Uber

A credits markets reporter writes about the waning value of the motor fuels tax screen. A logistics company starts-up in Myanmar. And the supposedly available US labor pool is not as available as one might think

Plus: SoftBank’s wager, the ownership economy and ride-sharing in Uganda

Ride-hailing company Lyft (NYSE: LYFT) reported a first quarter 2019 net loss of $1.14 billion, or a net loss of $48.53 per share, the company said on May 7. In […]

Uber and Lyft drivers are planning to strike on May 8 at 10 locations in the U.S. to protest low wages among other concerns. Organizer Rideshare Drivers United is planning […]

After a brief hiatus, technology pioneer Anthony Levandowski has reappeared on the autonomous vehicle scene, but has dialed back his initial vision for driverless trucks in favor of a new safety system designed to assist drivers behind the wheel.

France is banning electric scooters from riding on the pavement; U.S. oil rig count has fell since the end of 2018; self-driving vehicle companies are pushing towards favorable government regulations for commercial deployment.

Concerns about profitability in the ride-sharing sector are overblown, public-private partnerships are on the rise and transit and commuting platforms are the future.

Uber stands to gain by avoiding wage and benefit costs that accompany workers classified as employees.

Electric scooters and dockless e-bikes offer exciting opportunities for reducing car usage, but municipalities are struggling to retain authority over the public right-of-way and ensure privatized options are safe and accessible.

Amazon.com, Inc.’s volumes are so immense that the company has pitched tents to support its deliveries.

Uber is planning to sell 14 percent stake on its autonomous driving division for $1 billion to investment firm Softbank, automaker Toyota, and auto parts manufacturer Denso.

Will it make money? Does it matter?

Not long after its IPO, Lyft is removing electric bikes from the markets of New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco after reports of problems with the vehicles’ brakes.

Lyft value falls; Europe’s air cargo traffic is on a decline; Ford’s CEO says that fully autonomous cars will not be a reality in the near future.

The pending IPO comes as many experts are questioning the profitability of the ride-share model.

People in the Great Plains just can’t catch a break. After a “bomb cyclone” in mid-March slammed parts of Colorado, the Dakotas and Nebraska with heavy snow and destructive record-breaking winds – knocking out electricity to hundreds of thousands of customers – another storm is on the way this week. For an April storm, it may become historic for some places.

The industry’s hottest conference will only get hotter.

The momentum is strongest in developing countries, where concerns about pollution and traffic congestion are mounting.

Human Rights Campaign survey shows most, least LGBTQ-friendly companies

The program will help Lyft reel in more customers, as well as compete with arch-nemesis Uber as that company ramps up investments in tech transport services and prepares for its own public offering.

Big Apple’s traffic is rotten to the core thanks to rise of on-demand economy; congestion pricing may be cure, but uncertainties abound.

The momentum is strongest in developing countries, where concerns about pollution and traffic congestion are mounting.

Exceeding expectations, the ride-hailing start-up Lyft raised $2.3 billion on March 28, after pricing its shares at $72, the top of its pricing range.

China ramps up its pork import from the U.S.; Lyft is all set for its IPO; Saudi Arabia looks to push oil prices to over $70 per barrel.

Uber has confirmed speculations of its acquisition of Middle East on-demand cab hailing company Careem, with the company now becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Uber. The transaction is expected to be completed by Q1 2020.

Ohio raises diesel and gasoline taxes; YRC’s rank and file get their hands on a new collective bargaining agreement; Uber’s IPO approaches; warehouse automation growing rapidly; Vietnam’s logistics growing 14-16% CAGR.

Uber is in talks with Middle Eastern on-demand cab hailing rival Careem for an acquisition deal that is expected to be made public this week.

Kargo Technologies is an online freight logistics marketplace that connects commercial shippers with truckers across Indonesia.

Uber and Waymo are admitting they don’t want to commit the resources necessary for autonomous tech to be commercially viable.

Uber spends over $1 billion every year on Waymo; Lyft is nearing its IPO; Fiat recalling 863,000 cars due to emissions issues.

Recently uncovered case files from the Waymo vs Otto trade secret theft case, reveal Uber’s optimism with self-driving cars in 2016, which included the company envision running 75,000 self-driving vehicles across 13 cities by 2022.

Tesla’s V3 Supercharging station discharges 250 kW; Italy’s olive-oil industry is facing an agrarian crisis; Americans are abandoning public transit; French port of Marseille-Fos has joined a blockchain pilot program.

Transportation-as-a-service will have a huge 2019, and Lyft is kicking it off.

Plus: LA aims to tax Uber and Lyft; Best Buy’s 4Q gains electrify and pizza chains tap into food delivery

Hong Kong-based Lalamove promises same-day deliveries in under an hour. The company has just closed a $300 million round of funding to expand its geographic footprint further.

