Electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) is to spin off its battery swapping business as an independent entity, called Gogoro Network, to cope with the wider adoption of the system by other electric scooter brands, the company said yesterday.
The separation would allow Gogoro Network to concentrate on roviding electric scooter riders with an expeditious and smart way of fetching fully charged batteries via an open platform, while Gogoro would continue to make electric scooters and assemble batteries at its headquarters in Taoyuan, the company said in a statement.
“Gogoro will collaborate with more partners in the future to provide versatile products and services through an open platform network from Gogoro Network,” Gogoro founder and chief executive officer Horace Luke (陸學森) said in the statement.
The company appointed Gogoro energy division vice president Alan Pan (潘璟倫) as the president of Gogoro Network, effective immediately, the statement said.
Before working for Gogoro, Pan was an executive in charge of HTC Corp’s (宏達電) European, Middle Eastern and African markets.
The announcement came as riders from non-Gogoro brands are to gain access to the battery swapping system later this year.
The brands are Yamaha Motor Co of Japan, Aeon Motor Co (宏佳騰) and Motive Power Industry Co (摩特動力), which sells motorcycles under the PGO brand.
The companies last year announced a partnership with Gogoro to roll out their first electric scooters powered by Gogoro’s batteries this year, proving that battery swapping is a better solution than battery charging offered by rival Kwang Yang Motor Co (光陽工業), Gogoro said.
Gogoro spinning off its battery swapping system is in line with its foray into the ride-sharing service with GoShare.
The service would become available next month in Taoyuan in the initial phase, the company said.
Gogoro said it plans to invest NT$5.8 billion (US$186.6 million) on new battery swapping stations and adding a production line to assemble a new type of battery, whose capacity 2.8 times higher than the existing ones and has a longer range of 170km per charge.
The new batteries would be available from the end of this month, Gogoro said.
Since the launch of the battery swapping system in 2015, Gogoro Network has accumulated nearly 200,000 members, it said.
The company plans to expand the number of battery swapping stations to 1,500 nationwide by the end of this year, from 1,292, the statement said.
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS