Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), a leading Taiwan-based electric scooter brand, is to receive the Global Company of the Year Award from Frost & Sullivan.
Gogoro, the only Taiwanese company to have received the award, was chosen based on the California-based research and consulting firm’s analysis of the swappable battery electric scooter market.
Frost & Sullivan said it chose Gogoro because of the success of its Gogoro Network, “an intelligent energy platform that combines the power of connectivity, artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a new generation of swappable refueling that is smart, scalable and continually optimizing itself.”
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
Under the network, the number of Gogoro’s battery swap stations, called GoStations, has grown from 70 in 2015 to almost 2,000 this year, with nearly 360,000 customers using the stations every month, Frost & Sullivan said.
“Gogoro strategically places these stations every 500 meters in places such as malls, convenience stores, parking structures and coffee shops. It has established consumer battery swapping on a mass scale, performing 265,000 battery swaps each day (135 million to date),” Frost & Sullivan said in a statement. “It demonstrates that its business model is viable and practical.”
Gogoro is set to launch similar services in cities outside of Taiwan, Frost & Sullivan research director Vishwas Shankar said.
“As a testament to its success with GoStations, its vehicles and the overall Gogoro Network, the company’s ridership developed their own community, forming multiple forums and networks and becoming ambassadors for climate change and clean energy transportation,” Shankar said.
The model is so successful that China Motor Corp (中華汽車), an automaker which sells electric scooters under the brand eMoving, announced last month that it has joined the Powered By Gogoro Network.
China Motor, which is part of the auto conglomerate Yulon Group (裕隆集團), is the latest company to join the alliance, making eMoving Gogoro’s fifth partner, following Yamaha Motor Co, Aeon Motor Co (宏佳騰), Motive Power Industry Co’s (摩特動力) PGO and Suzuki Motor Corp’s eReady.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, booked its first-ever profit from its Arizona subsidiary in the first half of this year, four years after operations began, a company financial statement showed. Wholly owned by TSMC, the Arizona unit contributed NT$4.52 billion (US$150.1 million) in net profit, compared with a loss of NT$4.34 billion a year earlier, the statement showed. The company attributed the turnaround to strong market demand and high factory utilization. The Arizona unit counts Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc among its major customers. The firm’s first fab in Arizona began high-volume production
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: The Japanese company is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence linchpins Nvidia Corp and TSMC Softbank Group Corp agreed to buy US$2 billion of Intel Corp stock, a surprise deal to shore up a struggling US name while boosting its own chip ambitions. The Japanese company, which is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence (AI) linchpins Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is to pay US$23 a share — a small discount to Intel’s last close. Shares of the US chipmaker, which would issue new stock to Softbank, surged more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. Softbank’s stock fell as much as 5.4 percent on Tuesday in Tokyo, its
COLLABORATION: Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture would make AI data center equipment, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) would operate a US factory owned by Softbank Group Corp, setting up what is in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company’s US$500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. Softbank is acquiring Hon Hai’s electric-vehicle plant in Ohio, but the Taiwanese company would continue to run the complex after turning it into an artificial intelligence (AI) server production plant, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday. Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies would make AI data
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along
RSS