ready for a branded bike in the 2025 US political environment is an open question.

Aviation

CES can feel like drone and air taxi (eVTOL) central, but don’t forget to keep an eye peeled for insights on electric airplanes.

• South Korea’s Hanseo University is showing off a Bladeless Drone that purports to reduce noise by 40%, making it a better match for urban deliveries. We’re just beginning to grapple with all the challenges these products pose in terms of air and visual pollution.

• Xpeng, one of China’s leading EV makers, is intent on marrying its cars with flight. The Land Carrier concept is a three-axle EV paired with a two-seater air taxi. This duo eats a Tesla Cybertruck for breakfast.

• Delta Airlines is celebrating its centennial by snagging one of the coveted keynote speaking slots. Expect some nuggets from Delta about sustainable aviation fuel, electric planes, or air taxis, all while trying to not anger a future US President.

Maritime

Just a year ago, it seemed like maritime technology might be adrift at sea, but the last twelve months or so have been a huge number of commercial and technology advances in the decarbonization of shipping.

• South Korean startup Ecopeace is showing off its Healing Boat, a solar-powered vessel that removes algae from the water. While this one is more fanciful, the momentum behind the electrification of harbor vessels has been impressive, as ferry operators left and right are going electric.

• Voltaic (Startup Watch Vol 71) will display its electric leisure boat. Voltaic is one of a slew of startups like Arc Boats (Startup Watch Vol 4) betting that the future of boating is electric. They will all have to hustle, as incumbent Brunswick is moving quickly towards more sustainable boating.

Energy & Charging

A year ago, I was wondering whether Tesla would end up playing the Google/Apple role, dominating the standards and application ecosystem layer while a long tail of infrastructure and hardware players in the ecosystem struggle to survive. What a difference a year makes!

• South Korean startup TMEV Net is showing off its CryoFlux Power Cable, which uses liquid cooling to manage overheating for the megawatt charging standard. While public charging is old-hat by now, charging for heavy-duty trucks needs technology improvements like this in order to scale.

• Xing, a decade-old startup, will showcase its immersion-cooled battery technology. Niche UK sportscar maker Caterham recently adopted Xing’s technology for its first electric car.

• Michigan-based Danlaw will show off its Level 2 Clever Charge, its first foray into consumer electronics. Danlaw is hoping to improve the home EV charging experience through the use of AI.

Autonomy

Almost all autonomous vehicles are electric, but whether they will be more sustainable is an open question. The lower long-term costs of autonomous operations invite Jevon’s paradox into the mix, meaning that the right regulatory framework for both safety AND sustainability will be key.

• Waymo’s co-CEO Tekedra N. Mawakana will be the Keynote at the Leaders in Technology Dinner. After over a decade of a slow build, Waymo is in breakout mode. She may give more hints about expansion plans following December’s announcement about Tokyo.

• WATA is showcasing its stocktaking robot for automated warehouse operations. South Korea’s WATA is primarily a software company supporting warehouse operations, so their deeper move into robotics is a reminder that autonomy is mostly about goods movement, despite all the headlines that Waymo’s people-moving garners.

• Tier 1 supplier Continental will be showing off its autonomous technology. Arch rival Bosch has undertaken large layoffs and appears to be ceding ground in the self-driving space to China, so keep an eye out for whether Continental sticks with trying to sell autonomy to large car companies.

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I’ll be at CES on January 8th. Send me a message if you’ll be there and want to meet up.

This week’s Deep Dive is all about why EVs are the driving force behind a potential marriage between Honda and Nissan.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• Amptrans (California, USA): Software to optimize charging for medium and heavy-duty vehicles

• Applied Bioplastics (Texas, USA): Bio-based alternative to plastic

• BlueGrid (Canada): Vehicle-to-grid solutions for electric boats

• FlyNow Aviation (Austria): Manufacturer of eVTOL (air taxis)

• Enakl (Morocco): Microtransit network operator

• EVpin (New York, USA): Software to site and design EV charging stations

• SolGraph (California, USA): Graphite anode for lithium-ion batteries

• Quad-E (Australia): Manufacturer of 4-wheeled micromobility

• Wayside Energy (California, USA): Battery packs made from recyclable material

• XRoadz (Massachusetts, USA): Robotic traffic control systems

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🤝 Paris and Berlin are now linked by a high-speed train route. At eight hours, this trip definitely falls outside the 2-3 hour trip sweet spot for high-speed rail, but the symbolism is nice.

