Speaker 1: Lo's at it. One early Thursday morning in June, the
Speaker 1: Mayor of Paris got up at dawn and made her
Speaker 1: way to the River Sin. That's not usually part of
Speaker 1: her morning routine, but two inventors, a sailor and a
Speaker 1: windsurfing champion, convinced her to take a ride on a
Speaker 1: new kind of taxi. They're calling it a sea bubble
Speaker 1: zero emissions boat that appears to fly above the water.
Speaker 1: As Mayor and Hidalgo is pushing eco friendly initiatives in
Speaker 1: Paris and fighting climate change more broadly, the inventors came
Speaker 1: to see me back when no one believed they would
Speaker 1: be able to make it. That first meeting with the
Speaker 1: inventors took place so almost a year ago. I saw
Speaker 1: an opportunity to develop a fleet of flying, clean energy taxis,
Speaker 1: and so I supported them. And now that US President
Speaker 1: Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the
Speaker 1: Mayor is even more determined. Hi, I'm aki Ito, and
Speaker 1: I'm Murray my wad, and this week undercrypted, we'll see
Speaker 1: how too unlikely entrepreneurs designed a new kind of transportation device.
Speaker 1: It's a white convertible boat powered by a rechargeable battery
Speaker 1: and it seats five people. Last week we told you
Speaker 1: about an eighty year old inventor who's been trying to
Speaker 1: build flying cars his entire life. This week will go
Speaker 1: deep on another technology aiming to bypass traffic on your
Speaker 1: morning commune. With a working prototype now able to whisk
Speaker 1: V I P s around, the startup has gotten past
Speaker 1: its first big hurdle, but there are still major challenges
Speaker 1: ahead before Sea Bubbles shakes up. How ordinary consumers like
Speaker 1: you and me get around stay with us When when
Speaker 1: I was a child, when I was ten, I had
Speaker 1: to dream. I wanted to make a bootfly. That's an
Speaker 1: anti boo, a matt Whiz and a sailor and one
Speaker 1: half of the Sea Bubbles duo. The other half is
Speaker 1: Andrews Brindle. He's a windsurfing champion. Basically, I lived in
Speaker 1: Hawaii and then I did the classic change the girlfriend
Speaker 1: and up French Frenchman and coming back to Europe, back
Speaker 1: to France. These two guys are like star skating hutch
Speaker 1: and It's super high energy, passionate about engineering and has
Speaker 1: about a thousand ideas a minute. Andrews, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: is a mellow surfer type who usually takes the lead
Speaker 1: on business pitches. Alan Andrews met over a decade ago
Speaker 1: on a sailboat called the High dropped her. Alan designed it,
Speaker 1: and together they set out to break the world speed
Speaker 1: record for sailing. The way they tell the story is
Speaker 1: basically they crashed a bunch of boats and finally they
Speaker 1: did beat the world speed record in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: It's something like fifty knots, which is almost sixty miles
Speaker 1: per hour. It's the godmother all boats, flying boats. And
Speaker 1: and I sailed with a land the crew for half
Speaker 1: a day and then I go back. I go back,
Speaker 1: and I get a call next morning said, how if
Speaker 1: you'll be at the rock at nine o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning from Alan, and she's then it didn't let me
Speaker 1: go pretty much the deal, like sailing on that boat.
Speaker 1: I'm a person I love to do live with radical things,
Speaker 1: but I do them quite calculated. So you know, writing
Speaker 1: big waves and Hawaiian stuff. Always choose my ways, always
Speaker 1: choose my material in a good way. Just tagging you
Speaker 1: along the hood droptor the first time I think we're
Speaker 1: picking forty seven forty eight knots or something outside the Marseille.
Speaker 1: It took me about yeah, I would say five six
Speaker 1: rounds to know that today was not today I was
Speaker 1: going to die. The high drapter got a lot of attention,
Speaker 1: and in past years celebrities and techuliminaries have dropped by
Speaker 1: to sail on the boat. I was lucky because I
Speaker 1: received a text message from a Larry Page, founder of Google,
Speaker 1: a text message from salar carandar Ceo of YouTube. A
Speaker 1: lot of requests in San Francico, a lot of the
Speaker 1: spirit in the bay. I first met Ala and Andrews
Speaker 1: a year ago. They showed me a sketch on the
Speaker 1: back of a notebook which was the first draft of
Speaker 1: the c bowl. Okay, I took a pain in the
Speaker 1: paper and I designed the sibable a cool Launders Anders high.
