The tube is back to 50% of its pre-pandemic weekday usage levels

 "For some, this is alarming, threatening to repeat past spirals of decline: fewer trains means many journeys become less viable, and rail less attractive. Ominously, industry sources say the areas most likely to suffer service cuts are subsidy-reliant branch lines in the north of England and rural areas – the very areas the government has pledged to invest in. Government figures show private car usage has already surpassed pre-Covid traffic, while public transport wanes. Chris Page, the chairman of the campaign group Railfuture, says: “The rail industry needs to control its cost base to deal with the realities of the pandemic, but cutting services will lead to lower rail usage and declining revenue.”

London, where weekday tube usage is now about 50% of pre-pandemic levels, up from a nadir of 5% in 2020, has fought to restore virtually a full timetable, despite heavy financial pressures. With fare revenues of about £5bn covering almost three-quarters of TfL’s budget, it depends more than most cities on effective public transport – for funding and to function without congestion, says Vernon Everitt, TfL’s managing director for customers, communication and technology."

Source:  The Guardian, 29th August 2021

Americans spend on average 50 minutes a day behind the wheel

"For the time being, new car sales are trending up — believe it or not. The AAA says Americans spend 50 minutes behind the wheel each day on average. According to the 2019 edition of PYMNTS digital drive report, consumers behind the wheel represent a $260 billion commerce opportunity annually in the U.S. — and the U.S population is becoming increasingly habituated to using voice controls to mediate those transactions. The digital drive report found most commuters (53.3 percent) are turning to voice assistants to connect while driving and 36.6 percent of commuters who use voice assistants connect to the internet using their mobile device."

Source:  PYMNTS, 17th September 2019

Kia's conversion rate is 3x higher with its chatbot than with its website

"At last count, Kia had more than 800 websites where a customer can ask about buying a car.
In November, to try and simplify the process, Kia launched Kian, a Facebook Messenger and chatbot, in order to have a direct source for all the information that users might search for. In the four months since its launch, Kia has gotten three times more conversions through Kian than through its main website, Kia.com.
The conversion rate through Kian is 21 percent, while conversions through Kia.com are at 7 percent, according to Nathalie Choy, national manager of digital, social and CRM marketing at Kia Motors America.
Customers aren’t shying away from asking their questions. Choy said Kia has seen an increase in engagement, mostly thanks to Kian. Kian has exchanged 600,000 messages, resulting in 50 times more engagement through Messenger, according to Choy."

Source:  Digiday, 21st March 2018

Dockless bike sharing schemes in Shenzhen have led to a 13% fall in petrol consumption

"Before the advent of dockless bike-sharing in Chinese cities cycling accounted for 5.5 percent of transport miles. It has now more than doubled to 11.6 percent. This is according to White Book of Shared Bike and City Development 2017, a Chinese-language report from the Beijing Tsinghua Tongheng Innovation Institute, an urban planning consultancy.
According to the Chinese State Information Center's Sharing Economy Research Center there are now 16 million dockless bicycles in the country, and each was used an average of three times a day.
The release-by-app GPS-trackable modem-equipped bikes are cheap and simple to use, attracting newbies to cycling. A report from Shenzhen's Transport Commission said that the city's 500,000 bike-share bikes had replaced nearly 10 percent of travel by private car, and 13 percent of petrol consumption."

Source:  Bike Biz, 26th January 2018

Waymo's autonomous vehicles have driven 4 million miles

"Waymo continues to press its lead in terms of actual miles driven on roads, which is potentially the most important metric out there when it comes to building successful autonomous driving technology. The Alphabet-owned company that began life as Google’s self-driving car project around a decade ago now has 4 million miles driven autonomously on roads.
That 4 million miles represents the self-driving effort of Waymo’s entire test fleet, covering its original autonomous vehicles all the way up to its current driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans, which are actually now testing on Arizona public roads, right alongside everyday human drivers, with no safety driver behind the wheel at all.
Waymo puts the milestone in perspective by noting that it would take a human around 300 years to drive that many miles, if they were driving at the average rate of a person in the U.S. today. Plus, the pace of Waymo’s accumulation of distance driven is ramping up: It managed to gain 1 million miles between just May and November of this year — it took the company six years to rack up its first million, by comparison."
Source:  Techcrunch, 27th November 2017

Tesla 'spends less than $6 on advertising per car sold'

"Car makers spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to promote their products. Anyone who has ever watched the TV series Mad Men got to see how aggressively ad agencies court the automakers to gain their business. One account can have an outsize effect on a firm’s bottom line.
A new report from Global Equities Research analyzes just how much each car company actually spends on selling its cars. Not surprisingly, makers of premium brands spend the most. For every Jaguar that finds a buyer,  parent company Tata Motors spends $3,325. Lincoln shells out $2,550 on advertising for every car it sells.
At the other end of the spectrum, Toyota and Honda spend the least, at approximately $250 per car. Keep in mind that those two companies sell a lot of cars. Any ad agency would be delighted to have their business. Also, those numbers are separate from their premium brands, Lexus and Acura.
A new study by Global Equities analysts Trip Chowdhry approximates that Tesla spends even less at $6 per vehicle. In an e-mail to investors this week, Chowdhry said “Tesla power and leverage is unprecedented. $6 of Ad Spent per Vehicle for the product generating more than $8 Billion in revenues and more than $14 Billion in bookings is unheard of in the Industry.”"

