Technology

If you need a safe haven on the internet, where the pipes are open and the freedoms are plentiful — you might want to move to Estonia or Iceland.

The latest &internet freedoms& rankings are out, courtesy of Freedom Houseannual report into the state of internet freedoms and personal liberties, based on rankings of 65 countries that represent the vast majority of the worldinternet users. Although the U.S. remains firmly in the top ten, it dropped a point on the year earlier after a recent rash of changes to internet regulation and a lack of in the realm of surveillance.

Last year, the U.S. was 21 in the global internet freedom ranking — the lower number, the better a country ranks. That was behind Estonia, Iceland, Canada, Germany and Australia. This year the U.S. is at 22 — thanks to the repeal of net neutrality and the renewal of U.S. spy powers.

The report also cited &disinformation and hyperpartisan content& — or fake news — as a &pressing concern.&

It was only in June, after a protracted battle, that the Federal Communications Commission finally pulled the plug on the Obama-era rules that guaranteed the free and fair flow of internet data. Net neutrality — which promises to treat every usertraffic as equal and doesn&t prioritize certain internet users or services over others — was dead. That was despite months of delays and a scandal that embroiled the FCCchairman Ajit Pai for allegedly lying to lawmakers over a falsified denial-of-service attack that he used to try to stifle criticism of his repeal plans. What did happen was an onslaught of citizens demanding that the net neutrality rules. But that was eclipsed by an astroturfing campaign that even used dead people to try to swing the decision.

What also dropped the U.S. a point was the near-clean reauthorization of the governmentsurveillance laws, whichpassed with little debate despite a call for change. It was the first time to reel in the governmentspying powers since the Edward Snowden revelations a half-decade ago — but lawmakers buckled to pressure from the intelligence community, despite recognizing a long history of abuse and overreachby U.S. spy agencies.

Freedom House called the lawrenewal &a blow to civil rights and privacy advocates,& who advocated for change since long before Edward Snowden had a face.

A single digit drop in ranking may not seem like much, compared to the last-place contenders — Iran and China, predictably ranking in worst, but many see the U.S. as a beacon of free speech and expression — a model that others aspire to replicate.

As the report found, that goes both ways. The U.S. has its part to blame for the decline in at least 17 countries where &fake news& has been co-opted by oppressive regimes to justify crackdowns on dissent and free speech. The rise of &fake news,& a term largely attributed to Donald Trump — then a candidate for president — which spread like wildfire — and across borders — as a way to reject reported information or factual current events that were derogatory to a personviews. In other words, it was a verbal hand grenade, lobbed whenever a person heard something they didn&t like.

Now, other regimes are cracking down on internet freedoms under the guise of fighting fake news. Philippines and Kazakhstan were both named by Freedom House as using &fake news& to restrict the internet by removing content and stifling the spread of views in the name of fighting misinformation.

While many might not care much for a country you know little about, ita reminder that the U.S. is still seen in high regard and other nations will follow in its footsteps.

Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, said that the U.S. government in particular should take &a more proactive role& in stepping up their efforts to maintain a free and open internet to prevent playing into the hands of of &less democratic governments looking to increase their control of the internet.&

A little known Chinese bike company is riding into Europe as its peer Ofo has applied the brakes to its global expansion strategy in recent months.

Youon, which gets by manufacturing public bikes for city governments across China, has formed a joint venture with UK-based bike-sharing startup Cycle.land, it says in a statement. The deal allows the Chinese firm to sit back in its headquarters in eastern China while its British partner deploys its bikes and takes care of on-the-ground operation.

Youonfleet of 1,000 public bikes will start appearing in London next March, making the UK the fourth country in its international expansion after Russia, India, and Malaysia.

Youonname may not ring a bell, but its subsidiary Hellobike is increasingly turning heads as its dockless bikes win over users in Chinasmaller cities where its larger rivals Ofo and Mobike lack a presence. This is in part thanks to Hellobikepartnership with its investor Ant Financial, Alibabafinancial affiliate, which lets users skip Hellobikestandalone app and access the service on AntAlipay wallet, which has over 500 million MAUs.

While Hellobikemobile penetration recorded a 20 percent month-over-month increase (link in Chinese) in September, Mobike and Ofo barely saw any growth in the same period, according to data service provider Jiguang.

Away from home, Youonpartnership approach is also noticeably different from that of Mobike and Ofo, which have chosen to run their own overseas operation. Teaming up with local players gives Youon insight into customers abroad, suggests market research firm Analysys.

&User behavior in Europe and North America is very different and it will be reckless for a [Chinese] firm to abruptly set up its own operations overseas,& Sun Naiyue, an analyst at Analysys, tells TechCrunch.

Having a local ally also helps Youon avoid government protectionism and regulatory meddling in the foreign market, Sun adds. London has already greenlighted the company to place bikes in the city and the company will &follow local demand and rules to deploy bikes accordingly,& Cycle.land says of its partner.

Contrasting the prospects of Youonlatest push is the bleak outlook of its peer. The past few months have seen Ofo retreat from its overseas markets to prioritize profitability. To date, Ofo has shut down in Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Israel, and scaled back operation in a host of other countries.

With more failures in the electric motorcycle industry than going concerns and a contracting American motorcycle market, now would seem to be an odd time to launch a new bike into the EV arena. ButTarform, a new startup that unveiled its first vehicle last month in Brooklyn, is undeterred.

