Mobility Matters | January 27, 2025 | Episode 28

January 27, 2025 | Episode 28 | 1,992 words ~9 minute read

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Welcome back to existing readers, and welcome to new ones! We are well and truly "back to business" after the holidays, with a lot of new reports and news out to fill this one up, so fill up your coffee and lean back.  In the EV world the Deloitte Survey and ICCT 2050 report are both must reads, from a shipping perspective DNV’s perspective on biofuels and the order book are good and ~quick-ish reads. I’d submit that anyone reading a newsletter like this would benefit from the GS and CME 2025 predictions, and beyond that the interview with Uber’s CEO is really “must see TV”, to steal a phrase.

Recent Reports

• National Grid wrote on the state of the flexibility market, and what was interesting was the total volume (by quantum) of EVs on the platform actually didn’t outpace the capacity of I&C engines. Expect that to change linearly with more EV penetration, but certainly matching the capacity to the volume a little better would help too.

• One refrain you hear constantly is that mining is the achilles heel of the coming battery boom. The ICCT did a deep dive into this and the end result is their “Electrifying road transport with less mining” report. The below is a good overview of their findings.

• Sifted has published their “Sifted 250” report going over the fastest growing 250 startups across Europe. Lot’s of unrelated stuff in here, but about 40 are climate tech related. Glad to see James and Jack at Bumper getting the nod yet again as well. Not too dissimilar is the Cleantech Global 100 that also recently came out. 
• In the world of charging software companies, Ampeco is something of a darling, so it’s at least worth reading their (admittedly self serving) long read on the complexity involved in public charging. My own personal bias is that a lot of this complexity gets solved through an extension of the wave of consolidation and bankruptcies that we have already seen (I mean, I have a recurring section in this newsletter about it…).  Anyways, worth a read through.
• For anyone interested in how things move from A to B, the price of oil is pretty relevant. Goldman put out some prognostications on where that’ll end up this year through their lens on geopolitics and markets. Predictions like this are famously hard to get right, but if they are…much ado about nothing. The CME group has a similar article on 2025 energy projections.
• Deloitte’s annual automotive consumer preference survey is out, and I found a few charts particularly interesting, because if you look at that ICE preference bar, and you look at the price preferences below say ~$50k…well, I know I keep banging on about needing mass market priced EVs, but seriously. We need them.

• Zapmap has published their annual look at EV charging, and a few things caught my eye 1) we have finally tipped over towards more than 50% of households with an EV being EV only (e.g. not a one ICE/one EV thing) and 2) broadly the percentage of people with an EV and the ability to have a suitable charger at home is really sticky at ~80%.
• ICCT issued an update to their 2050 scenarios document, Vision 2050, notably they see a potential pathway to peak road transport CO2 emissions this year.

• Cenex came out with a new (very short) report on better ways to measure the growth and availability of EV Charging infrastructure.  Advocating away from easy to measure items like total chargepoints or a chargepoint density characteristic such as CPs/EV, and towards measures that better describe the ease of charging near home, on a journey or at a destination. It’s a short report that’s simultaneously easy to understand but hard to describe in 100 words or less, this chart on near-home charging is helpful. The main conclusion being that in the UK supply of EV chargepoints near homes is ~2 months ahead of demand, pretty balanced!

• Finally, DNV has ~35 pages on biofuels in shipping. If you’re in the business of either biofuels or shipping it’s worth reading, and I don’t like how it comes at the end of the reports section because it’s useful reading, but something has to.  Good info on supply availability, technical challenges, and pricing.

Recent News

• Look, the FT isn’t wrong with how they present this data or their conclusions, but it’s still kind of impressive how Toyota has stuck with the potential for an H2 future in the face of such hard facts. While I’m personally a skeptic of H2 for light duty, you do have to hand it to them that their bet on hybrids seems to be working. 

• Grab and BYD have signed a strategic partnership to the tune of up to 50k EV’s in Southeast Asia.
• In other fleet news - BT announced they are buying 3,500 EVs to modernize their fleet.
• Remember the Ford deal we spoke about where they were offering free home charging? Looks like Vinfast took notice and decided to try their own version.
• GM got their hands slapped for being very naughty with customer data, and Subaru had a leak that exposed…just about everything to anyone dedicated enough to find it. I’m tempted to point to the sign again that says “turning cars into computers means they inherit computer problems”, but that seems crass.
• It’s not at all silly in my view to wonder how you tax road use to fund maintenance in the future. It used to be easy, people used petrol or diesel to drive, so you taxed that. Not so much anymore. Anyways, the proposed head of DOT doesn’t know how to do it either, but thinks it needs to happen.
• I’ve always been negative on mobility innovation at CES, because the conference name tells you what it’s about. That said, here’s a round up of relevant items.
• Amazon placed its largest ever order for electric HGVs. Sounds better than it is though, 200 HGVs is a nice start, but hardly makes a dent when you look at the scope of the problem.
• DNV has shared some notes on the rise of LNG order book for new vessels, interesting in light of this from the FT showing how big the order book is getting.