Source;  Tesla-rati blog, 9th July 2017

Note - I'm not sure of the full validity of this figure, but it's pretty clear that if you have a very famous and outspoken CEO, plus a product that people love you can rely a lot more on social media and PR.

(See also Brewdog, valued at £1bn, built on PR, social media, and events)

Human drivers need to take control of Uber's self-driving cars about once per mile

"Human drivers were forced to take control of Uber's self-driving cars about once per mile driven in early March during testing in Arizona, according to an internal performance report obtained by BuzzFeed News. The report reveals for the first time how Uber’s self-driving car program is performing, using a key metric for evaluating progress toward fully autonomous vehicles.
Human drivers take manual control of autonomous vehicles during testing for a number of reasons — for example, to address a technical issue or avoid a traffic violation or collision. The self-driving car industry refers to such events as “disengagements,” though Uber uses the term “intervention” in the performance report reviewed by BuzzFeed News. During a series of autonomous tests the week of March 5, Uber saw disengagement rates greater than those publicly reported by some of its rivals in the self-driving car space.
When regulatory issues in December 2016 forced Uber to suspend a self-driving pilot program in San Francisco, the company sent some of its cars to Arizona. Since then, Uber has been testing its autonomous cars along two routes in the state. The first is a multi-lane street called Scottsdale Road — a straight, 24-mile stretch that runs through the city of the same name. According to Uber's performance report on tests for the week of March 5, the company's self-driving cars were able to travel an average of 0.67 miles on Scottsdale Road without human intervention and an average of 2 miles without a “bad experience" — Uber’s classification for incidents in which a car brakes too hard, jerks forcefully, or behaves in a way that might startle passengers. Uber described the overall passenger experience for this particular week as "not great," but noted improvement compared to the prior week's tests, which included one "harmful" incident — an event that might have caused human injury."

Source - Buzzfeed, 16th March 2017

Alfa Romeo sold 350 cars in 33 seconds on Alibaba's Tmall

"Luxury auto brand Alfa Romeo on Tuesday forged an exclusive strategic partnership with Alibaba’s Tmall to market and sell its cars online in China.
The two sides said at a press conference in Hangzhou that Tmall will serve as the sole authorized Internet channel for the Italian car brand owned by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) inside China. Tmall is China’s largest B2C online commerce platform. They spoke just before Alfa Romeo debuted on Tmall, selling out all of the 350 Giulia Milano car models it offered in 33 seconds during the “Tmall Super Brand Day,” an online marketing promotion held by the Alibaba unit.
Alfa Romeo isn’t new to China. It tested the waters here years ago and announced its return to the country last year.
The new partnership follows the success last year of Alfa Romeo’s sister brand, Maserati, on Tmall, which is also owned by FCA. Maserati opened its flagship store on Tmall on the same day last year and sold out its allotment of 100 Levante SUVs in a mere 18 seconds."
Source:  AliZila, 21st March 2017

Tesla's 'Autopilot' results in 40% fewer crashes

"Tesla’s driver-assistance features, known collectively as Autopilot, have been vindicated.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has closed its investigation into a May 7 collision with a tractor-trailer that killed a driver using Autopilot. The agency found no indication of a safety problem with it. In fact, the evidence provided by Tesla included crucial data that’s been missing from the safety debate surrounding automated cars: crash rates.
Tesla is in a unique position to determine the precise impact of Autopilot on crash rates, more so than any other car manufacturer. That’s because while all Tesla vehicles come with the hardware necessary for Autopilot, you need a software upgrade that costs thousands of dollars to make it work. Since buyers can add Autopilot features after purchase, this provides a perfect before-and-after comparison.
It turns out that, according to the data Tesla gave investigators, installing Autopilot prevents crashes—by an astonishing 40 percent. The chart below comes from the report NHTSA issued while concluding its investigation. Approximately one-third of the mileage on the cars was logged before the upgrade to Autosteer (the most controversial component of the driving suite), while the remaining miles were accrued after installation."
Source:  Bloomberg, 19th January 2017

Singles Day 2016 generated $17.8bn for Alibaba sites

"That’s another blockbuster in the books. The 2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival just ended. Final GMV tally: RMB 120.7 billion ($17.8 billion). Not that anyone was counting. Alizila will publish highlights of the sale in an upcoming wrap-up story, so stay tuned."

Source:  Alizila, 10th November 2016
Plus - $5bn spent in the first hour
Plus - Infographic
Plus - 100,000 cars were sold

Tesla's Model 3 recieved 180,000 pre-orders within 24 hours of launch

"Tesla’s Model 3 car drew huge numbers of reservations ahead of its official launch, an auspicious start for the car that aims to make driving electric go mainstream.
The Model 3 received 134,000 reservations on Thursday—it was unveiled that evening—Bloomberg reports, each with a $1,000 deposit. On Friday, after the car was revealed, Tesla Chairman Elon Musk announced 46,000 more reservations.
According to MONEY, this accounts for more than the total number of Tesla cars sold to date, and even more than the sales of all electric cars in 2015."

