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.
PATENTS: MediaTek Inc said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but does not expect the legal action by Huawei to affect its business operations Smartphone integrated chips designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that a lawsuit filed by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over alleged patent infringements would have little impact on its operations. In an announcement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, MediaTek said that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case. However, the company said that Huawei’s legal action would have little impact on its operations. MediaTek’s statement came after China-based PRIP Research said on Thursday that Huawei filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court claiming that MediaTek infringed on its patents. The infringement mentioned in the lawsuit likely involved
Taipei is today suspending work, classes and its US$2.4 trillion stock market as Typhoon Gaemi approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Authorities had yesterday issued a warning that the storm could affect people on land and canceled some ship crossings and domestic flights. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects its local chipmaking fabs to maintain normal production, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp said it has activated routine typhoon alert
GROWTH: TSMC increased its projected revenue growth for this year to more than 25 percent, citing stronger-than-expected demand for AI devices and smartphones The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday raised its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 3.29 percent to 3.85 percent, as exports and private investment recovered faster than it predicted three months ago. The Taipei-based think tank also expects that Taiwan would see a 8.19 percent increase in exports this year, better than the 7.55 percent it projected in April, as US technology giants spent more money on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and development. “There will be more AI servers going forward, but it remains to be seen if the momentum would extend to personal computers, smartphones and
Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts said on Friday. A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc brought airlines, TV stations and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill. The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “blue screen of death.” “Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in