MoceanLab Harnesses Mobility to Help LA’s Most Vulnerable

By Randy James

Most companies are in business primarily to serve their customers. SCG client MoceanLab takes a far more expansive view of its corporate mission.

MoceanLab is a unique mobility laboratory created by the Hyundai Motor Group to improve transportation in Los Angeles. The company’s public-spirited mission also entails improving lives and expanding opportunity throughout the city – a commitment it takes very seriously.

MoceanLab has been deploying hybrid electric vehicles throughout Downtown L.A. and Eagle Rock/Highland Park as part of its growing Mocean Carshare service. At the same time, the company is donating use of these vehicles to local organizations that serve residents in need.

On a recent morning, my colleague Camila and I accompanied our client in Boyle Heights to meet several members of USC Medical School’s Street Medicine Team – medical specialists who travel to homeless encampments, highway underpasses and other off-the-grid locations to provide care to unhoused Angelenos. Thanks to MoceanLab, these intrepid professionals can now use a new low-emission car and SUV to take them and their medical equipment wherever help is needed.

It’s not the first time MoceanLab has stepped up to give back. Earlier this summer, MoceanLab donated use of its environmentally friendly vehicles to a family-owned restaurant and marketplace, South LA Cafe, which uses them to deliver fresh groceries to needy residents who may be unable to leave home due to the pandemic. And MoceanLab is actively looking for even more ways to help in other parts of the city.

As L.A. struggles to cope with the impact of the coronavirus and painful economic slowdown, MoceanLab is demonstrating what it looks like to be part of the solution.