Addison Lee boss slams TfL and City Hall over proposal to levy congestion charge on mini cab firms

Geely: London black cabs maker sees shares surge after buying $9bn stake in Dai

Geely's shares jumped on Monday after its chairman Li Shufu revealed he had built a $9bn (£6.4bn) stake in Daimler - giving him major leverage as he attempts to persuade the German carmaker to cooperate on tech.

The 9.7 per cent holding makes Li Daimler’s biggest shareholder and puts the owner of Mercedes-Benz in a quandary as it already has a partnership with China’s BAIC Motor Corporation, with the two unveiling a plant investment of almost $2bn on the weekend.

Li is expected to meet Daimler executives in Stuttgart on Monday and hopes to meet top German officials in Berlin. Germany has said there is no need to take action on the stake owned by Li.

Geely’s stock surged 8 per cent, buoyed by hopes of access to Daimler’s technology which would help it compete in a fast-shifting market being disrupted by electric cars and autonomous driving.

Its parent Zhejiang Geely Holding said on Saturday there were no plans to raise the stake “for the time being”.

Geely has been expanding rapidly. The parent firm owns Volvo Cars, LEVC, the maker of London’s black cabs, and last year took a majority stake in sports car maker Lotus, a 49.9 percent stake in Malaysian carmaker Proton, a $3.3bn stake in Volvo Trucks and control of flying car start-up Terrafugia.

Among the 36 analysts that cover Geely, the average rating on the shares is “buy” with 27 recommending “strong buy” or “buy”.

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Licensed Private Hire, Ride Share And Now Taxi Buses....Everyone Wants A Piece Of Our Action.

When is a bus not a bus? When it only seats eight people and changes its route on demand.

Journey planner app Citymapper is extending its reach on London's roads with the launch of a service somewhere between a bus and a taxi. It's been dubbed Smart Ride.

However, this wasn't the company's intent. Citymapper wanted to launch a "responsive", "smart" bus, but Transport for London (TfL) regulations limit its buses to "dumb", unchanging routes and restrict its on-demand services to a van — with Omid Ashtari, president and head of business at Citymapper, suggesting those rules hinder innovation.

"We don't see enough encouraging frameworks that allow private entrants to actually play in this field," he says. "I don't want to single out TfL here — it's a global phenomenon. There's a clear distinction between what cabs can do and what buses can do… currently the cab frameworks are the easiest way."

Ticket to Smart Ride

Citymapper says the regulations it faces have led to the mutant Smart Ride, a bus service using a van that operates like a ride-hailing app limited to a specific catchment area. So rather than go stand at a bus stop and wait for one to trundle by, travellers book a seat in a Smart Ride vehicle at a specific time along a route shown in the Citymapper app. "Think of it as a bus, because it has stops and can be shared, but think of it as a cab, because you can book it as close as possible to you on the network," Ashtari says.

The not-a-bus is an eight-seater Mercedes-Benz Viano, with rear seats arranged facing each other to encourage social interaction, Ashtari says — suggesting a surprising lack of understanding of how silently Londoners commute. 

While there's space for guide dogs, the vans are not otherwise accessible for disabled people and drivers aren't trained to offer such assistance. "We're working on ways to make this accessible too, but it isn't available off the bat," says Ashtari, noting the larger buses Citymapper wanted to use are designed for accessibility.

So far, the coverage area is limited to one small slice of the capital's centre, from Waterloo to Clerkenwell, conveniently taking in Citymapper's headquarters. (Ashtari says his staff want to try the not-a-bus, but are "a little bit lazy".) The route will change depending on requirements, but stick to a specific network of roads, in response to "demand fluctuation throughout the day", Ashtari says. "We have a lot of dynamic information about the city's pulse… the network could evolve through the day or week."

For the first week, the rides are free. Ashtari would not reveal the final price, but said it would cost — in fitting with the entire idea — something between a bus ticket and a cab fare. A single ride on a public bus would cost £1.50; a cab from the company's office to the centre of Clerkenwell would cost about £10.

See full article on Apple News- WIRED UK https://apple.news/A4bbpE_d8RZqfDcUip-IEog

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Unraveling The BS. Uber Finances Spiralling Out Of Control, As They Show A Loss Of $4.5 billion In 2017

Uber trumpeted its Q4/2017 financial statements as evidence of the company's progress towards CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's goal of profitability and IPO by 2019; the company argued that despite losing $4.5 billion in 2017, its cust-cutting in the final quarter of the year was proof that they would eventually go from losing money on each ride to actually earning money.  

But a closer examination of the figures shows that nothing of the sort is going on. The company's cost-cutting came mostly in the form of cuts to driver compensation, taking $2.2 billion out of drivers' pockets, meaning that Uber drivers are increasingly losing money with every drive (something that isn't apparent until you factor in the capital costs borne by drivers).

Uber drivers can drive for other companies, or get other jobs (that's key to Uber's claim that its drivers aren't employees, without which the company would be unambiguously doomed); its rival Lyft is happy to go on paying drivers more (for now), and drivers have already shown that it's pretty easy to ditch the platform, create their own app, and pocket 25% more than the company will pay them.

So Uber's already losing drivers, and also they lost $4.6 billion -- and to become profitable, they'll have to find another $4.6 billion in cost-cutting, which is unlikely to come from drivers, whom they're actually going to have to start paying more if they want to continue to have cars on the street.