“2024 drove a significant rise in orders for alternative-fuelled vessels. A total of 515* such ships were ordered, representing a 38% year-on-year increase compared to 2023”

• Some Honda execs went through their rationale behind the potential merger with Nissan and just reading between the lines, this does not end well for Nissan.
• The US DOT published a fun new tool for multi-modal freight that consists of approximately 175,000 miles of highways, railways and waterways, 140 seaports and 65 airports. You should go try it yourself, it’s more fun than it sounds.
• It turns out the answer to inexpensive Chinese EVs was just making an equally good, inexpensive EV.  Who would’ve guessed? Not complex but congrats to Kia for pulling the trigger. Hyundai is also rolling out a sub £30k model in the UK.
• Last episode I mentioned a podcast where Lloyds had some spicy things to say about the IMO and what might happen if they can’t get coordinated agreement on climate action in the shipping industry. Lucky for them they seem to have the big flag bearing nations and the big money nations on board with at least something happening.
• T&E has responded to some of the growth plans that the aviation industry has on the table, and thinks they will blow their carbon budget by as early as 2026, even with SAF.

• Amazon has suspended drone delivery tests following a crash at a testing facility.
• I mean, Tesla has always played a bit fast and loose, but what’s really interesting is seeing someone who was a primary supporter (and beneficiary) of the company turn on them like Fred Lambert at Elektrek seems to have done.  Jeez, I wonder what might have led to that.
• DNV, which let’s be honest is a place full of really talented and conservative engineers, has issued their technical specs for automated shipping. This isn’t a thing that will happen tomorrow, but don’t sleep on how big of a change this will be.
• Here’s some cool news: the average range of an EV has more than tripled in 10 years. The DOE has more here. 

• I thought this was a good read to remind myself of the non-technical hurdles that exist in front of widely deployed autonomous vehicles. I mean, sure, you figured out how to get a class 8 vehicle to drive itself from A to B…but how do you get a tiny hi-vis triangle on the roadside if it has to pull over for some reason?
• We’ve talked about this previously but now it’s final, connected cars from adversarial nations are no longer welcome in the US due to concerns about, well, everything.

Consolidation in Mobility

• Metropolis is buying Oosto
• Last time we mentioned how Canoo was furloughing staff in advance of an expected bankruptcy filing. Well the filing is here and the story is now over.
• Tesla has cut some Cybertruck staff in light of a lack of demand
• UK convenience retailer EG group is going public, but in another sign of the times they are choosing to do so in New York and not London.
• Scout is the latest in a string of dealer vs. OEM fights engendered by the rise of EVs allowing both sides to challenge decades old structures.
• Xpeng and VW are joining up to build out a super fast charging network in China…the only market where you could reasonably say there is no need for another infra entrant.
• Renault Group through its Mobilize brand and Autostrade per l’Italia through its subsidiary Free To X have signed a framework agreement to develop fast-charging infrastructure in Italy
• Ebay is buying Caramel, they are now vertically integrating the entire car purchase, stepping into areas previously left to the dealers under their earlier automotive work. Smart readers will remember that Amazon just announced Amazon auto’s which we covered in episode 26, but they put out an update that the program has been really slow to take off (only 400 vehicles sold thus far)
• SGS and Bureau Veritas considering a big merger ($33B!)…who knew testing was such a big business? 
• AGL has acquired EV software platform Everty

Longer form items

• Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was interviewed at Davos by the WSJ, its thirty minutes and you should definitely watch this one. Key takeaway: the next period of time (10 years) will be one of a mix of human drivers and AV vehicles, but then (15-20 years) it shifts completely over. (30 min video)
• When the president of Cargill’s Ocean Transportation pens an opinion piece, two things are simultaneously true: it’s been washed by a horde of comms professionals, and it’s still worth the read. Especially true when talking about sustainability. (4 min read)
• Want to see the new Zoox AV in action? (4 min. video)
• This is almost certainly engagement bait as the rider didn’t use the built-in features available for just such an occasion, but we should prep to see more of these takes. (1 min video)

Links from the group chat

• Originally right-to-repair was more for handheld electronics…this is a bit different than that.
• It makes sense when you think about it, but the amount of unexploded ordinance that surrounds the British Isles and is sometimes right next to oil pipelines. Is at least a little bit frightening.
• I agree Mckinsey, what even is SaaS? On that note, GP Bullhound has their annual report on SaaS out as well.