Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
When I was shopping for a new car last year I gave serious thought to buying an electric vehicle. In fact, it is what I initially set out to do. But I couldn't find a model that I liked and I didn't feel like the charging infrastructure was in place for me to go on snowboarding trips to places like Quebec or Vermont. So I went with an ICE vehicle. But we all know it is only a matter of time before we hit that tipping point, which is why 100% of the parking spots at our Junction House project will be ready for an electric vehicle charging station.
According to a recent briefing from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), there were 3.1 million electric passenger vehicles in use around the world at the end of 2017. Almost all of them (98%) were located in China, Europe, Japan, and the United States, and nearly half of them (44%) were located in just 25 cities. Shanghai leads the world (or at least it did at the end of 2017) with 162,000 cumulative sales since 2011. This represents 5% of all global electric vehicle sales during this time period.
The footnote to this is that most of Shanghai's electric vehicles are actually plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, whereas in the case of Beijing -- which is second only to Shanghai in terms of cumulative sales -- it is virtually all battery electric vehicles. Digging even deeper, if you look at the share of electric vehicles sales in each city, it becomes clear that, on a per capita basis, the real leader is actually Norway. Between 40-50% of all cars sold in Oslo and Bergen were electric in 2017.
Here is a chart from the ICCT:
What is clear from these leading cities is that there are supportive policies and incentives in place to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles. The chicken-and-egg dilemma, which is what I ran into, is that you really need the installed charging capacity. The ICCT estimates that the top 25 electric vehicle markets have about 24x the available charging per capita compared to other cities. That certainly helps.
Earlier this month it was announced that the on-demand electric scooter and bike startup, Lime, had closed a $310 million series D round. This values the 18-month old company at around $2.4 billion and brings its total raise to $867.1 million. For comparison, Bird -- its main competitor -- has raised around $400 million.
These numbers should tell you about the kind of growth that the "micromobility" startup is seeing. They are now in 15 countries and its riders have taken over 34 million trips. In the last 7 months alone, the company reports that it has seen a 5.5x increase in ridership. They are seen as an affordable last-mile solution. Supposedly 1/3 of its users report an income of less than $50,000 per year.
Lime entered the Canadian market last fall via Waterloo. They have yet to expand anywhere else, though I suspect we'll see them in Toronto this spring/summer. One of the barriers is that their scooters (with airless tires) aren't equipped to deal with snow, so they currently pack them up during the winter months.
This is in addition to the regulatory challenges they are facing in cities all around the world. But like Uber, I am sure there is a compromise to be had.
CES is underway right now in Las Vegas. About 200,000 people are in attendance.
Since tech and mobility are today closely intertwined, the show has become an important platform for the automative industry.
Here is a video showcasing BMW’s new iNext concept (expected by 2021):
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9-f3cALABk&w=560&h=315]
It is based on level 3 autonomy, which means the car will do mostly everything, but you need to be ready to take over at any time.
The video is interesting because it begins to show you what becomes possible when you no longer need to pay attention to the road. It is a bit like flying (but hopefully more enjoyable).
And here is a video of Bell’s new urban air taxi, which is called Nexus (expected by the mid-2020s):
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o4d8N-A1G8&w=560&h=315]
This is the company’s first concept. But they’ve been working with Uber since 2017 to develop a network of flying taxis for cities.
Finally, flying cars.
When I was shopping for a new car last year I gave serious thought to buying an electric vehicle. In fact, it is what I initially set out to do. But I couldn't find a model that I liked and I didn't feel like the charging infrastructure was in place for me to go on snowboarding trips to places like Quebec or Vermont. So I went with an ICE vehicle. But we all know it is only a matter of time before we hit that tipping point, which is why 100% of the parking spots at our Junction House project will be ready for an electric vehicle charging station.
According to a recent briefing from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), there were 3.1 million electric passenger vehicles in use around the world at the end of 2017. Almost all of them (98%) were located in China, Europe, Japan, and the United States, and nearly half of them (44%) were located in just 25 cities. Shanghai leads the world (or at least it did at the end of 2017) with 162,000 cumulative sales since 2011. This represents 5% of all global electric vehicle sales during this time period.
The footnote to this is that most of Shanghai's electric vehicles are actually plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, whereas in the case of Beijing -- which is second only to Shanghai in terms of cumulative sales -- it is virtually all battery electric vehicles. Digging even deeper, if you look at the share of electric vehicles sales in each city, it becomes clear that, on a per capita basis, the real leader is actually Norway. Between 40-50% of all cars sold in Oslo and Bergen were electric in 2017.
Here is a chart from the ICCT:
What is clear from these leading cities is that there are supportive policies and incentives in place to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles. The chicken-and-egg dilemma, which is what I ran into, is that you really need the installed charging capacity. The ICCT estimates that the top 25 electric vehicle markets have about 24x the available charging per capita compared to other cities. That certainly helps.
Earlier this month it was announced that the on-demand electric scooter and bike startup, Lime, had closed a $310 million series D round. This values the 18-month old company at around $2.4 billion and brings its total raise to $867.1 million. For comparison, Bird -- its main competitor -- has raised around $400 million.
These numbers should tell you about the kind of growth that the "micromobility" startup is seeing. They are now in 15 countries and its riders have taken over 34 million trips. In the last 7 months alone, the company reports that it has seen a 5.5x increase in ridership. They are seen as an affordable last-mile solution. Supposedly 1/3 of its users report an income of less than $50,000 per year.
Lime entered the Canadian market last fall via Waterloo. They have yet to expand anywhere else, though I suspect we'll see them in Toronto this spring/summer. One of the barriers is that their scooters (with airless tires) aren't equipped to deal with snow, so they currently pack them up during the winter months.
This is in addition to the regulatory challenges they are facing in cities all around the world. But like Uber, I am sure there is a compromise to be had.
CES is underway right now in Las Vegas. About 200,000 people are in attendance.
Since tech and mobility are today closely intertwined, the show has become an important platform for the automative industry.
Here is a video showcasing BMW’s new iNext concept (expected by 2021):
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9-f3cALABk&w=560&h=315]
It is based on level 3 autonomy, which means the car will do mostly everything, but you need to be ready to take over at any time.
The video is interesting because it begins to show you what becomes possible when you no longer need to pay attention to the road. It is a bit like flying (but hopefully more enjoyable).
And here is a video of Bell’s new urban air taxi, which is called Nexus (expected by the mid-2020s):
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o4d8N-A1G8&w=560&h=315]
This is the company’s first concept. But they’ve been working with Uber since 2017 to develop a network of flying taxis for cities.
Finally, flying cars.
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