Speaker 1: I had an idea in how I man. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: thought that first sketch looked like the spaceship from the
Speaker 1: Jetson's cartoon with a line. And Andre's so passionate about
Speaker 1: sir thing and sailing, it's probably not that surprising that
Speaker 1: they wanted to make better use of the water running
Speaker 1: through our cities. You have a lot of cars and
Speaker 1: pollution on the side of the river. Or the bay
Speaker 1: to sco on the on Geneva Lake in India, or
Speaker 1: today they have a boulevard sitting in the river which
Speaker 1: is hardly used. Or you have different boats who are
Speaker 1: massive boast that takes a lot of people that go
Speaker 1: from stop to stop and takes forever to go from
Speaker 1: a to be there. But they were also interested in design.
Speaker 1: They wanted to make something that would really stand out
Speaker 1: in English into iconic, iconic, an iconic sibl as your
Speaker 1: first iPhone, as the first ta and I think you
Speaker 1: will discover an iconic Alan and Andre's got the first
Speaker 1: prototype ready in June and unbuild it at the Viva
Speaker 1: Tech conference in Paris. So they're was the c Bubble
Speaker 1: was parked up in the air on a platform between
Speaker 1: a Google stand and a fleet of soft Bank robots.
Speaker 1: It's a little larger than a car and the bubble
Speaker 1: is glossy white with cream leather seats and a black dashboard.
Speaker 1: It still smelled of fresh paint then and it got
Speaker 1: a lot of attention from the crowd. The most people
Speaker 1: probably had no idea what it was. That is, in general,
Speaker 1: what we're talking about were having boats and leaves, no noise.
Speaker 1: It gives no pollution at least no ways, so it
Speaker 1: don't roll well. When people first saw were these two
Speaker 1: big U shaped hydrofoils at the bottom of the vehicle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it almost looks like the boat is sitting on a
Speaker 1: pair of skis, and it's really those skis and not
Speaker 1: the whole bottom of the boat that's gliding on the
Speaker 1: water when the boat moves right. The idea is basically
Speaker 1: to minimize how much of the boat actually touches the water,
Speaker 1: so it leaves a slimmer trail. It's pretty rare to
Speaker 1: see this technology used outside of sailing competitions. I think
Speaker 1: the best way to put it, we're trying to cross
Speaker 1: the ideas in between boats, cars, planes and use this
Speaker 1: in our advantage. It's not necessarily boat as you've seen
Speaker 1: boats today. That's what they say that two nice ice
Speaker 1: in front Anders is referring to the headlights at the front.
Speaker 1: Add those to the U shaped hydrofoils we talked about,
Speaker 1: and you get a smiley face and there's an Allan
Speaker 1: spent years perfecting this peculiar design with hydrofoils. First, they
Speaker 1: used it in their record breaking boat, the Hydropter, and
Speaker 1: they've adapted the concept for the c bubble. You cut
Speaker 1: the water as supposed to push it, so you don't
Speaker 1: get erosion on the river walls. You leave no pollution,
Speaker 1: you leave no noise. So when racing, these hydrofoils will
Speaker 1: give a boat that extra boost, but even when it's
Speaker 1: going slower, the boat will lift out of the water.
Speaker 1: Think of it like the wings on a plane. The
Speaker 1: goal is not to go fast. The goal is to
Speaker 1: be stable and use this little energy as bustle so
Speaker 1: that you can you can actually use it in the
Speaker 1: rivers for a day as a taxi will go back
Speaker 1: and forth without leaving in the waves. The sea bubble
Speaker 1: can go as fast as twenty five knots, which is
Speaker 1: about twenty nine miles per hour. Some cities like Paris
Speaker 1: or London have a speed limit that's less than that, though,
Speaker 1: around ten knots or eleven miles per hour. Because the
Speaker 1: boat can run on varied little energy, it's possible to
Speaker 1: use batteries to operate the whole thing. Once you get
Speaker 1: the hell out of the water, you lose for the
Speaker 1: percent drag, so it opens up your possibility to electric
Speaker 1: power that is in essence than a green power. For
Speaker 1: anders an alone. That's almost as revolutionary as the fact
Speaker 1: that the boat flies. For instance, New York have lots
Speaker 1: and river. You have a lot of pressure from the revue.
Speaker 1: Put the water chairbine in the water. You can charge
Speaker 1: all the energy we need to move the full fleets
Speaker 1: of sea bubbles from the power will get either for
Speaker 1: the sun or from the from the river. But before
Speaker 1: the sea bubble or rides in the Hudson River, it
Speaker 1: will have to overcome some big challenges. Okay. So Alan
Speaker 1: and Andre's hope that one day their sea bubbles will
Speaker 1: be transporting people in cities around the world. But for
Speaker 1: that to happen, they need to land that first order
Speaker 1: to get a fleet of boats up and running. Who's
Speaker 1: who's interested in in in the bubble? So far? Is
Speaker 1: it city mayors, companies? Who are your customers potentially for this?
