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.
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