For the Avis Budget Group, strong overseas returns aren’t offsetting weakness in the Americas, writes Andrew Sheivachman for specialist travel publication Skift. Through its partnerships with services like Uber and Didi, it’s looking for another way to make money with its fleet when rental demand flags. After a quarter of lukewarm results, Avis Budget Group is hopeful that continuing to diversify its offerings outside traditional car rentals will pay off in 2017.

Avis stock dropped more than 13 percent after announcing that its rental volume had dipped one percent in the Americas during the fourth quarter of 2016 and the company had missed its revenue forecast by about $80 million. It blamed weak demand around the holidays and following the U.S. election for most of its woes, since overseas demand and performance remained strong. The company is betting that its investment in a new mobile app and partnerships with ridesharing services around the world will help it find other routes to profitability as demand decreases for car rentals in many markets.

“We are developing our own mobility capabilities, including some technology that may be patentable, and leveraging the technology and capabilities of others,” said Avis Budget Group CEO Larry De Shon. “We’re also looking at carefully considered partnerships with other companies that occupy a unique and meaningful position in the evolving mobility landscape.

“For instance, in November we announced a global strategic partnership with Didi, China’s and the world’s largest mobile transportation platform, with over 300 million registered users. We see this as a significant opportunity to capitalize on substantial growth of outbound travel from China. As an example, within the first 10 days of launch, there were already over 200,000 views of our online interface with Didi.

Avis is testing its partnership with Uber in London, providing Uber drivers with Zipcar vehicles on an hourly basis. It’s a way for the company to earn more with their Zipcar fleet when traditional customers aren’t using them. De Shon said the company’s weak revenue was just a blip on the radar and he remains optimistic for 2017, despite headwinds faced by both Avis Budget Group and the car rental industry at large. He expects Avis Budget Group’s total revenue to increase by two or three percent this year.

“The pricing is still not there yet, but as demand improves and starts to soak up the fleet, hopefully that will present ourselves with some opportunities to start putting some yielding opportunities in place,” said De Shon. “Last year we were down five percent, and then we had a big change into the second quarter.

“And although we’ll be down in the first quarter this year, we’re hoping for another opportunity to have a change in our price per day as we turn into the second quarter as well. So, it really will depend on how well the fleets really kind of get back in line. Plus a later Easter this year will also help the second quarter a little bit.”

• Avis strengthens ties with Uber and Didi to offset losses in the Americas.

The quickPOINT Column Charger manufactured by Ekoenergetyka-Polska and installed in Warsaw, was designed especially to respond to the requests of cities that want e-bus charging infrastructure to suit their urban architecture. The 200kW device with a footprint of only 1,3 m x 0.8m reduces space needed for high power e-bus charging at the end of the bus line and blends with the bus colours, providing visual identification for electric bus charging.

It is a world premier of the new design of an opportunity e-bus charger that brings together the charging mast and the charger in one. Up to now, e-bus charging industry was used to separating the two elements for opportunity charging at the end of the bus line, which was posing problems in many cities concerned about how the bulky e-bus charging station would fit in with their urban architecture.

The new device manufactured by Ekoenergetyka offers a solution. The footprint of quickPOINT Column charger is 50% smaller compared to an equivalent, standard 200kW charger + charging mast combo. Made of steel and equipped with LED lights, the device signals when it is on stand by (white LEDs) and charging (blue). The Warsaw charger was painted in yellow and red, the colours of the bus operator – MZA Warszawa – and the colours of the city buses.

The device, deployed for the first time in Warsaw, works according to international charging standards for electric vehicles. The charger is equipped with a pantograph and charges the bus automatically when it stops at the end of the line. As an extra feature, Ekoenergetyka offer cities an option to fit the device with a publicity screen on its back, thus providing a possibility for additional revenue.

Bartosz Kubik, CEO of Ekoenergetyka-Polska, said:

“Having delivered over 80 e-bus chargers to cities all over Europe over the last 4 years we had a chance to really listen to what the cities want and need. Requests for end of the line charging infrastructure that suits urban architecture was something we heard very often. That’s why we made quickPOINT Column Charger, which offers charger and charging post in one.”

And he added: “The advantages presented by the device: small size, attractive design, possibility of changing its colour, make it an attractive choice for cities. While not all urban centres will opt for charging at bus stops, for many it will be necessary. We hope our device will show them that now they can have charging infrastructure that not only charges, but also looks good”.

Warsaw, Paris, London, Berlin and many other European cities have announced that they plan to introduce electric buses to their fleets on a large scale. The new device by Ekoenergetyka opens the path for them to embrace opportunity charging, while preserving their urban landscape. The device is the first of a comprehensive charging infrastructure project that Warsaw is preparing for its planned deployment of 130 electric buses.

• The QuickPoint Column Charger suits the urban inftrastructure.

New mobility service innovator RideCell strengthens presence in Europe and Asia-Pacific with worldwide executive leadership and transportation partnerships.

