Uber has about 95,000 monthly active drivers in Saudi Arabia. And right now, only one is a woman. But that’s about to change. Uber (as well as Middle East ride-hailing rival Careem) is launching programs aimed at leveraging the sweeping cultural and economic changes afoot in the country. On Sunday, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman lifted […]
View More Uber is helping Saudi Arabia drive its cultural transformationCategory: ride hailing
Southeast Asia’s Grab lands $1B from Toyota at a $10B valuation
Grab, the ride-hailing firm that acquired Uber’s Southeast Asia business earlier this year, is raising a new round of funding and it just announced that it will be led by Toyota, which is committing $1 billion in capital. The deal values Grab at $10 billion, a source close to the company told TechCrunch. In return […]
View More Southeast Asia’s Grab lands $1B from Toyota at a $10B valuationChina’s Didi pares back ‘hitchhiking’ car service following passenger murder
Didi Chxuing is making big changes to Hitch, its inter-city carpooling service, following the murder of a passenger at the hands of a driver earlier this month. Last week, Didi — China’s dominant ride-hailing service by some margin — expressed its “deep remorse” for the murder, and suspended Hitch for a week to conduct a review of […]
View More China’s Didi pares back ‘hitchhiking’ car service following passenger murderChina’s Didi Chuxing suspends its carpooling service following murder of a passenger
Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing service, has suspended its Hitch carpooling service for one week as it investigates the murder of a passenger. The victim was a 21-year-old air stewardess identified only as Ms. Li. State-run news agency Global Times reports that the incident took place in the evening of May 5, when she used […]
View More China’s Didi Chuxing suspends its carpooling service following murder of a passengerUber to pop up a service in Spain’s Costa del Sol in time for summer
Uber is expanding its presence in Spain by launching a licensed service on the country’s southern Costa del Sol coastline — ahead of the summer season when the region draws in millions of international tourists. Last year the tourist hotspot pulled in some 12.5M visitors. Clearly Uber wants to cut itself a chunk of that […]
View More Uber to pop up a service in Spain’s Costa del Sol in time for summerDidi appoints one of its execs to lead ride-hailing service 99
Didi, the Chinese transportation behemoth that acquired Brazilian ride-hailing service 99 back in January, has replaced 99’s chief executive with one of its own, Recode first reported. Stepping in to replace Peter Fernandez is Tony Qiu, who most recently oversaw Didi’s luxury business. Before joining Didi, Qiu had stints at Morgan Stanley and Bain Capital. Fernandez […]
View More Didi appoints one of its execs to lead ride-hailing service 99India’s Uber rival Ola is set to launch 10,000 electric vehicles in a year
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Uber’s biggest rival in India, Ola, has announced plans to launch a casual 10,000 electric vehicles within the next year.
On Monday, the ride-hailing company, which operates in over 110 cities throughout India (and now, Australia), announced a commitment to place 10,000 three-wheeled e-rickshaws and electric auto-rickshaws in its service over the next 12 months.
It’s part of the company’s “Mission: Electric” sustainability initiative, which wants to bring one million electric Ola vehicles to the road by 2021 — there are currently 800,000 vehicles in the total Ola fleet. Read more…
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UberX to be parked in Greece after law change
Uber is suspending another international service while it assess whether there’s a business case to continue operations after regulatory changes. In a blog post announcing the impending suspension of its UberX service in Athens, the company writes: “New local regulations were voted on recently with provisions that impact ridesharing services. We have to assess if […]
View More UberX to be parked in Greece after law changeLondon proposes stricter vetting for ride-hailing drivers
London’s transport regulator is asking for public views on a series of new proposals aimed at boosting the safety of private hire vehicles (PHVs), such as cars served via ride-hailing platforms like Uber . Among the measures Transport for London (TfL) is considering are: Enhanced background checks for private hire drivers — with a proposal […]
View More London proposes stricter vetting for ride-hailing driversMIT to revisit ride-sharing study after Uber rebuttal
The lead academic behind an MIT CEEPR research paper which casts doubt on the sustainability of driving for Uber or Lyft has accepted Uber’s criticism of how driver income data was gathered and said he will revise the research using more generous income calculations. Read More
Car companies thirsty for Uber-style influence: If you can’t beat ’em, join em
Car makers and auto parts companies want to make sure you’ll need them to get around, even when urban car ownership plummets, as expected in coming years.
They’re jealous of the Ubers and Lyfts of the world that connect riders to on-demand transporta…
Is Uber selling its Southeast Asia business to Grab?
If you read the tech press, you might have seen reports that Uber is pursuing a sale in Southeast Asia that would see Grab, its Singapore-headquartered rival valued at $6 billion, acquire Uber’s business in the region. Rumors of such a tie-in have been rife for a while. Uber sold its China business in exactly such an arrangement in 2016, and it made a similar exit from Russia last year.… Read More