Shifting Gears: No one has figured out scooter economics yet

Last Town Before Mars: A series on SpaceX's journey to our neighboring planet, and its effects on a small Texas community

Dave Mosher's second dispatch from Boca Chica, Texas, is one you won't want to miss. Dave Finlay, a SpaceX executive, has been traveling door to door in the quiet retirement enclave near the beach. His mission: convince homeowners to sell and make way for Mars missions.

Read the full story here.

Scooter startups' growing pains

I interviewed Euwyn Poon, the founder and president of Spin, about how the scooter startup is faring just over a year after its sale to Ford for $100 million.

The company hoped to be in 100 markets by the end of 2019, but it's only in 70 now. That was a conscious decision by executives, Poon said, as the entire industry struggles to figure out tricky economics and turn a profit.

He also discussed his employees' bid to unionize, which would make them an outlier in an industry with an addiction to independent contract work.

Trucking struggles continue

As the $800 billion trucking industry grapples with the 21st century, another company announced its impending closure this week, my colleague Rachel Premack reports. When the closure happens, more than 100 jobs will go with it.

She also had a juicy scoop about Amazon's outsourcing of some technical-support roles, angering many drivers.

Lastly in her trifecta is the cohesive list of logistics startups set to soar this year, according to venture capitalists.

Electric trucks are all the rage

I chatted with Carl-Magnus Norden about his electric-truck startup Volta this week. The company's identified a very specific niche — inner-city deliveries — and has designed a truck that looks nothing like current models in its bid to cut emissions from the heavily polluting sector.

You can read the full write-up here.

Elsewhere in electric-truck land, a company called Nikola (see what they did there?) revealed its "Badger" pickup slated to compete with vehicles like Tesla's Cybertruck, Rivian's R1T, and Ford's electric F-150.

Everything else:

• We got a copy of Tesla's employee handbook — that it calls the "anti-handbook"
• Meanwhile, the company disclosed a new SEC probe in its annual report this week.
• Jaguar is stopping production of the I-Pace for a week because it doesn't have enough batteries — and it shows why Tesla and GM are spending billions on battery factories
• Airbus unveiled a futuristic plane prototype with one giant wing and no separate fuselage
• JetBlue revolutionized low-cost travel when it first flew 20 years ago — here's how it beat the odds to become a major US airline
• Boeing is flying the 737 Max around the US with test crews and no passengers to prepare for the plane's return
• I took 3 Delta flights in one day after finally getting elite status to see if it's really worth having — here's what I discovered
• Mercedes-Benz collaborated with a boat maker to create this 59-foot speedboat and matching G-Class SUV