From Uber’s diversification to the promise of improved trade between the U.S. and China to how we prepare for changing markets and industry models. All this and more in today’s headlines.

Uber announced its fourth quarter earnings yesterday, with the results showing its market dominance in the cab-hailing segment and its extensive investment across different niche verticals it has expanded into recently.

There are currently about 30,000 carriers on the Uber Freight network, according to the company. That number is expected to continue to grow.

Pronto built a high-performing Level 2 solution for commercial vehicles with dynamic throttling, braking, and steering.

Bergevin, Cristol, and Stauffer want to attack fundamental problems affecting the whole supply chain beyond truckload arbitrage.

Postmates Inc., an on-demand food delivery service, confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO).

KeepTruckin recently nabbed the talents of Jairam Ranganathan, formerly Uber’s senior director of product.

Gig economy companies contend with Supreme Court ruling that mandates full time workers to be considered as employees and not contractors; oil supply reduces after Saudi Arabia’s drastic production cut; government shutdown strains supply chains across the country.

The MOBi-ONE is large enough to move washers and dryers, and do so autonomously through the air, perhaps redefining last-mile drone delivery before it even gets started.

Off late, electric scooter company Lime has been in the news for the wrong reasons. Batteries burning up, bike vandalism, fragile bikes breaking down, and the latest – abrupt braking issues.

Proposed bill would exempt electric scooters from requiring brake lights and turn signals; oil prices drop 1 percent over U.S.-China trade talks; CES2019 is showcasing the future of transportation.

Bell Flight wants to introduce autonomous air taxis in 2020.

Ride hailing companies are expanding services across various verticals like electric vehicles and autonomous driving cars, as growth of regular users in the cab hailing market seems to stagnate.

European Commission lays out ground rules and a regulation relaxations post-Brexit; Uber loses latest legal bid over driver rights; European Union announces a 37.5% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030.

Labor continues to rumble in warehousing sector; Autonomous truck demos one thing, but roadworthy vehicle is another.

Uber and Lyft are battling on who would go public first; oil production sees a dip in November; Amazon Go to venture into airport retail.

Investors are pumping millions into on-demand transit startups working in taxi-hailing and e-scooter sharing, but questions still remain if they can turn in positive bottom lines in the years to come.

At MarketWaves18, FreightWaves announced the Freight.Tech 25, the industry’s list of the most innovative and disruptive companies in transportation and logistics: Uber Freight took the sixth position.

Uber and Lyft saw a steady growth in revenue this quarter, as they continue to invest heavily in mobility sharing segments, with Uber forking out into food delivery and truck hauling segments as well.

Since the launch of Ford Smart Mobility, Ford has been intent on gaining ground in alternate mobility with e-biking being an important segment. Apart from acquiring Spin, the company has also bought GoBike and has launched an e-bike service ‘Jelly’, across the Purdue University campus.

Uber Inc. has introduced ‘Clean Air Plan’ – a strategy that helps reduce air pollution in London by replacing Uber cars that run on gas with all-electric variants by 2025.

Uber Freight introduces three new features to its app, making it more customizable and intuitive, and helping drivers and carriers better manage their loads and time schedules.

Uber Inc. has introduced Powerloop, an affiliate company to Uber Freight, which would rent out power-only trailers to carriers looking to grow their business and thereby ease the industry’s capacity crunch.

The FreightWaves Research Institute has announced the list of 55 voters who will be choosing the inaugural winners of the Freight.Tech 25 awards, and it’s who’s who of freight leaders.

From on-demand trucking to blockchain, loadboards and freight matching, the list of companies bringing innovative technologies to the freight industry is growing by the day, which makes the 100 that have made the cut to be honored by the FreightWaves Research Institute as part of its inaugural Freight.Tech 100 all the more special.

As e-bike sharing startups flush cities with bikes for rent at dirt cheap prices, city administrations need to take a look in and understand the impact an unregulated e-biking scene could have on its roads.

Yesterday Uber settled a lawsuit with all 50 states and the District of Columbia, agreeing to pay $148M for covering up a 2016 breach of driver and passenger data.

Home Depot is Uberizing same and next-day last mile delivery with two startups backed by UPS. It’s part of Home Depot’s $1.2B investment to makes its supply chains faster and more efficient.

Goldman Sachs issued a report last week highlighting the risks to incumbent brokerages’ margins and market shares, with useful information about the brokerage landscape and recent developments in VC funding that have powered new entrants.

In their fifth round of funding, Brazil-based freight broker CargoX has raised an additional $60 million.

China has toyed with the concept of bike-sharing but met with disastrous results due to an unsustainable business model and excessive dumping of bikes on the streets. The U.S. bike-sharing startups could take a leaf out of their book and improvise accordingly.

