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Gogoro teams with Foxconn to make its e-scooters available worldwide
Gogoro has struck a deal with Foxconn that will help it make battery-swappable e-scooters available worldwide.
Gogoro brings its on-demand electric scooter rentals to Taiwan
Gogoro is expanding its on-demand scooter rental service. In August, the two-wheeled, electric Smartscooters will be available as part of a ridesharing program in Taiwan called GoShare. The scooters will use Gogoro's swappable batteries, so instead of stopping to charge the vehicles, riders can pick up a new battery at a GoStation and be back on the road in a matter of minutes.
Gogoro 2 makes the electric scooter lifestyle more comfortable
About two years after we first rode the Gogoro Smartscooter, the company is back with a sequel. The Gogoro 2 and Gogoro 2 Plus lightly rework the original, with a second gen motor and powertrain that deliver the same amount of power (6.4kW), but promise smoother torque and more control. The choice of a Sport mode and Smart mode let riders choose between higher top speed and acceleration or increased efficiency and range. Predictably, they also are built for easier maintenance this time around, while larger wheels (14-inch up front, 13-inch on the rear), updated geometry with a longer 51-inch wheelbase and a synchronized braking system improve its stability. Oh, and a longer seat makes it easy to bring a friend along for a ride. Beyond just the new scooters, Gogoro is upgrading its app to version 2.0 with better security that can require a fingerprint or PIN code to start, making its scooters (both old and new) "virtually unstealable." Also, the company expanding its battery swapping Energy Network in Taiwan to offer more than 500 locations by the end of the year. The Gogoro 2 will go on sale in Taiwan in July (preorders are opening today) where pricing can be as low as TWD$38,800/USD$1,295 with all local subsidies applied. Gogoro's website, however, lists the Gogoro 2 starting price at TWD$73,800/USD$2,455 and the Gogoro 2 Plus at TWD$79,800/USD$2,654. It will come to other markets by the end of 2017.
Gogoro and Bosch launch electric scooter-sharing service in Paris
The Gogoro EV Smartscooter is headed to France. A fleet of 600 scooters will be available starting this summer for short-term rentals via Bosch's Coup Mobility service. This is the second city -- Berlin being the first -- that Coup and Gogoro have teamed up in.
Kymco's smart scooter combines alerts with a customizable design
Smart cars are everywhere. They talk to your phone and your house. In the future they'll even carry on conversations with you and your passengers. But for now automobiles are rolling maps, entertainment centers and charging ports for our connected lifestyles.
Donald Trump's environmental plan and more in the week that was
The Hyperloop keeps getting realer by the day. This week, architects unveiled detailed plans for a next-gen transportation system that will travel from Dubai to Abu Dhabi in just 12 minutes. Meanwhile, Elon Musk announced big plans to build a second Gigafactory in Europe that will produce lithium-ion batteries and electric cars. Gogoro rolled out a faster, more powerful version of its battery-swapping electric Smartscooter, while Vespa delighted fans with plans to launch an all-electric model next year. And MIT teamed up with NASA to develop a new "morphing" airplane wing that could revolutionize aviation.
Zip around Taiwan on the faster Gogoro S electric scooter
Gogoro's battery-powered scooter left us rather impressed after our test ride in Taiwan back in 2015, and the startup has since sold over 14,000 units locally plus rolled out 240 GoStations nationwide for customers to quickly swap batteries -- as opposed to having their electric scooters plugged in for hours. To keep the momentum going, today the company announced the Gogoro S, a high-performance model equipped with the new 7.2 kW G1-S motor which pushes the scooter from zero to 50 km/h or 31 MPH in just 3.7 seconds -- a notable improvement from the 4.2 seconds with the original 6.4 kW G1 motor, which is already quite quick. But for the sake of safety, the top speed is still capped at 95 km/h or 59 MPH.
Gogoro rides its battery-swapping electric scooter into Amsterdam
After launching in the scooter-drenched city of Taipei, Taiwan, Gogoro is setting its sights on Europe; Amsterdam specifically. Today the company announced that it's headed for the capital of the Netherlands in the first part of 2016 and that it will expand to other cities in the second part of the year. Unlike other electric scooters that charge via a wall outlet, Gogoro has a series of GoStation battery swapping stations. When the charge on a bike runs low, riders pull into a station and swap their one or both of their nearly dead batteries with a fresh ones and carry on. That entire ecosystem is coming to bike-centric Amsterdam along with the company's Smartscooter.
Former HTC execs unveil smart scooter plus a network of swappable batteries
One of the biggest barriers to owning an electric vehicle is that you have to charge it, often for hours, before taking it for a spin. But what if you could swap out its depleted battery for a fully charged one in seconds? And what if those batteries were in plentiful supply throughout the city? And what if, on top of that, the vehicle in question was a high-powered, cloud-connected electric scooter that told you, among other things, exactly when you should go and swap them out? That's exactly what today's big announcement is from Gogoro, a new effort by a couple of ex-HTC executives -- former Chief Innovation Officer Horace Luke and former Chief Technologist Matthew Taylor -- both of whom were responsible for some of HTC's most groundbreaking products in the past few years. With Gogoro, however, Luke and Taylor's focus is not on phones, but on implementing smarter energy consumption in large cities. And its plans include transforming the urban transport landscape as we know it.