⏲️ California is easing rules on mandatory emissions reporting…for the first year. See the Deep Dive in Vol 65 to see why California and the EU make emissions reporting mandatory, despite anything the SEC might want to do.

🚲 The US Congress passed a stopgap spending bill, which included setting national safety standards for batteries used in micromobility. Hats off to city and Congressional leaders from NYC who realized that scaling micromobility would require banning fire-prone low-quality batteries. This allows NYC to embrace micromobility again and saves other cities lots of regulatory headaches.

🇺🇸 The Trump Administration will likely roll back EV and emissions targets, but may be willing to support on-shoring of the battery supply chain. Savvy startup founders are already adjusting their pitch decks…

🤖 The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a framework that finally allows for robotaxis without pedals or steering wheels. Under the Trump administration, look for the federal government to usurp state guidance and to be much more lax on safety, allowing Tesla to deploy despite having significantly less safe technology than Waymo.

🐻 The US Supreme Court and the Biden administration both reinforced California’s ability to set auto emissions targets. Savor these wins for now, because the upcoming Presidential administration will likely try to undermine the California waiver.

🚁 The US Air Force (AFWERX program) is pivoting from all-electric eVTOLs (air taxis) to hybrid electric. Similar shifts in thinking are underway in short-haul airplanes.

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🔬Markets & Research

🕋 PWC has published its annual State of Climate Tech study. Mobility remains the biggest climate tech sub-sector for investment.

✈️ The New York Times Wirecutter team did a consumer deep dive on why buying carbon offsets for a flight is mostly a sham. The team is similarly dubious about carbon-neutral shipping.

🚛 The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has great stats on the electrification of medium and heavy-duty trucks in Europe. Things are moving much faster in Europe than in the US.

🫠 Arizona State researchers have a new study showing high dissatisfaction with car dependency. Turns out people like having some access to a car but resent it when it’s their only option.

🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🫳 GM announced it was abandoning its robotaxi unit, Cruise. This game is now Waymo’s to lose, at least on the people movement side. Waymo also announced testing in Tokyo next year, its first international market.

🏪 Amazon has officially started selling cars, in partnership with Hyundai. We’re about 25 years into e-commerce and the car shopping experience is still frighteningly manual.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🚁 Defense unicorn startup Anduril announced a partnership with eVTOL startup Archer. Might Anduril eventually supplant Boeing in the US aircraft market?

🚛 Nikola and Canoo are both perilously close to bankruptcy. Not a huge surprise here…

🛴 Lime will hit 175 million trips in 2024. That’s about a 12% increase over the prior year.

🏭 Lithium-sulfur battery startup Lyten secured a $650M LOI from the Export-Import Bank of the United States to expand its battery manufacturing footprint in the US. This is the kind of deal that both Republicans and Democrats can get behind.

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🧐 DEEP DIVE: Why Nissan and Honda might merge

Earlier this week, multiple press outlets reported that Nissan, the 9th biggest automaker globally, and Honda, the 8th biggest, are considering merging. Any union would be a marriage of necessity to stop massive losses at Nissan.

Nissan and Honda are far from alone. Most of 2024 has been an absolute disaster for legacy car companies like VW and Stellantis. While most are still earning meager profits, the path to insolvency became painfully clear for all of them this year.

The common thread for all of them starts in the center of the automotive industry: China. For years, legacy carmakers like Nissan, Honda, VW, Stellantis, and GM minted money in China, with privileged access to a large market and generally incapable domestic players. Chinese government policy, starting in the 1980s, mandated that foreign entities like GM and VW set up 50/50 joint ventures with upstart local players in exchange for market access. The thinking was that eventually the Chinese domestic players would learn from their foreign counterparts and become competent manufacturers in their own right. Alas, it wasn’t to be, at least not as it was originally conceived. After decades, Chinese state-owned car companies like FAW and Dongfeng were still mostly walking zombies. The limited number of success stories were isolated to provincial-owned car companies (e.g., Shanghai Automotive/SAIC) or privately-owned players (e.g., Geely).

In the internal combustion engine era, the big beneficiaries of this JV structure were the foreigners. In 2010, approximately 30% of GM’s global profits came from China. VW once earned about 50% of its profits from China. And it might have stayed that way if it hadn’t been for those pesky EVs. Several trends that were brewing before COVID have dramatically accelerated since the start of the pandemic.