The investment round values Uber at $72 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Uber Freight continues to gain scale as the company doubles-down on the business

Transpacific container rates continue to gain momentum; UPS files blockchain patent applications; Uber is uncertain about self-driving cars; Elon Musk doubles-down on ‘no sleep’; cautious optimism for US-China trade talks lifts equities markets; container lines expect profits in the back half of 2018.

Uber Inc. has witnessed a largely satisfactory quarter this year, with it continuing its expansion across different markets and venturing into new territories like food-delivery and scooter-sharing.

Ford will launch a new SUV in China as part of their growth plan, while Uber Freight is spinning off as a separate business unit from Uber under the direction of Lior Ron.

Uber shut down its self-driving truck platform last week but promised in an exclusive interview with FreightWaves that Uber Freight was not going anywhere. Today, the company has not only confirmed that promise, but it has doubled down on the future of Uber Freight.

Procter & Gamble prices to increase; The end of Uber’s self-driving truck program; Unilever takes a hit from Brazil truck strike; Gap innovates distribution following a 2016 warehouse fire, and more in Today’s Pickup.

Following the announcement of the end of Uber’s self-driving truck program, Uber reached out to FreightWaves for an opportunity to discuss Uber Freight and to check the pulse on the self-driving industry.

Without self-driving trucks, what is the point of Uber Freight?

Uber Freight is poised to rise quickly in the fragmented freight brokerage business, but there are some factors that could hinder its growth: limited market penetration of digital apps, the Uber Freight app’s weak intelligence into routes and hours of service, and incumbents’ tech investments.

Hyperloop is just one of the technologies that is looking to change the way goods and people move over the next 30 years.

Passenger and freight coming to a hub near you—sooner than you may think.

Irrespective of who wins the race to deploy the first fully autonomous vehicles, the unanimous view was that in the future, size is going to matter and carriers/OEMs will need balance sheets to be able to survive.

Transportation is increasing its usage of technology in many areas, but apparently relationships still drive the small to mid-size carrier market when it comes to load generation. Freight brokers could also be blind to an untapped resource…until now. 

Used truck prices strengthen; trailer orders go crazy; Arizona suspends Uber self-driving; Canadian National trades at 52-week lows; aftermath of Harvey still affects Houston tanker traffic; Philadelphia freight market is heating up.

April 1st promises a surge of HOS violations; Uber pulls out of Southeast Asia; China starts trading oil futures; US Customs looks to upgrade their digital tools; Kansas City Southern hit by new tax bills.

Another aspect of Uber’s legacy that persists: secrecy.

“When there’s no sheriff in town, people get killed,” said Consumer Watchdog, John Simpson. But would the collision have happened even with a person behind the wheel?

Uber AV kills pedestrian in Arizona; XPO Logistics takes its app to Europe; CSX has no apologies; China COSCO building methanol fuel plants in Louisiana; air cargo markets may see slower growth; Covenant stock hits a 52 week high.

An Uber self-driving SUV struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, the first known time a pedestrian has been killed by an autonomous vehicle.

The U.S. has been particularly bad over the last few decades at helping people who’ve lost out during periods of technological change. Is there a new emerging story?

A rash of recent announcements from tech startups have revealed that self-driving trucks are already among us–and there is nothing to fear.

5 days into the trial, Uber settled the Waymo lawsuit on the cheap. But who really benefits? We break down the deal here.

The heat map of areas affected by today’s Uber outage shows how vulnerable an Uberized freight industry would be.

New truck orders jumped in January, reaching their second highest level on record, according to data from FTR and ACT Research.

The race to self-driving and electric vehicles has focused medium and heavy-duty vehicles lately, even though many believe local and urban is the best place for electric trucks. udelv, though, is focusing on that last-mile.

In the future of freight, relationships will take a back seat to data and how carriers use the data to speed price and capacity discovery.

Uberization has been a hot term to describe digital transactional brokerage. But a bigger, untapped opportunity might be available in the market 

The sharing economy is generally organized around a technology platform that facilitates the exchange of goods, assets, and services between people across a varied and dynamic collection of sectors.

On Monday Uber announced its agreement to purchase 24,000 self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs for $1.4B, accelerating the auto industry’s shift to shared, autonomous transportation-as-a-service.

Uber plans to roll-out air-taxis by 2020 and has targeted Dallas Fort-Worth, Dubai, and Los Angeles for pilots. 

Despite skeptics insisting on calling it an electrical airplane, Uber would rather call its latest prototypes Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles. Jalopnik has just reported the ride-hailing innovator’s deal with NASA to develop VTOLs. Tests are expected to start by 2020.

As the trial date later this month quickly approaches, Waymo LLC is starting to feel some additional heat from U.S. District Judge William Alsup as details of Waymo v. Uber begin to surface, ARS Technica reports.

“Uberization” has become a huge buzzword in the 3PL industry, but the business models of the digital brokers using apps is unlikely to have an impact on the way the industry operates. The technology of smart contracts, however, is a game-changer.