Taipei Times (TT): According to government statistics, 20,628 electric motorbikes were sold in Taiwan last year. How did Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) perform and what is the company’s outlook?
Chen Yang (陳彥揚): We sold 13,000 scooters last year [about 63 percent of the total] after selling 4,000 scooters in 2015. The strong sales is highly related to our battery swap network, GoStation. The more battery swap stations we built, the more scooters we sold.
Government support also plays an important role in boosting sales. Consumers receive as much as NT$25,000 in subsidies when they buy an electric scooter, which helps bring down the price of the “smart” scooter to close to that of a gasoline-fueled 125cc scooter.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
We have increased the number of GoStations to about 300. People can swap battery packs at some convenience stores, CPC Corp (台灣中油) gas stations or Mass Rapid Transit stations in Taipei. Our goal this year is to expand and ehnance the battery swap network to other major metropolitan cities including Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
Electric scooters are nothing new in Taiwan, but 99 percent of electric scooters sold were 50cc models before Gogoro joined the market. Last year, 125cc-level electric scooters outsold 50cc models for the first time in Taiwan and we believe this trend will continue. Sales 125cc-level electric scooters are expected to double from last year.
TT: How has Gogoro’s overseas expansion fared since it participated in an electric scooter leasing service in Berlin in August last year?
Chen: We have deployed 200 Gogoro scooters in different areas in Berlin after the leasing service program started last year. We also help manage battery swap networks in the city via a remote surveillance system from Gogoro’s headquarters in Taoyuan.
Given the fast uptake of the leasing service in Berlin, we are in talks with potential partners to start similar services in other European cities. We hope to see some good results next year.
Other than leasing services, we are looking at new business opportunities in Southeastern Asian markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and India. Those markets are much bigger than Taiwan and they support ‘clean’ energy. It is our goal to expand to markets with large potential sales.
TT: Will Gogoro increase its workforce to cope with growing sales?
Chen: The company has about 850 employees and we definitely need to increase the number of workers at our plants as sales increase. We also need to increase our workforce at maintenance centers as the number of outlets is on the rise. However, we do not have to significantly expand our energy management team, which handles the battery swap network, because most jobs can be done remotely using cloud technology and big data analysis. That team has 40 engineers.
TT: Why did Gogoro choose to design and produces its scooters in Taiwan?
Chen: We chose Taiwan, not the Pearl River Delta in China as some suggested, because it has the entire supply chain we need and has strong technological capabilities. The cluster effect is an important factor that helps shorten our product’s time to market. On top of that, Taiwan has a large population of scooter riders.
We design all major components including engine and energy solution systems in Taiwan. We authorize local suppliers to produce components for us. Then we assemble battery packs and scooters at our plants here. We also operate three laboratories — mechanical testing, electronics testing and engine driving testing — in Taiwan to ensure vehicle safety.
While we collaborate with Panasonic Corp in battery design, most components of Gogoro scooters are sourced from our 180 local component suppliers. Many of them are in Taichung and Changhua, which are home to the nation’s major mechanics, electronics and automobile component manufacturers.
TT: Gogoro has defined itself as an energy company rather than a scooter vendor. Does the company plan to provide its energy solutions to other scooter companies?
Chen: Company cofounder and chief executive officer Horace Luke’s (陸學森) vision is to create an energy company, or a portable energy solution provider, to reduce environmental pollution.
Making the electric scooter is the first step, but the company’s core technology is offering energy solutions and energy management systems. Gogoro has proved that battery swap systems are the best solution for the electric scooter segment and this energy solution could be used for different devices, not only scooters or cars.
We have received a lot of interests from other scooter venders, automakers and distributors from around the world since we launched our energy solutions and Gogoro scooters at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 2015. A lot of business projects are being discussed. We do not have a timetable yet, but we hope to have good news very soon.
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