Welcome to the Tech Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of key developments in the tech, e-commerce and mobility industries.
This week’s highlights:
- Alaskans are increasingly using DoorDash, Uber Eats and other food delivery services. Midnight Air, an air-taxi service in Anchorage, runs DoorDash and Uber Eats on its flights about three times a week. But while people in rural Alaska sometimes order food from the nearest town, many of them still live a natural lifestyle and picktheir own food from the ground. “A lot of the food deliveries here are just treats,” one local resident said. (The New York Times)
- Mercedes and BMW have decided to give up their loss-making ShareNow venture and sell the car-sharing business to Stellantis. ShareNow saw a loss of €123 million in 2020, when the pandemic caused a sharp drop in bookings and a loss of about €70 million last year. “Mercedes-Benz will focus more on its core business in the luxury segment,” said Gero Goetzenberger, director of strategy and investment at Mercedes-Benz Mobility. (Financial Times)
- Uber CEO Daroj Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg of his ambition to turn the company into an emissions-free mobility platform. Uber says more than 90% of new cars joining the platform in London are now fully electric, and about 5,000 drivers there pilot electric cars. (Bloomberg)