The government’s new and larger-scale subsidies for scooter replacements would drive electric scooter demand, Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) said yesterday, boosting electric scooter’s market share to about 20 percent this year, from 15 percent last year.
The spread of COVID-19 has also helped propel electric scooter sales as people avoid public transportation to prevent contracting the virus, the company said.
“The epidemic gave an unexpected boost [to sales],” Gogoro chief marketing executive Chen Yen-yang (陳彥揚) told the Taipei Times at the launch of the Gogoro 3 Delight, a new addition to the Gogoro 3 series.
Photo: Yang Ya-min, Taipei Times
“People are more willing to spend on new scooters now,” Chen said. “In February, we saw sales of Gogoro 2 and Gogoro 3 series jump 300 percent from January, as those models are suitable for long commutes.”
Growth is expected to continue the rest of the year, he said.
In the first week of this month, electric scooters accounted for 15.33 percent of overall new scooter sales in Taiwan, up from 11 percent at the end of last month, he said.
For this year, Gogoro forecasts that about 200,000 new electric scooters would be sold, versus the whole scooter market, totaling 950,000 units.
Central and local governments are providing subsidies for riders who replace their old four-stroke scooters with electric scooters or new gas-fueled scooters, starting this year. More than 5 million scooter owners are eligible for the subsidies.
The subsidies have a wider coverage than a previous program, which was available to only between 700,000 and 800,000 two-stroke scooter owners in the past few years.
Based on new subsidy schemes, owners are eligible to receive as much as a NT$28,000 (US$929) subsidy for replacing an old four-stroke scooter.
To cope with increased electric scooter demand, Gogoro aims to add 1,000 traditional scooter stores to its sales network to promote its scooters and provide maintenance services, Chen said.
Last year, only 100 traditional scooter stores teamed up with Gogoro.
As Gogoro has found success domestically, it plans to expand to Israel this year by selling its ultralight model, Gogoro VIVA, it said, but declined to provide more details about its overseas expansion.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS