Gogoro
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Gogoro has a plan to quickly get scooters into your city
Gogoro's smart scooter launch in Taipei this past summer did so well that the company is already planning on launching it's smart scooter and battery-swapping ecosystem in Amsterdam. But according to CEO Horace Luke, the company has received a ton of requests from cities and scooter rides all over the world. So for those jonesing for one those speedy bikes, you may be in luck. Today the company announced a home charger and an initiative to roll out in more cities.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: The new Prius and a two-legged puppy
2016 is shaping up to be a tremendous year for green transportation. This week Honda announced plans to launch its Clarity Fuel Cell car next year in the US, while Gogoro is getting ready to roll out its battery-swapping Smartscooters in Europe. Chevrolet scored a grand slam as the 2016 Volt won the Green Car of the Year award, and we jumped behind the wheel of the completely redesigned 2016 Toyota Prius to give you the scoop. We also showcased two wild pedal-powered vehicles: a folding bike that weighs less than a watermelon and the world's longest bicycle, which stretches an absurd 117 feet.
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.
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.
Riding the battery-powered Gogoro smart scooter
While Tesla is working on solving range anxiety with its Supercharger stations, electric motorcycles and scooters continue to be tethered to outlets for hours in order to get back on the road. Smart scooter company Gogoro is trying to solve that problem with a network of battery-housing GoStations. Riders just pull up, swap out two batteries and ride away. The whole process should take less than a minute. It's an intriguing idea that requires partnerships with local governments and companies. But none of that matters if the scooter isn't at least on par with what's already available on the market. So we flew to Taipei and put the Gogoro smart scooter to the test.
E-Scooters with swappable batteries will land in Taipei this summer
Scooters don't normally generate much buzz without some kind of gimmick -- unless they're, say, connected to a well-known company and feature a crazy business model. The all-electric Gogoro Smartscooter fits that description perfectly, as it was created by former HTC executives and relies on a network of swappable batteries. After debuting just a few months ago at CES, it will launch commercially this summer in greater Tapei following a pilot program. The centerpiece is the Gogoro Experience Center, a retail outlet that'll show off the Smartscooter EV's design and options. It'll also teach consumers about the GoStation, a removable battery vending machine that's part of the company's Gogoro Energy Network.
Electric scooters and fiber-optic shirts land on Engadget's CES stage
From one angle, there are so many similarities between Gogoro and Cambridge Consultants that it's hard to tell them apart. For instance, both are visionary companies that seek to redefine an existing market and both came out with innovative technology that no one had seen before. Another similarity between the two, of course, is that they joined us on the Engadget stage as our editor's choice.
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.