The Chinese market has shifted dramatically towards EVs, much more so than Europe and the US. This has decimated the market share of foreign brands in China. While VW and Buick still have some cachet if you’re some old-school type who wants an ICE, the same isn’t true in EVs, where domestic brands like BYD, Xiaomi, and Xpeng are the reference names. And nobody can blame the Chinese consumer: Chinese EVs are, quite simply, years ahead of their foreign counterparts. Catching up to GM and VW on ICE was a fool’s errand, but tapping into China’s immense supply chain, digital capabilities, and battery know-how has created an EV ecosystem that has legacy players terrified.

This would potentially be manageable for the likes of Nissan and VW if the carnage was isolated to China. But it’s not. The Chinese domestic market has slowed down but new factories keep popping up. There’s only one solution to a problem like that: exports. Since the pandemic began, China has become an absolute export powerhouse, shipping EVs (and ICEs) to markets like Brazil, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

The result is the start of an absolute bloodbath for legacy players like Nissan, Honda, VW, Stellantis, and GM, as they contend with low-price, high-quality EVs in markets all over the world. In Southeast Asia, for example, Japanese car makers like Honda and Nissan used to own 90% of the market. But in Thailand, for example, Japanese car makers saw double-digit volume declines earlier this year as BYD and others swooped in.

The US market has been spared some bloodletting so far thanks to the structure of the Inflation Reduction Act and trade agreements. But tariffs can only take you so far. BYD and other Chinese makers are scouting factory locations in Mexico, just as they’re doing across Europe.

Rumors are flying that the Honda and Nissan marriage is being expedited, in part, because iPhone maker Foxconn is trying to take a stake in Nissan. That rumor ties back to “The Fox(conn) is Guarding the Henhouse” (Deep Dive, Vol 47) which noted that “Most OEMs are sleeping on the Foxconn risk like they slept on the Tesla risk a decade ago. And we all know how that one turned out. Time to wake up.”

Things are likely going to get worse in 2025 for legacy automakers. Whether they ever get better is far from clear.

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There is no Deep Dive this issue.

Reminder! Enduring Planet (where I serve as a venture scout) has launched Enduring Planet CFO, a trusted startup partner for bookkeeping, accounting, financial planning and analysis, and fundraising.

🌱STARTUP WATCH: Sustainable mobility startups (pre-seed or seed) to keep an eye on

• AllRide (Germany): Mobility aggregator from the founders of Sono Motors, TIER Mobility & Moovel

• EV Maritime (New Zealand): Manufacturer of electric ferries

• Hilo EV (United Kingdom): Supplier of safety and connectivity systems for micromobility

• Lola Vision Systems (California, USA): AI semiconductors for autonomous machines

• Outbound Aerospace (Washington, USA): Emerging aircraft manufacturer using 3D printing to reduce emissions

• Roundabout Technologies (California): AI-powered traffic light system

• Sealion Energy (Pennsylvania, USA): Carnegie Mellon spinout focused on nanoscale conducting polymer coatings for battery cathodes

• Starflow (Norway): Hardware platform to optimize the flow of energy between solar panels, EV chargers, batteries, and home energy systems

• vsNEW (New York, USA): EV battery diagnostic report for dealers

• Wada Hoppah (Massachusetts, USA ): Electric ferry operator

💰FUNDING: Capital raises from startups previously featured in Startup Watch

• Alt Mobility (Vol 26) raised a $10M Series A from Eurazeo, LetsVenture, Shell Ventures, and others

• Dovetail Aviation (Vol 41) secured a 270K Australian dollar grant from LaunchVic

• Reefilla (Vol 48) raised a 4.5M EUR Seed Round from CDP Venture Capital, Azimut Liberia Impresa, HCapital Partners, and others

• Carbmee (Vol 61) raised a 20M EUR Series A from Fly Ventures and CommerzVentures

• OnTo Technology (Vol 80) secured a $3.6M grant from ARPA-E for its battery circularity technology

As a reminder, the startup data set is free (for now) to subscribers. If you’re a subscriber interested in accessing the Airtable with how these startups raised $2.3 billion in follow-on funding, please let me know.

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📰QUICK HITS: Notable news from the last two weeks

👩🏽‍⚖️Government, Policies & Cities

🗽New York City approved a landmark zoning reform to build more housing. Alas, America’s least-car-dependent big city hasn’t (yet) joined the growing list of cities abolishing parking minimums.

🅿️ Cardiff is moving forward with plans to charge heavy vehicles more for parking. Paris and Montreal get credit for being early movers, but this approach will likely grow over the long term.

