Micromobility America 2023
My first-hand account of "The world’s largest conference for small vehicles"
It’s been a busy week over here at Iterate HQ! I was visiting some family on the east coast over the weekend and had to rush back for a really fun event back in the Bay Area. Yes, I had the privilege of attending the Micromobility America conference. It was a lot to take in over the course of two days at the Craneway Pavilion on the waterfront in Richmond, CA.
I'm planning to have a series of posts over the coming weeks that highlight some of the specific things that excited me from the event. But in the meantime, I wanted to give a quick overview of my experience and tease some of the most exciting products I saw.
First off, it was amazing to be invited as a credited media member to cover the event. I do want to make it clear that I am not being paid for any of my coverage of the event. These are all my own opinions and I would be thrilled to attend even if I didn't have an outlet to share my feelings. Now that we got that out of the way, let's dive into the event.
The event was thrown by the folks at Micromobility.io. I've been a big fan of their work for quite some time now. They publish the excellent
Micromobility newsletter twice weekly on Substack. You should certainly subscribe if you aren't already. And for those who are more into the audio and video content, their "Ride On" podcast is excellent to watch on YouTube or listen wherever you consume your podcasts.These people are serious about promoting the benefits of small electric vehicles as a means to reduce carbon emissions and make our cities more livable places. I'd argue that they are the leading authority in this space and their physical events in both North America and Europe are key to spreading the word on the power of micromobility.
So the event itself was a combination of speakers on two stages, vendors in the space scattered across a showroom floor, and a vibrant "test track" where people could test out some of these vehicles for themselves.
I was able to catch a couple of the speaker panels which are always insightful and thought provoking. I particularly loved the "Sharing the Road with Robots" panel with engineers from Waymo. It's good to see what they're doing to make autonomous vehicles much safer. Their new feature to avoid "dooring" cyclists as they pass by robo-taxis should be very well-received. And on the business side, there was a great discussion on what employers can do to encourage employees to ditch the car in favor of riding to work.
The vendor booths had a wide range of companies promoting things like bikes, scooters, microcars, and lots more. You forget how this industry really spawns a whole ecosystem beyond just physical products as well. There were companies with new charging technologies, security platforms, and software to make navigating by micromobility safer and more convenient.
As is often the case with these events, the greatest moments happen when you get to cross paths with people in the space and engage in natural conversation. I ran into a few folks who I recognized from their work in the transit space and met many new contacts as well. You can gauge a successful event by the passionate conversations you overhear and engage in yourself with like-minded strangers.
And I think some of these encounters were even easier when their was so much real estate devoted to actually riding fun vehicles. As the test track stretched around the perimeter of the building, you had to keep your eyes peeled for any vehicles that may cross your path. There is just an inherent "wow factor" involved when you see someone cruise by on a bike or scooter and instantly want to try it out yourself. Many of the products are already available for sale but I got some sneak peaks at things that may not find their way to consumers for some time. I'm eager to share more in the coming weeks.
Overall, I'm really glad that I was able to attend. And yes, I did ride an e-bike to the event rather than drive. I should point out that the temperatures were absurdly warm for October. We do get some annual autumn heat waves in the Bay Area, but it made for a particularly sweaty event. Which made it even more amazing that so many people braved the heat to attend and were still keen to take test rides on vehicles around the sweltering asphalt. I'm sure there will be plenty of event recap posts and videos coming out in the coming weeks and I may link to some of them in next week's update.
But for right now, I just want to thank everyone over at Micromobility Industries and Ride Review for putting on a great event and pushing forward the call for smaller, greener vehicles.
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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