RideCell,™ Inc., provider of the leading software platform for ridesharing and carsharing services, expands into Europe and Asia-Pacific with the establishment of RideCell EMEA GmbH, the opening of a European headquarters, and the hiring of key executives to focus on these countries. The global expansion is part of an initiative to deepen the industry talent at RideCell. Overall corporate headcount is anticipated to reach 100 employees within the next few months, equipping RideCell to fulfill global interest in new mobility services.

This momentum bolsters the company’s success in the U.S. where its flagship customer ReachNow, BMW’s groundbreaking new mobility business, has acquired 40,000 customers in its first nine months. Today RideCell has numerous global customers, including automotive OEMs and corporate and university campuses.

Driving RideCell’s expansion in Europe are Armin Fendrich, general manager of the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) region and an experienced team of sales managers and solutions engineers. Based in RideCell’s new office in Munich, Germany, Fendrich leads the growth of autonomous and new mobility services in EMEA. He has a strong base of experience in growing business for global automotive, navigation software, and service companies, including Panasonic/Aupeo, Nokia, NNG, and deCarta.

“As RideCell focuses on automotive partnerships, I’m excited about the business we’re building in the EMEA region,” said Fendrich. “We have some interesting proofs of concept in the works right now. In the coming weeks, we’ll be announcing the launch of a new mobility service with a major European enterprise.”

Building business in Japan, China, and Australia, Paul Drysch serves as vice president of business development and general manager of the Asia-Pacific region. With more than 20 years of sales leadership experience in the connected vehicle and IoT markets, Drysch leads a team that includes Takeshi Mitsutani, an industry veteran with expertise in structuring business relationships between U.S. and Japanese technology companies. RideCell also has a team focused on opening the China market.

RideCell is in the process of completing multiple agreements with automotive OEMs and new mobility providers in Europe and APAC, in addition to expanding the customer base in the U.S.

“As global attitudes toward transportation change, increasing demand for ridesharing and carsharing services, RideCell has responded by building leadership, staff, and partnerships in key locations where consumers and automotive OEMs need them the most,” said Aarjav Trivedi, founder and CEO of RideCell. “A larger international footprint, a strong executive team, and sustained growth in consumer demand will enable RideCell to continue to help customers define innovative offerings and grow their mobility services businesses.”

More about RideCell: headquartered in San Francisco, RideCell is on a mission to change the way people move from point A to point B. Its intelligent software platform runs new mobility services, such as carsharing, ridesharing, and other innovative transportation offerings. End-to-end integration and automation accelerate time to market, enabling RideCell customers to launch mobility services quickly, operate efficiently, and scale revenues as business grows. Founded in 2009, RideCell has already processed 15 million rides and has a team of more than 60 professionals. The company now powers over 15 customers including BMW, the UC Berkeley, UCSF, 3M, and SouthWest Transit.

• RideCell opens European office and hires staff for global expansion.

A new working paper from the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford reveals the effect of the app, Uber, on conventional taxi-driving services in US cities. Since its inception in 2010, few inventions have caused more controversy. In Europe, taxi drivers have rebelled following its introduction, and courts have banned or restricted its services.

The app,  Uber, allows those with smartphones to request a trip, automatically sending the request to the nearest Uber driver by providing a matching platform for passengers and self-employed drivers and taking a slice of profit from each ride. So what effect has the so-called ‘sharing economy’ had on incomes and jobs? The study finds that the app has led to a marked shift of around 50 per cent in taxi-drivers being self-employed rather than working for companies. Perhaps not surprisingly, this change also resulted in hourly earnings being reduced by around 10 per cent, as compared with drivers in cities without Uber.

The study, ‘Drivers of Disruption? Estimating the Uber Effect’, examines the effects of Uber between 2009 to 2015 through analysing data on the roll-out of Uber across cities and from the American Community Survey (ACS), the leading source of information on the US workforce. The number of hours worked increased among both salaried and self-employed taxi drivers, with even traditional taxi services experiencing growing employment after the introduction of Uber, says the study. Uber drivers typically earned more per hour than their counterparts; and,  in wider economic terms, part of the decline in incomes among driver was offset by an expansion of business income among self-employed drivers, says the research. It concludes that while the findings may not necessarily apply across all other countries, they raise questions about efforts being made to ban or restrict the adoption of Uber – in parts of Europe and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, in the US, the number of new drivers partnering with Uber has increased exponentially: while fewer than 1,000 drivers joined the Uber platform in January 2013, almost 40,000 new drivers signed up in December 2014. What our study shows is that even in one of the sharing economy’s most exposed industries, traditional jobs have not been displaced. Dr Carl Benedikt Frey, Oxford Martin Citi Fellow and Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment said the data provided the first hard evidence of the impact of the ‘sharing economy’ on jobs. ‘Uber is the flagship of the sharing economy, but what our study shows is that even in one of the sharing economy’s most exposed industries, traditional jobs have not been displaced. The effects are complex: while some have seen a loss in income, Uber has also created more jobs than it has destroyed, demonstrated by the staggering expansion of self-employment following its introduction.’

The paper was coauthored by Dr Thor Berger and Dr Chinchih Chen, also researchers on the Technology and Employment programme which looks at the future of work and skills. The working paper, Drivers of Disruption? Estimating the Uber Effect, is available here.