Electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) yesterday announced plans to launch a scooter-sharing service in Japan with Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Corp.
Unlike the scooter rental service Gogoro introduced in Berlin and Paris, the GoShare service in Japan would feature an open battery-swapping system that could also be used to power four-wheel vehicles in the future, the company said in a statement.
In partnership with Sumitomo, one of its major investors, Gogoro said the service would be launched in the southern Japanese island of Ishigaki this year and expand to other cities next year.
Photo: Tyrone Siu, Reuters
The company did not provide a detailed schedule.
Gogoro last week announced that it had raised US$300 million from global investors, including Sumitomo and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte, in its latest round of funding.
The company declined to reveal how many of its scooters would come from Japan.
Company data showed that Gogoro provided a total of 1,600 scooters in Berlin and Paris for its sharing service in Europe.
The company is working on building a connected network and battery-swapping system around the world, Gogoro cofounder and chief executive officer Horace Luke (陸學森) told a news conference earlier this month in Taipei.
The company’s expansion plan is different from Tesla Inc’s strategy, which aims to develop more fast-charging stations worldwide, Luke said.
Gogoro deploys more than 400 GoStation battery-swapping stations, with 17,000 batteries swapped for 40,000 users per day globally.
The company has seen 6 million batteries swapped since 2015, data showed.
Company statistics showed that Gogoro remained Taiwan’s largest electric scooter supplier last month, with an 85.1 percent share and sales of 4,753 units, more than doubling from 1,454 units a year earlier.
The company also ranked the fourth-largest scooter supplier in the local market, behind Kwang Yang Motor Co (光陽工業), Yamaha Motor Taiwan Co (台灣山葉) and Sanyang Industry Co (三陽工業).
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