For Uber to find an additional $4.6b/year in savings, there would have to be some indication that their costs were actually going down with scale.....They're not. 

Insurance, a major cost to Uber, is rising linearly with revenue. Other costs have gone down thanks to deep cuts: 

Operations, Sales and Marketing, Research and Development, and General and Administration. 

Unless the company starts spending more on these, they will not continue to grow, and thus will continue to lose billions.

What's more, Uber's figures are totally untrustworthy. Every financial report from Uber picks a different set of accounting practices, selected to cast their dismal finances in the best possible light (and even with that cherry-picking, Uber is still losing $4.5B/year!). So things are likely much, much worse.

As ever, Hubert Horan is the best source on Uber Financial Kremlinology; since I wrote about his initial five deep dives in 2016, he's written eight more -- the latest one is where I found about about these balance-sheet shenanigans.

All previous releases of Uber revenue data were limited to the top-line “Gross passenger payments” (the total money paid by passengers) and “Uber revenue”, the 20-30% of that total retained by Uber. In past analysis, I had assumed that the difference went almost entirely to drivers, but the newly released data shows this assumption is not true, and that Uber may be inflating the top-line revenue number.

In 2017, roughly $3 billion of this revenue was “Refunds, Taxes and Fees” or “Rider Promotions.” Government charges and fares that are refunded should not have been included in the original gross revenue number. The “Rider Promotions” item is more problematic.

If Uber offered discounts, the higher fare (that the passenger did not pay) appears to be included in gross revenue, while the promotional discount is a separate offset.

These numbers do not affect bottom line P&L calculations, but inflating the top-line gross revenue number directly supports Uber’s desire to show the strongest possible passenger demand numbers. 

Uber has steadfastly refused to release any numbers (such as market-specific fare and yield trends) that would meaningfully document whether (or where) its revenue performance might actually be improving.

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£250k Lamborghini supercar slams into London cab after mishap saw it ‘roll across car park’

Statement From City of London In Regards To London Bridge Closures And Temporary Re Open Of The Bank Eastbound.

Due to emergency gas works on London Bridge, we are temporarily allowing all traffic to travel eastbound on Queen Victoria Street through Bank junction. 

But this is just a temporary measure and under constant review. 

Follow diversions and please be extra vigilant.

For more information about the situation in the City of London click link below - (link: http://bit.ly/2GDlBrH) 

bit.ly/2GDlBrH

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In An Act Of Appeasement Uber Closes London Licence Loophole

Minicab drivers licensed in London will no longer be able to drive for Uber in Brighton after the US company makes changes to its app next month.

The multinational company announced last week that it was splitting the UK into different regions, and that drivers would only be able to use the app within the region their licensing authority was located from March 14.

Brighton is part of the south coast region, which means drivers from immediately neighbouring authorities, such as Lewes and Adur, will be able to drive in the city – but those licensed with TfL won’t. The latest available figures from TfL indicate that 78 drivers are licensed in London but have Brighton and Hove addresses.

But local union bosses say the changes have been made to pre-empt changes in the law preventing any cross-border hiring – which they are still pushing for.

Andy Peters, secretary of GMB’s Brighton and Hove taxi branch, said:  “Although we will no longer see cars from Wolverhampton or Sefton working in Brighton,  at the moment there is no specific detail on how big this region is.

“All the TfL ph drivers who live in Brighton and predominantly work in the city because they either failed the high standards that the city requires or who just could not be bothered to even attempt to go for a Brighton licence will only be able to work in London.

The question is why has Uber suddenly taken this change in direction? Is there something that Uber knows will be happening in the future with regard to cross border hiring?

“Uber has not done this as a favour. This is not how Uber works. Is this a case of Uber becoming scared of what the Local Government Association has been pushing for and trying to act quickly before there is a change in legislation?

“However this does not go far enough  because it doesn’t matter whether a private hire is working predominantly in Brighton and Hove from over 250 miles away or just 50. The fact is that Uber is still encouraging private hire vehicles to predominantly work in areas that they are not licensed in.

“This announcement should not make people think it is all over as it certainly is not. Do not be fooled by Uber. The fight goes on to fully change legislation.”

In its announcement, Uber said: “While cross-border driving is something the law allows for and is common in private hire journeys across England and Wales, we’ve heard from local licensing authorities that the way our app works can make it hard for them to oversee what some drivers are doing in their jurisdiction.

“That’s why next month we are making a significant change which will mean drivers will only be able to use our app within the region where they are licensed as a private hire driver.

“While we will of course keep everything under review we believe this change strikes the right balance for the drivers, riders and cities we serve.

“It will help local licensing authorities tackle the challenge they currently face in regulating drivers in their area when they are licensed in another part of the country; passengers will still be able to take affordable long distance trips (such as to and from airports, hospitals or back home after a night out in the city centre); and drivers will be able to carry out those longer trips without being forced to drive back without a fare paying passenger.”

According to the latest figures from TfL, there are a total of 78 private hire drivers licensed to drive in London whose registered address has a BN1, BN2 or BN3 postcode. Under the new Uber rules, these drivers will no longer be able to use the Uber app in Brighton and Hove.

A further 14 are licensed taxi drivers, but these will be black cab drivers who work in the capital.

Source Brighton and Hove News.

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