Mobility Matters | September 8th, 2026 | Episode 33

September 8, 2026 | Episode 33 | 1717  words ~8 minute read

All opinions expressed below are mine and not those of my employer, Shell Ventures.

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 Hi all,

Welcome to the 33rd episode of Mobility Matters. This is a return from a long hiatus, and hopefully a return to more regular programming. I hope you missed me as much as I missed you 😉. In this one I’d especially take a look at the IEA EV Outlook Report and the McKinsey work on consumer preferences, both are enlightening. The Kalanick podcast is also worth an hour of your time.

Recent Reports

• Here’s 23 good pages from McKinsey on consumer expectations and impacts of the same in the auto industry. No surprise there are still a lot of regional differences in EV.

• Here’s a note from ACEA looking at EU H1 sales: bottom line is new car registrations: +5.7% in H1 2026; battery-electric 20.7% market share.

• Cox Automotive also gave their 2026 Mid-Year Review for the US market, and while I’ll put the EV share chart here, for me the really interesting point is the slide on used EV share, and in the new car market the interesting part is the hybrid penetration.

• One more H1 report for good measure because I like the image, this one from ICCT

• IEA’s Global EV Outlook is a flagship report in any year, and it’s always long and dense with good information, so it’s tough to pick the most interesting/important themes. That said, for me this year I’d look at the charging section 2026, both heavy and light duty. Wild distributions of availability help give context to a. A very different situation globally.

• The US DOT published their strategy doc on how the US can lead in AV…it’s a bit more…promotional than most other government docs.
• CALSTART has a good report on zero emission trucks, but I gotta say I hate the acronym ZET, and vastly prefer eHGV or eTruck. Personal preference I guess. In any case, I thought these two charts tell a lot of the story, and I have to admit my own surprise at penetration in garbage trucks.

Recent News

• It’s pretty cool to see robotaxis and AV in general developing and becoming a quasi-ubiquitous thing, but also cars are going to get so ugly and utilitarian
• This is a taste preference, but I’d add the Cybercab to the list of hideous, and I’m also skeptical of the commercial viability
• Speaking of ugly and commercially suspect; this entry from Fiat  (with a 48 mile range, and 28 MPH top speed) also doesn’t help the give confidence in the future of automotive design
• Feels like there has been a lot of recent news on drone delivery; Amazon expanding to 500 cities, Uber targeting 1m daily drone deliveries, Manna expanding to the US, Walmart expanding their in house service, and Doordash still trying to make Dot work. This is becoming a real and undeniable thing in certain geographies. That said, the videos of when this fails are very funny.
• I’d expect to see a lot more of this localization strategy from Chinese OEMs buying factories in end markets.
• When a politician pens an oped (in a friendly rag no less) it's obviously washed by their comms team, but useful to see a leader talk about something they implemented. Here’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan on the London ULEZ zone. Personally I think there remains a lot of low hanging fruit left on this tree (specifically the non-road mobile machinery which is just choking us in NOx and SOx and PM), and the success of the initial roll-out should encourage bolder moves.
• I’m always jealous of the graphics the NYT can do when they put their mind to it. Here they are on EV car sales and recent oil price dynamics.
• Einride confuses me. Weren’t they meant to build their own trucks? Now they are Tesla Semi’s largest customer? This technology strategy shift happened in less than a year? And all while a public company? And they are also planning on a large DAF order? It may end up working, but it’s a huge shift.