Speaker 1: The Parris mayor invited us in Chicago, look on desp Okay.
Speaker 1: So there's this group called Sea forty Cities now and
Speaker 1: it's a lot of Europe. Forty connects more than ninety
Speaker 1: of the world greatest cities. It's a global alliance of
Speaker 1: mayors from San Francisco to Tokyo who are taking action
Speaker 1: on climate issues, and Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, is
Speaker 1: chairman of the group Climate Change. She's the most doubting
Speaker 1: challenge of this century and its affects, and she's really
Speaker 1: open doors for Anna and Anders with this community of mayors.
Speaker 1: So here I am a windsurfingself, and I find myself
Speaker 1: at the table with the Sea forty mayors. Explained to
Speaker 1: them how they're going to sort out the cities for
Speaker 1: congestion and using the waterways. Sal The Sea forty group
Speaker 1: has made a big push for things like cleaner cars
Speaker 1: through local action and city to city collaboration instead of
Speaker 1: national or international regulation. They gave us the opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk about using the waterway. It's in a better way.
Speaker 1: And I'm Manuent for one, was saying that Ram Emmanuel
Speaker 1: is the mayor of Chicago. They have done exactly what
Speaker 1: Lannidalgo is trying to do here in Paris. We can
Speaker 1: take our waterfronts, which defined our past but also become
Speaker 1: our future, to bring the people down to the waters,
Speaker 1: actually clean up the water front, to put restaurants there
Speaker 1: and so forth. Today we've opened a river walk that
Speaker 1: has brought billions of dollars of private development, and it's
Speaker 1: also brought uh the incredible amount of recreational opportunities to
Speaker 1: the city when it goes. What I need is a
Speaker 1: small taxi vote, Anders says. There's also interest from other countries.
Speaker 1: Is for the We have ten fifteen cities in the
Speaker 1: US that is asking for us to come. There is
Speaker 1: fifteen cities in India. We have a Holland, we have
Speaker 1: New Zealand, we have Australia World One with the demand.
Speaker 1: Of course, none of these are firm orders yet, and
Speaker 1: city officials are gonna need to grapple with the difficult
Speaker 1: balance of promoting innovative solutions with a tight budget. Sea
Speaker 1: Bubbles say they've lined up the price of the boat
Speaker 1: with that of a Tesla so fully equipped Model X,
Speaker 1: for instance, around a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. I
Speaker 1: wanted to know how affordable that price tag sounds, so
Speaker 1: I asked Ross Douglas. So the price point is not
Speaker 1: that high if you have a high occupancy rate. Three
Speaker 1: years ago, Ross created a conference called Autonomy to gather
Speaker 1: regulators and companies like carmaker, Renault and energy provider Energy
Speaker 1: to talk about urban mobility. If you can move two
Speaker 1: hundred people a day at ten years ahead, um, that's
Speaker 1: suddenly two thousand euros a day. It's becoming quite a
Speaker 1: good business. So Ross's point here is that the sea
Speaker 1: bubble makes business sense if it's used as part of
Speaker 1: a platform with hundreds or thousands of users. So it's
Speaker 1: a great solution for a small amount of people four
Speaker 1: or five of a relatively short distance. It runs up
Speaker 1: and down the San River. But because the sea bubbles
Speaker 1: are so small, it will need to go back and
Speaker 1: forth a lot for this to make financial sense. But
Speaker 1: if you look at the number of people moving in
Speaker 1: Paris in a day, I think it's in the it's
Speaker 1: over twenty million a day. So with all these trips
Speaker 1: people are taking, the bubbles won't be enough on their
Speaker 1: own to reduce congestion and air pollution in a city
Speaker 1: like Paris. So you need a combination of metro, of buses,
Speaker 1: of um a sency if trains of motor cars. What's more,
Speaker 1: all those trips back and forth will require a battery
Speaker 1: that can handle hours of use. Right now, the bubble
Speaker 1: can run for about four hours on a single charge.
Speaker 1: Sea Bubbles are hoping to double that to about eight
Speaker 1: hours as soon as this fall. Alan Enders even went
Speaker 1: to Tesla to learn about batteries and production lines. At
Speaker 1: the same time, Sea Bubbles is also still figuring out
Speaker 1: the details of its business model. It's unlikely the company
Speaker 1: will sell the boats directly to cities or even companies. Well,
Speaker 1: we outsource the production of the product. We outsourced the
Speaker 1: operations of the of the product. They're hoping private operators
Speaker 1: will build and run them. That includes boats the dogs,
Speaker 1: which is obviously very different in every country we go to.