Thatdespite the fact that the company will likely face an uphill ride selling its high-end, higher priced e-motos.

The EV upstart recently pulled the cover off its first e-motorcycles—prototype Café and Scrambler models at BrooklynNewLab.

The 295 and 320 pound machines bring7 kilowatt-hour (KwH) Lithium-ION batteries, 43 horsepower, a top speed of 93 miles per hour, and 92 mile city riding ranges.

With the debut, the New York and Stockholm based startup now moves into testing phase and taking orders for its first production electric two-wheelers, expected to manufacture by late 2019.

Before getting back to the sobering EV topic of achieving scale and profitability, Tarform is committed to bringing a fresh design aesthetic to the motorcycle world.

The startupstated mission is &to set a new standard for two-wheeled transport by developing fully electric, zero-emission premium motorcycles, using sustainable materials and smart connectivity.&

For itsprototypedebut, the company did more than source parts and slap batteries into motorcycle frames.

&In order to distill the form to only the essentials, we were challenged to redesign every component,& said CEO and founder Taras Kravtchouk—an industrial design specialist, former startup head, and passionate motorcyclist.

From the swingarm to the pegs, speedo, fairing and handlebars—the company custom engineered a large portion of the Café and Scrambler prototype parts. Each also has a custom sound produced by a transducer inside the tank that matches a low pitch hum to motor revs.

A lot of the important stuff—such as the battery, suspension, and current power regulation system are sourced—but Tarform looks to shift toward more proprietary features, including a digital power delivery system with AI functions.

&Were talking to a company in Sweden to do a custom vehicle control unit to integrate Bluetooth connectivity [and ultrasonic proximity sensors],& Kravtchouk told TechCrunch.

&You&ll be able to sync your ride to an app…and get inputs on your riding behavior…to become a better rider.&

Tarform will offer two variants of its production motorcycles. Version one will be a 9kWh, 53 horsepower, 350 pound two-wheeler with a 95 mile per hour top speed and 129 mile range.

A larger 13.5 kWh battery, 80 horsepower, 395 pound model will be good for 168 miles.

Charging time will be 3.5 hours to 80 percent and 8 hours to full power using a standard electrical outlet. A fast-charger option will get the bikes to 80 percent in less than an hour.

The starting price to pre-order one of Tarformfirst production motorcycles is $18,000.

That compares to $8K for an entry levelFX from Zero—Americahighest selling e-motorcycle manufacturer—and $24K for anEva EsseEsse9from Energica, a high-performance Italian EV startup with a U.S. sales network.

As for market positioning, Tarform aims to attract buyers by hitting that optimum balance of performance and design, according to Kravtchouk.

On power and range, &the question is how much we compromise the design [for a bigger battery], without making the bikes look fat and ugly. We&re trying to find a compromise,& he said.

Some people may want to have &a bike that looks sweet& with a slightly shorter ride distance, versus &a bike that goes further with a big battery jammed into it,& he said.

And that pivots to the business side of the equation for Tarform as an EV startup. A core part of the companyvalue proposition is to create motorcycles that recapture the imagination of young folks.

As we&ve covered here atTechCrunch, the U.S. motorcycle industry has been in the doldrums since the recession.

New U.S. sales dropped roughly 50 percent since 2008, with sharp declines in ownership by everyone under 40. Motorcycle manufacturers are now largely competing for an aging and shrinking American buying demographic.

Females are one of the only growing ownership segments. And per anInsurance Institute for Highway Safety study, total motorcycles on the road actually increased from 2008 to 2017—though nearly 75 percent of registrations are for bikes over seven years old.

So some Americans are buying motorcycles—but often not new ones—and the industry is (by and large) not connecting with 20 and 30 somethings.

Tarform believes e-motos (theirs in particular) can bring at least some segment of a more tech and design savvy younger generation back to motorcycles.

Of course, they&re not the only ones, and as mentioned, there have already been several flops in the U.S. market. Electric motorcycle startupsBrammoand Mission Motors already tried and failed. And perTechCrunchrecent reporting, California based Alta Motors—that had $45 million in VC—ceased operations two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Energica andZero Motorcycleshave revved up U.S. promotion, distribution and sales. The two have extensive R-D facilities and roughly $90 million in VC among them.

Then thereHarley Davidsonfull commitment to EVs. This year the company announced the debut of aproduction e-moto by 2019, an expanded electric line-up to follow, and the opening of a Silicon Valleyresearch facilityto support it all.

With their largely untested and higher priced product Tarform, faces a rough ride to compete with these companies in what is still a shrinking U.S. motorcycle market.

But going head to head with Harley or capturing existing market share from other e-moto startups isn&t necessarily Tarformstrategy, according to CEOKravtchouk.

&We&re not in the arms race. We&re not saying we&re faster than anyone else…We think our positioning is a little bit different,& he said.

&Since we started showing the design…so many people who are not motorcycle riders have come forward and said, ‘I want to ride that thing,& explained TarformCEO.

&So maybe our demographic is not existing motorcycle riders, but people who wished they were motorcycle riders. Thatwhat industry, gas or EV, has had such a hard time capturing.&

Over the next year Tarform will look to see &how the market responds& to its first offering before raising a round.

&Before getting big funding we want to show we&re able to build this in a small garage in Brooklyn. Then the startup will &want to partner up with major manufacturers to take it to the next level,& said Kravtchouk.