• AI and data centers are everywhere these days, but I thought this was a fascinating take on second and third order consequences of that capex build out and its impact on logistics.
• Aside from being funny, Tesla asking for 5,000 robotaxi licenses and only being granted 10 in Las Vegas is a bit of a dash of reality to the readiness of their fleet to go live. 10 vehicles is a pilot.
• In something that doesn’t even seem like news anymore, Chinese NEV sales have hit a new record - 65% sales penetration, even in a slow sales month by YoY reckoning that’s really impressive, and BEV accounted for about 75% of the NEV sales.
• Cutting EV sales targets seems to me to be a really obvious mistake to avoid making. Sharp eyed readers may note though, I am not Prime Minister.
• I remain incredibly skeptical of electric aviation, and this story has done very little to change that, but I will watch with interest.
• The FT has a deep dive into the near future of eVTOL, and I’m fascinated by how optimistic they seem
• Paris has always been the center of fashion, maybe this will extend to micromobility’s new safety requirements in the city of light?
• As one of the many, many, many people who have said that affordable EVs are the answer, this review of the upcoming Chevy Bolt is…frustrating. IT feels like just about every issue is solvable without meaningfully affecting the price? How much do seat cushions cost anyways?
• Something to watch for at IAA is Tesla launching their Semi format in Europe. 
• The Panama Canal is reducing traffic due to drought conditions. This is, I'm sure, just fine.
• Here’s the Trump administration getting mad at Ford for doing tech transfer with China and bringing actually good battery manufacturing tech into the US. I dunno man, seems like maybe we should be doing more of this. Carefully sure, but c’mon.

Consolidation in Mobility

• PowerFlex has bought the North American subsidiary of The Mobility House in a really confident play on V2G.
• The corp dev team at Descartes have been busy, they bought Extensiv (warehouse fulfillment) for $120m, and just acquired Tai ($100m, broker efficiency) the week before. Hey team…maybe go have a weekend huh? 
• Einride has bought EV charging software company Flipturn. I will admit this one perplexes me a bit, seems to be a theme with Einride and I’d love to better understand the strategy there.
• Vontier buying EKOS though, makes an absolute mountain of sense.
• Sometimes consolidation is what happens before an industry takes off. Sometimes it’s what happens before an industry fades away. Anyway, VTOL company Archer has bought Wisk in a very structured deal for former shareholder Boeing, and Joby is picking up some technical capabilities and staff in a $500m deal for Resonant Sciences. This alongside Joby raising $750m in an atm offering and Beta picking up about $1b from the ExIm bank.
• Uber sold their entire stake in Serve Robotics, but this to me seems less like a market call and more like cleaning up a balance sheet.
• I’ve always thought the good folks at S&P Mobility did good work, so it’s interesting to see that unit being spun off to go it on its own, now called Mobility Global….all I can think is new phone, who dis?
• GM has sold its stake back to JV partner Samsung in a $3.5B battery plant JV in Indiana. GM leaving due to slower BEV uptake, Samsung buying to use the plant for stationary BESS.
• LichtBlick is acquiring Mer’s German B2B charging business
• Stellantis has agreed to sell Free2Move to Mutares. I think this is the 4th time that an OEM has sold Free2Move to someone else. Maybe Mutares will have better luck.
• The long running EasyJet M&A saga has ended with Apollo winning and Castlelake walking away, $7.7B was too much for their taste.
• Autonomous HD company Plus AI is going public via a SPAC. Interestingly the current CEO of Windrose used to be the CFO here.
• Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern continue to try and close their merger, against a fair amount of opposition.
• In other troubled M&A, Hapag Lloyd continues to try and make its Zym acquisition palatable to regulators.
• PlugIt is acquiring Helen's charging business, in an effort to become a Finnish champion

Longer form items

• This podcast from the former S&P Mobility team is interesting in how it challenges a lot of popular narratives and sets up Hybrids as the default option, the consumer, market and OEM characteristics that are driving this, and residual value stabilization. (~37 min listen)
• Love him or hate him, it’s worth a bit of your time when Travis Kalanick (founder and former CEO of Uber) gives a wide ranging interview. (~33 hr listen)
• Here’s GS on the space economy, and I’m willing to stretch the definition of mobility to include this given it’s only 15 minutes and pretty interesting. (~15 min. listen)
• A global look from Michael Dunne at the auto OEMs, AV players, and even Heavy Duty, with a clean narrative of China v America (and Europe) and a pretty doomsday narrative for Detroit. (~32 min listen)
• Here’s a good long read and accompanying video on all the things impacting diesel prices today. Short version: everything costs more when we can’t get along.
• A couple of micromobility CEOs (Voi and Dott) sat down for a (rather friendly) interview. Worth a listen if the sector is of interest to you. (~1 hr listen)