1. Going green in London
This week has seen a number of green initiatives in London's competitive ride-hailing market. With CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in town and on a charm offensive, Uber made a number of announcements, including that it will be adding £0.15 per mile to the price of every ride in London to create a fund to to help drivers switch to electric vehicles. With an aim of all Ubers in London being fully electric by 2025, the company also announced a number of measures to support the roll out of more charging points in London.
This week also saw Gett announce a new facility for customers to order an electric taxi when using the app in London. All new black cabs in London need to be 'zero emissions capable', but there are still relatively few of them on the road.
2. National regulations for electric scooters in Spain and France
The Directorate General of Traffic in Spain, Pere Navarro, has announced that rules on electric scooters will be incorporated into a planned reform of road safety laws. Shared scooter companies have been rolling out quickly across Spain with a number city authorities expressing concerns about the safety of pedestrians when scooters are ridden on pavements and the cluttering of streets with 'parked' scooters. Hopefully this legal framework will be introduced more smoothly than Spain's many attempts to regulate, deregulate and re-regulate private hire vehicles.
Also this week, French Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne has said that the upcoming mobility law will ban the use of electric scooters on pavements. The proposed law will be presented in the coming weeks, and will create a new category for electric scooters in traffic regulations.
3. Chinese electric bike imports continue to rise despite EU anti-dumping measures
Data published by Eurostat, the European Commission's statistics service, indicates that imports of Chinese electric bikes to the EU have continued to rise despite the launch of anti-dumping proceedings against Chinese manufacturers. This data is released against a backdrop of a legal battle between companies in the Light Electric Vehicle Association and the European Commission over potential retroactive anti-dumping duties on electric bikes imported into the EU between May and July 2018. The Commission has not yet completed its investigation, so the position on whether such duties will be levied is still unknown.
This is a weekly note covering the top three developments in the regulation of on-demand transport in Europe. It covers taxis, ride-sharing, car sharing, carpooling, bikes, e-bikes, scooters, shared mopeds and anything else that's relevant to the sector. I'd love to hear your feedback.
Comments