Source:  Time, 1st April 2016

Tesla sold 51,000 cars in 2015

"Tesla announced on Sunday morning that the company shipped 50,580 cars in 2015, hitting the low- to mid-range of its target for the year. The electric car company was hoping to ship between 50,000 and 52,000 cars this year.
Tesla says it shipped 17,192 Model S cars in the fourth quarter of the year, which was 75% more than the company shipped in the same period in 2014, and 48% more than the company shipped in the third quarter of 2015.
Tesla says it made 507 Model X cars in the fourth quarter, and shipped 208. The company says it now expects to be able to produce 238 Model X cars per week."
Source:  Fortune, 3rd January 2016

Demand for technology to be built into next vehicle in the US

Source:  Parks Associates, 29th December 2015

Alibaba set 9 Guinness world Records on Singles Day 2015

"How big can Alibaba’s annual Single’s Day shopping fest get? Guinness World Records big. This year the Chinese e-commerce giant set nine new records, to be exact, for facilitating the online sale of everything from mobile handsets and TVs to nuts, milk and honey."
Inc most handsets sold, most nuts, sold, most cars sold...

Source:  Alizila, 27th December 2015

The AA in the UK attends 17,000 warning light-related calls-outs a month

"Hundreds of thousands of cars will find new owners over the next two months but the joy of a replacement vehicle can be cut short when an unfamiliar warning light appears.
Help is now just a fingertip away with the AA app, which can help drivers identify warning light symbols and take appropriate action.
The AA alone averages around 17,000 warning light-related call-outs a month – including more than 4,600 red lights – which peaks when people change vehicle in the weeks following the new car registrations in March and September.
New car registrations trigger dashboard warning light confusion
AA attends 17,000 warning light-related call-outs a month
More men just turn ignition off and on and hope for best
Women more likely to phone a friend
More than 1 in 8 don’t have handbook in car
AA app has warning light information to help drivers"

Source:  The AA, 16th September 2015

Using a mix of public transport and Uber can be cheaper than owning a car

"Consider a household that makes about 2,000 vehicle trips per year, in line with the national average. (If that sounds like a lot of trips, remember the figure is per household and not per person.) It can either spend $10,000 a year on car ownership,14 or it can use a combination of public transit (at a cost of $2.50 per journey15) plus Uber and taxis.
If the household can make all its trips by public transit, then that’s by far the cheapest option. But suppose it cannot. How many Uber rides can it afford to take before owning a car becomes cheaper?
If Uber costs about $20 per ride — about what an UberX costs now for a 5-mile ride in New York in moderate traffic — then the household can make up to about 15 percent of its trips by Uber and the combination of Uber and public transit will remain cheaper than owning a car. On the one hand, that figure implies that the household still needs excellent access to public transit since it must make 85 percent of its journeys that way. On the other hand, 15 percent of 2,000 trips is still 300 Uber rides per year."
Source:  FiveThirtyEight, 28th August 2015

'Keyless' car theft accounts for 42% of all vehicle thefts in London

"Thousands of cars from a host of manufacturers have spent years at risk of electronic car-hacking, according to expert research that Volkswagen has spent two years trying to suppress in the courts.
“Keyless” car theft, which sees hackers target vulnerabilities in electronic locks and immobilizers, now accounts for 42 percent of stolen vehicles in London. BMWs and Range Rovers are particularly at-risk, police say, and can be in the hands of a technically minded criminal within 60 seconds.
Security researchers have now discovered a similar vulnerability in keyless vehicles made by several carmakers. The weakness – which affects the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) transponder chip used in immobilizers – was discovered in 2012, but carmakers sued the researchers to prevent them from publishing their findings."
Source:  Bloomberg, 14th August 2015

Tesla loses over $4,000 on every Model S it sells

"All-electric carmaker Tesla is losing over $4,000 on every Model S it sells and reported an operational loss of $359 million during the Apr-Jun quarter.
The company also lowered its production targets to 50,000 units from 55,000 units for the next year as company expects hurdles in moving from producing just one model to two.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said that he is considering the option of raising capital and selling more stock, promising investors that by the first quarter of 2016 the company will be making enough money to make the jump from producing one low volume car to multiple mass production models.
Tesla’s shares fell by almost 9% on Thursday and a further 2% on Friday as investors and analysts tallied the risk of Musk’s grand plans."

Source:  Next Big What, 10th August 2015

Ford sold 29,000 cars in the US in 2013 through its mobile site

"Forty percent of Ford’s Web traffic comes from mobile. Mr. Farley said that much of it comes from prospective buyers walking car lots after hours. Further, he said that
29,000 cars were sold last year through the mobile Web site.
Mr. Farley said that the big opportunity resides in our ability to “talk to each customer.” But he warned the audience members that with that comes “a higher burden and standard of excellence for marketers.”"

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 3rd October 2014

Knowledge and understanding of new technology in the UK

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here