Reimagining The World’s Energy Infrastructure With Battery Swapping – Taiwan’s Gogoro

Gogoro is far from being just another company that manufactures electric scooters. It has set out to challenge the ways people think about energy consumption and begin shaping tomorrow’s cities today.

While speaking to the company’s Vice President of Global Communications, Jason Gordon, one thing is clear – this Taiwan-based company is out to make waves in the mobility space.

“Leveraging the power of innovation to change the way we all consume energy is the core idea that drives everything we do,” says Gordon,

“With an ambitious vision for changing how cities operate in smarter, cleaner and more sustainable ways we created an urban ecosystem that provides an easy path forward for mass-market adoption of sustainable energy and transportation.”

From the get go, it’s clear that Gogoro is extremely proud of its Taiwanese roots, as well as the country’s position in propelling sustainable urban transportation forward as an example to the world.

“Taiwan was the obvious market to establish Gogoro’s headquarters and to launch as its pilot market. Access to Taiwan’s sophisticated workforce, its robust and innovative supply chain, the positive consumer and governmental sentiment towards embracing technological and sustainable advancements and the mass penetration of scooters and the pollution caused by them made Taiwan an easy choice,” he says.

The ‘Tesla’ of Scooters

Gogoro has been constantly growing, constantly evolving since its launch in 2015. It created a buzz when it first launched an electric scooter with swappable battery technology at CES, 2015. But it didn’t stop there. The company was set on its vision on creating a sustainable energy ecosystem and went on to create the Gogoro Network, a network of battery swapping platforms or GoStations, spread across 1,660 sites across convenience stores, supermarkets and parking lots in Taiwan.

“Gogoro’s original convictions and vision remain. We are transforming how we all use and share energy. We believe there is a better path forward but know it won’t happen on its own. Every day we empower and inspire the world to choose smarter, better and more sustainable lifestyles,” says Gordon.

“At its core, Gogoro Network is an intelligent energy platform delivering a fresh alternative to legacy fuel and its undeniable pollution. Gogoro combines the power of connectivity, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to create a new generation of swappable refuelling that is smart, scalable and continually optimizing itself to be dynamic and versatile for people, communities and businesses.”

Steering the conversation back to the electric scooters, I was curious to know more about what Forbes had labelled as the ‘Tesla of scooters’.

“Designed to ignite positive culture change in cities, the Gogoro Network was created to be the core of the Gogoro ecosystem but for many, the Smartscooter is what put Gogoro on the map. Introduced in 2015, the Gogoro Smartscooter was created to be the world’s ultimate smart electric vehicle,” states Gordon.

“The award-winning and critically acclaimed Smartscooter provided the perfect combination of electric performance, sophisticated intelligence and smart connectivity that automatically personalized the riding experience for each rider. Today, Gogoro offers a diverse line of Smartscooters targeted at different market segments and categories that continue to lead the market in sophistication, intelligence, and consumer reviews.”

And what do customers think about it? Gordon answers: “With nearly 300,000 Smartscooters sold, 200,000 daily battery swaps with nearly 90 million total battery swaps since launching, Gogoro riders have embraced battery swapping and are leading the transition to mass market sustainable transportation.”

GOGORO’S VISION IS FOCUSED ON TRANSFORMING URBAN TRANSPORTATION FOR THE MASS MARKET AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH SWAPPABLE SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REFUELLING.

I was curious as to what prompted the company to venture into the battery-swapping space.

Gordon says: “Gogoro Network eliminates the traditional challenges of locating charge points and waiting to charge but instead offers convenient and accessible electric refuelling with battery swapping. Today, Gogoro Network has more than 1,600 battery swapping stations and manages more than 200,000 battery swaps per day.”

“With the world’s megacities at a tipping point in population density, pollution fallout and rapid expansion, Gogoro reimagined the energy infrastructure and created a renewed mindset for how tomorrow’s urban generation can bring change. With the Gogoro Network, we’re doing for urban transportation what the AA battery did for the consumer electronics industry. The concept of easily accessible, hyper-connected portable power will help turn the world’s most densely populated megacities into smart cities,” he continues.

“Gogoro Network has established itself as the leading open platform for battery swapping and smart mobility services by providing an innovative approach to electric refuelling that is easy for riders to use and optimized for businesses to embrace.

“Gogoro Network is utilizing its real-time AI for cloud data analysis to roll out a variety of enhancements including our new Flex Plan that provides smart pricing so customers have direct control to pay for just the battery energy they consume while also incentivizing them to earn discounts by choosing to swap at less busy locations,” Gordon adds.

But if you thought that’s all that Gogoro did, it’s not. To further its vision of smart mobility and sustainable energy consumption, the company also started its very own ride-sharing service called GoShare.

“Cities around the world have proven consumer demand for mobility sharing but few have established a business model or deployed a solution that demonstrates ongoing viability because of the operational inefficiencies in refuelling and redeployment of shared vehicles.”

“GoShare was the first end-to-end mobility sharing platform, and tightly integrates the Gogoro Network, Gogoro Smartscooter, and GoShare App into a powerful solution that eliminates many of the operational challenges to deliver an optimized platform that is easy for riders to use, more sustainable to operate and more viable for cities to meet their aggressive smart city goals and initiatives.”

Ever since its inception, Gogoro has been an exciting company to look out for, and even more so now that it is rapidly evolving.

“Gogoro’s vision is focused on transforming urban transportation for the mass market around the world through swappable sustainable energy refuelling. 2020 is a significant year for Gogoro with a variety of new technologies, products and markets and we will continue to make significant news throughout the year,” concludes Gordon.