Gogoro starts shipping its Smartscooter in Taiwan
The Gogoro scooter is ready for the streets of Taipei. The company will starts shipping its electric Smartscooter to customers that preordered the bike today. The brainchild of former HTC executives, Gogoro became one of the darlings of CES 2015 with its swappable battery solution for its electric vehicle. Instead of plugging the electric scooter into an outlet at home or at charging stations, riders use the company's GoStation battery kiosks in their city and swap out the two batteries that reside under the seat. Gogoro has been working with Taipei businesses and the government to implement the battery swapping infrastructure it needs to sell its bike. The scooter sells for $128,000 NT (New Taiwan Dollar) which is about $4,066 US and initially includes two years of free battery swapping. Subscriptions will start at $299 NT ($9.50 US) and go up to $899 NT ($28.50 US). Launching in scooter-centric Taipei is a bit of a no brainer. And while the company hasn't shared any future launch plans, we should expect more cities in Asia to get the bike with motorcycle and scooter-friendly North American cities like San Francisco somewhere on the horizon.
