The Week in Mobility — 12 February 2021

Pollution is a social problem

Monu and Aamya both live in the highly polluted city of Delhi. Despite living just a few miles apart, Monu’s exposure to pollution over the course of 24 hours is 4 times higher than Aamya’s.

The impact of air pollution on mental health, physical illness and premature death mean that at just 11 years old Monu and Aamya are already set up for vastly different social and economic opportunities.

Why is their exposure so different? Wealth. Monu lives in a slum and Aamya an upper-middle class neighbourhood making Air Pollution a bulldozer ferociously widening the gulf of economic disparity.

This isn’t an issue confined to Delhi. In the UK, an evidence review by UCL found that deprived communities continue to suffer disproportionately from pedestrian deaths, pollution and isolation which can result from living near busy roads and a lack of access to green spaces. Importantly, research shows that whilst children, young adults, and households in poverty have the highest levels of exposure to air pollution, it is the richer households who are more responsible for it.

To add to the problem, poorer urban communities are more likely to live in overcrowded housing issues which not only impact on air pollution and wellbeing, but also increase the risk of infection. Something which the distribution of Covid cases has made abundantly evident.

In the US the link between air pollution and wealth is joined even more acutely by racial inequality. The air pollution exposure index for black people is 19 points higher than the index for white people. This disparity is largely caused by racial patterns in where people live which often reflects conditions from decades earlier, such as racially exclusive housing covenants and zoning laws as well as biases that still prevail such as discriminatory hiring and mortgage lending. As a result, BIPOC neighbourhoods are often located in closer proximity to highways, industrial plants, and other sources of pollutants.

Electric vehicles are a part of the fix. But if they’re not deployed in the right way, they will be equivalent to prioritising a patient with a scraped knee over a patient in need of intensive care in a hospital. Policy makers, urban planning, transportation authorities and logistics organisations have an opportunity to triage pollution inequality and deploy electric vehicles in a socially responsible manner. Prioritising deployment in areas of high transit dependence, high pollution, low income, low car ownership, limited greenspace and proximity to major roads to actively address the systemically racist and intersectional nature of air pollution.

So. Many. SPACs.

The Gartner Hype Cycle is a graphical presentation to represent the maturity, adoption, and social application of specific technologies. Today Electric Vehicles are firmly out of the trough of disillusionment with companies scrambling to be the leader on the slope of enlightenment. This period of time is triggered by a broader understanding of how a particular technology (in this instance EVs) can benefit enterprise and society, complemented by second and third generation iterations. The result, more funding and expansion or in today’s world — firing off SPACS left, right and centre.

Already ChargePoint, EVgo, Fisker, Motiv Power Systems, Nikola, Lightning eMotors, Lilium, Lion Electric, Lordstown, Lucid, Proterra, QuantumScape hav announced or completed their mergers’. This week Commercial Fuel Cell Vehicle Developer Hyzon, Faraday Future,REE Automotive and EvTOL companies Joby Aviation and Archer joined the SPAC lineup.

Critical to the success of EV deployment is of course the availability of charging stations. Volta (not to be confused with Volta Trucks) is a developer of charging stations that are monetised via advertising on it’s embedded 55-inch digital displays. Already operational in 200 cities across 23 states, plans to list via a merge with Tortoise Acquisition Corp II and has recently raised $125 million

Grab your popcorn and watch the tickers.

Elsewhere in the industry

• Hyundai announces world first electric urban airport in Coventry, UK — Hyundai Newsroom
• Hyundai and Apple talks have ended uneventfully — Arstechnica, Reuters
• Volkswagen has unveiled the electric MPV van that will be part of its MOIA autonomous vehicle ride-sharing service — Engadget
• Uber to Buy Alcohol Delivery Startup Drizly for $1.1 Billion — Yahoo Finance
• Tesla disclosed that it has acquired $1.5 billion in bitcoin — TechCrunch
• Elon Musk funds $100 million contest for carbon removal — Axios
• Instacart and Aldi partnering to accept food stamps for grocery deliveries — The Verge
• MAN Starts SOTA updates — MAN Newsroom
• Car Lanes to Become Bike Lanes on 2 Major New York City Bridges — New York Times
• Nimble Energy has come up with a mobile charging solution for electric cars -electrive
• Commuting Platform Hip has created a dynamic corporate shuttle platform for businesses to help employees get back to the office — Business Insider
• AutoX Launches Driverless Robotaxis To The Public In Shenzhen — Forbes
• Baidu receives license to test fully driverless cars in California — The Verge
• Top graphics in BNEF’s Electric Vehicle Outlook — BNEF
• Vauxhall reveal new MPV Combo- E and targets taxi drivers — CarMagazine

Miscellaneous

Information, capital and intelligence are abundant. Knowledge, connection and attention are sparse — a great thought provoking read from New World Same Humans.

EpicGames releases MetaHuman Creator, a super fast, super high-fidelity tool to create digital humans in Unreal Engine. As yet unsure where this sits on the scale of incredible to uncanny valley.

Imogen Pierce, Head of City Engagement and Integration