Speaker 1: But see Bubbles will run the app that lets people
Speaker 1: order a water taxi just like an uber, So obviously
Speaker 1: there are challenges. Despite that, Mayor and Hidalgo has been
Speaker 1: supportive and more broadly, she's open to new initiatives. Like
Speaker 1: other mayors, she's under pressure to improve air quality in
Speaker 1: her city. On pollution, we weren't going to sit around
Speaker 1: and wait until someone found national or international solutions. It's
Speaker 1: an urgent matter and it's about people's health. We had
Speaker 1: to act. Even if changing behavior on car usage, for example,
Speaker 1: is hard and can cause controversy, we invented solutions. In
Speaker 1: an average urban air road traffic makes up as much
Speaker 1: as twenty of emissions ross says cars are low hanging
Speaker 1: fruit for mayors looking at cut emissions, as in, it's
Speaker 1: easier to get people to switch to an electric car
Speaker 1: than to an electric airplane or an electric boat. But
Speaker 1: there's no single fix for pollution and congestion. That's why
Speaker 1: the Paris mayor, for instance, has backed other projects like
Speaker 1: autonomous electric shuttles in the city's business district. She's also
Speaker 1: interested in water transport solutions. The green investment fund we're
Speaker 1: creating could eventually support this kind of project. Investing in
Speaker 1: this kind of project could potentially be very profitable. Ala
Speaker 1: and Anders have also been courting companies in the San
Speaker 1: Francisco Bay area, both as potential investors and potential customers.
Speaker 1: We met the last year Eric Meat, but what looking
Speaker 1: we Facebook? Two? We met Alonso in Falls and yes,
Speaker 1: we were looking with a lot of companies at the moment.
Speaker 1: By the way, Laurent Solely is Facebook's chief in France
Speaker 1: and Southern Europe. For companies like Google or Facebook, the
Speaker 1: pitch is basically to say, we can help cut back
Speaker 1: all those hours that your staff waste being stuck in traffic.
Speaker 1: Google already operates a shuttle bus service, so employees who
Speaker 1: live in San Francisco can commute all the way down
Speaker 1: to its Mountain View headquarters and for a short time,
Speaker 1: Google also experimented with the ferry service, but they ended
Speaker 1: that program about three years ago. In San Francisco, Sea
Speaker 1: Bubbles is promising to cut road time in half by
Speaker 1: avoiding traffic jams and going through the water, and at
Speaker 1: least here in the valley, people will basically do anything
Speaker 1: to solve or minimize the time they spend in traffic.
Speaker 1: It's really this and housing costs that I hear people
Speaker 1: complain about the most. But even if one of these
Speaker 1: companies says yes, they wouldn't necessar fairly by a fleet,
Speaker 1: just like mayors, they could come in as investors or
Speaker 1: rent out a fleet of boats as a service. So
Speaker 1: then obviously on number one tolees operators, secondary the tobes,
Speaker 1: B two B. We have a lot of hotel chains
Speaker 1: that are asking for Sea Bubbles to transport the people.
Speaker 1: And thirdly it's customers that want to have the private
Speaker 1: sea Bubble to to maneuver. For now, Sea Bubbles is
Speaker 1: building a few more vehicles to take them on world tour,
Speaker 1: currently planned for September while they work out the business
Speaker 1: model and look for customers. Sea Bubbles is running on
Speaker 1: about sixteen million dollars that they've raised so far. A VC,
Speaker 1: an insurance company, and an angel investor who started a
Speaker 1: drone manufacturer in France have invested so far. As we speak,
Speaker 1: Allah and Anders are working to raise more than a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars in new funding. They were hoping to
Speaker 1: finalize that funding around earlier this summer, but negotiations are
Speaker 1: still underway with Ester's in the US, Switzerland and France.
Speaker 1: For now, they've pushed the deadline back until September. It's
Speaker 1: been it's been a very quick, crazy adventure for you
Speaker 1: guys for the past a year and a half. Now
Speaker 1: we love to be the quick quickie. You're getting your
Speaker 1: adrenaline rush. And that's it for this week's episode of Decrypted.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Do you have a story that you'd
Speaker 1: like to share with us? You can get in touch
Speaker 1: at Decrypted at Bloomberg dot net and you can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Marie Underscore, Underscore Paris and I'm
Speaker 1: at Akio seven. If you haven't already, please subscribe to
Speaker 1: our show wherever you get your podcasts, and while you're there,
Speaker 1: I hope you'll leave us a rating and a review.
Speaker 1: I read each and every single one of these, and
Speaker 1: they really do go a long way in getting this
Speaker 1: podcast in front of more people. This episode was produced
Speaker 1: by p I Get, Carrie, Liz Smith, and Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 1: Alec McCabe is a head of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see
Speaker 1: you next week.