Electric scooter vendor and producer Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) said it is planning to open rental shops on Siaoliouciou Island (小琉球) by the middle of next month.
Although Gogoro’s news release on Tuesday said that its expansion plans were limited to Taichung, some Internet users on Thursday last week said they had spotted a shipment of Gogoro scooters on a boat heading to Siaoliouciou Island.
In response to media queries, Gogoro confirmed that it is to open stores on Siaoliouciou.
The company said it has concluded that substantial opportunities for electric scooters exist on Siaoliouciou and that it believes its “high-performance and aesthetically pleasing” vehicles would be successful there, citing the local authority’s interest in reducing carbon emissions and noise pollution on the island.
As a result, 100 license-built Gogoro scooters were sent to Siaoliouciou to explore the market, with shops on the island scheduled to open ahead of those in Taichung, it said.
To address an issue of accidents involving scooter-riding tourists on the island, Gogoro scooters to be used on Siaoliouciou were license-built by a contractor, with their maximum speed reduced to less than 60kph, which Gogoro said would improve safety and handling on the island’s hilly roads.
Affiliated rental partners are obliged to rent only to people who have a valid driver’s license for 125cc scooters, it said, adding that it would provide warranties for scooter batteries and establish a 24-hour recharging station on the island.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS