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Karhoo collapse: where now for Renault Mobilize?
Renault’s sudden decision to close its Karhoo mobility service last month took the industry by surprise. A blunt statement on the Karhoo website read: “Unfortunately, the decision has been taken that the business is no longer financially viable. It has therefore become necessary to enter an administration process. Under these circumstances, regrettably, we will not be able to conclude any new contracts or fulfill our obligations under our current agreements, and our platform will no longer be able to execute rides with immediate effect. We apologise to all our customers and partners.”
Within 48 hours, even this message had been removed, and a new “important notice” bluntly states: “Unfortunately this website is no longer active”. No further explanation is given, and no link to any “administration process”. Renault has basically shut Karhoo down and made its entire staff redundant.
It leaves many unanswered questions about Renault’s commitment to the taxi industry, though it seems the future of the other high-profile taxi sector acquisition that Renault made in recent years, Dublin-based dispatch systems provider iCabbi, is not in jeopardy. Renault acquired a 75% stake in iCabbi in June 2018, just a few months after it bought Karhoo from receivership after its original collapse in 2017.
iCabbi’s day-to-day operations seem to be unaffected by the Karhoo closure, and iCabbi founder Bob Nixon took to social media last week to celebrate six years of life within the Renault empire.
He wrote: “As with any partnership like this we weren't to know how well it would all pan out, and thankfully it’s turned out to be an really successful and rewarding partnership that continues to grow in strength day by day. We’ve made four acquisitions (with more on the way), our revenues have grown in multiples, and we’re one of the few mobility acquisitions that we know of that is profitable.”
While the backing of Renault seems to have been positive for iCabbi, the business does now look rather isolated within a car company that doesn’t seem to have much of a strategy for addressing the taxi sector.
Both Karhoo and iCabbi had been placed under the umbrella of Mobilize, launched in January 2021 amid much fanfare. Renault CEO Luca di Meo said at the time: “Mobilize’s mission is to be Renault Group’s pivot to the future of mobility and to new value-creating activities.”
Like a lot of “mobility” business models, it’s quite a challenge to work out what the company actually is. Mobility’s launch documents were peppered with management-speak and marketing hyperbole, such as:
“Mobilize, a new brand for a new paradigm shift. Its comprehensive, modular and flexible offering is shaping the future of travel, where the car is no longer the ultimate solution.”
The concept is designed to address issues as diverse as emissions, low vehicle use and high depreciation by using “a new Vehicle-as-a-Service model, a set of services whose design begins with the vehicle and a complete technological platform”.
OK, so this explains why cutting-edge tech companies such as Karhoo and iCabbi had an appeal. And back in 2021, Renault followed this investment in the taxi sector with an actual car, designed specifically as a taxi and carrying Mobilize branding, not Renault.
Called the Mobilize Limo, the four-door electric car was launched at the 2021 Munich Motor Show. It was intended to be built in China and was targeted especially at ride-hailing and taxi operators.
Operators would not able to buy a Mobilize Limo – availability was through a subscription service. A small fleet of cars was deployed on test in a number of European cities. It wasn’t designed for right-hand drive markets, so we never saw the Mobilize Limo in the UK.
The Prius-sized car looked good – a 60kWh lithium ion battery pack gave it a claimed range of 279 miles per charge on the WLTP cycle, while DC fast charging could add 155 miles of range in around 40 minutes. Its cabin was roomy and a 411-litre boot gave plenty of luggage space.
In 2022, Mobilize said it would “soon announce large contracts with major ride-hailing firms”, for the car – but these never materialised. The market shrugged, and the programme was quietly killed off in November 2023.
According to French media, only 33 Limos were registered, and in a statement, Renault admitted defeat.
“Despite the good feedback on the vehicle, taxi and VTC professionals were not ready to accept the proposed offer across the board. As the saloon is aimed at this market, the volumes are too low to ensure a sustainable economic model,” the company said.
This is a pretty big failure in a market in which, by its own admission, Renault sees huge potential. When it launched the Mobilize Limo, Renault said the European ride-hailing market was a growth opportunity, with a value of €28 billion in 2021, likely to almost double to €50bn by 2030. Renault had even set up a partnership in 2020 to provide partner drivers on the Uber App with discounted electric vehicles in European markets, including the UK, France, the Netherlands and Portugal.
Yet the market very decisively rejected Mobilize, its specific-branded cars and its subscription model as a way forward. Rather than change the model, it ditched the car completely. And now it has unceremoniously shuttered one of the two businesses that were designed to provide the “technological platform” that would serve the taxi sector.
Of course, the taxi sector was not the only area in which Mobilize was intended to operate. The “Vehicle as a Service” (VaaS) model also includes other diverse areas such as rental, car sharing, leasing, EV charging and delivery. And Mobilize has fingers in all of these pies.
However, it does appear that the one that has been identified as the most likely to provide the big growth numbers Renault is looking for is food delivery. The latest Mobilize-branded vehicle is the Mobilize Bento, an electric delivery quadricycle which is clearly the successor to the Renault Twizy. Bento even has a built-in load box on the back, ideal for pizza deliveries and the like. A bigger electric delivery vehicle, the Mobilize Hippo, has also been unveiled.
In 2022, Renault said boldly that Mobilize should represent 20% of Renault’s overall group turnover by 2030. This is before the Limo failure, but given the growth in food delivery, especially in Asia, the Bento and Hippo EVs might just deliver.
Earlier this year, Uber spent close to $1 billion buying Taiwanese food delivery company Foodpanda – giving an indication of the size of the honeypot. In 2022, the then Mobilize CEO Clotilde Delbos said: “We have decided to cover the sections of the mobility value chain presenting the highest growth and margin potential.”
As well as food delivery, Mobilize appears to be focusing on simple, finance-based services such as leasing. It has set up a partnership with large UK leasing broker Select Car Leasing, giving Mobilize better market access and expertise. Car-sharing services have fared less well. Renault closed the Zity EV-sharing service’s Paris and Lyon services this year, though the service is still operating in Madrid and Turin.
Apart from iCabbi, the only service that Mobilize still offers to the taxi sector is EV chargepoint installation through Mobilize Power Solutions. As well as home and workplace installations, Mobilize is planning to open a network of 200 fast-charging stations in western Europe this year, located mainly at Renault dealerships close to motorways.
Mobilize will install 90 of these stations, which will feature 400kW very fast chargers, in France, where there will be one fast-charging station every 93 miles on the country's trunk roads. The remaining 110 stations will be set up in Belgium, Italy and Spain.