🚲 London is turning its back on free-float e-bike sharing, requiring that bikes be parked in designated areas when not being used. The more micromobility evolves, the more it looks like a complement to existing public transport operations.

🚌 London’s new electric buses have a radical tram-like look and charge in 6 minutes. A good example of how the shift to electric can make the passenger experience significantly better.

🚈 Caltrain’s new all-electric trains are driving over a 50% increase in ridership. Just like in London, passengers are embracing the convenience benefits of electrification.

🤪 In San Francisco, some residents are blaming pedestrians for traffic deaths. For reasons why this logic is bogus, see the Deep Dive in Volume 9 entitled Jaywalking is a Scam.

🌊 California promises to bring back EV incentives if the Trump administration reverses the federal EV tax credit. As with Trump’s 2017-2021 mandate, cities and states are again ready to fill the climate leadership void.

🦞 Canada’s Membertou First Nation tribal government launched the country’s first all-electric lobster fishing boat. Vehicle-to-grid technology means the boat can support the electric grid when power demands surge.

🚲 Ontario is considering tearing up bike lanes. This would put the Canadian province on a short list of governments that reversed bike infrastructure. Culver City removed its bike infrastructure and now LA Metro is asking for its money back.

📨 The new USPS electric truck might draw smirks from the general public, but postal carriers are giving the new vehicles a thumbs up. The whisper-quiet new trucks offer air conditioning, a missing feature on the old workhorse.

🇨🇳 China is banning the export of certain rare earth minerals to the US. For context, see the Deep Dive entitled The Next Cold War is Already Here.

🇯🇵 Japan is considering an automated freight belt from Tokyo to Osaka to bypass highways. In this case, the automation is partly due to a shortage of truck drivers.

🚄 The incoming European Commissioner for Transport is promising a legislative push for ‘one-click booking’ system for train travel. This would make the rail booking system look a lot more like the air travel market.

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🔬Markets & Research

👩🏽‍⚖️ The US National Bureau of Economic Research has a new study linking industrial policy measures to commercial innovations in electric vehicles. Short answer: policy can be one of the major drivers of innovation.

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🏭 Corporates & Later Stage

🚢 Meta (aka Facebook) signed a deal with Danish tanker owner Norden to use sustainable maritime fuels in its supply chain. Meta is a minnow in the shipping game versus companies like Amazon or PepsiCo, but it’s got big sustainability ambitions.

🛳️ Cruise ship operators, increasingly pushed out of European ports, are focusing on private Caribbean islands. For more on cruise ships, see the Deep Dive All A-Boat Sustainable Cruising.

🤖 Shares of Uber and Lyft dropped 10% on news that Alphabet’s Waymo is opening for business in Miami; ridehail drivers in LA and Phoenix claim that Waymo’s model is depressing their earnings. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for Uber and Lyft shareholders if every Waymo step forward causes a double-digit change in their stock price.

🚌 Uber has extended its shared shuttle bus business to India. Much like its ridehailing business, Uber partners with private fleet operators who fulfill the service.

🥀 Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares was abruptly dismissed while VW workers went on strike over plant closures, both in part over the EV transition. The European auto market is turning into a bloodbath, with EVs highlighting painful weaknesses like Stellantis’ lack of organic growth and VW’s absurd cost bloat.

🙊 Tesla might be building a teleoperations team for its robotaxi service. If you combine this with Elon Musk whispering a federal robotaxi regulatory framework to President Trump, it might be enough to overcome Tesla’s technology deficit versus Waymo.

🇻🇦Mercedes delivered its first first all-electric Popemobile. Nice that Vatican City is moving from plug-in hybrid to all-electric.

😌 Universal plug-and-charge for EVs should be coming to US charger networks next year. One of the many needed steps to make public charging more convenient and reliable.

🚲 In US car dealerships, service and parts departments are starting to sell e-bikes. Parts departments often sell accessories at a similar price to e-cargo bikes; they’re not as good of a fit on the new car showroom floor, where sales staff are angling to close $50K deals.

🐣 Startups & Early Stage

🚂 SunTrain (Startup Watch Vol 74), in collaboration with Xcel Energy and NREL, announced the WATT pilot project in Colorado. This is a fascinating use of mobility systems to help our antiquated transmission grid. Sometimes electrons just want to be mobile.

🇳🇬 Nigerian fintech/mobility startup Moove is now powering Waymo fleet operations in Phoenix, with Miami up next. Moove is putting the pieces together for an impressive IPO…

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