Electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) has all the chips it needs for now, but could face a squeeze by year-end as it pushes big plans to grow in China, India and Southeast Asia, founder and chief executive Horace Luke (陸學森) said yesterday.
While a global shortage of semiconductors has slammed auto makers, Luke said in an interview that Gogoro, which listed in New York this month, uses far fewer chips than electric automakers and still has a relatively small market concentrated in Taiwan.
For the next several months it has a “healthy supply” of chips, he said.
Photo: Annabelle Chih, Reuters
“A combination of we don’t use as many, a combination of being flexible on our design, a combination of having a market that is not yet gigantic at the moment,” Luke said, explaining Gogoro’s chips situation.
Founded in 2011, Gogoro listed on the NASDAQ via a merger with blank-check firm Poema Global Holdings Corp and has a market value of about US$2.4 billion.
The firm has ambitious plans for China, India and Southeast Asia, seeing potential in replacing vast fleets of heavily polluting, gasoline-powered scooters with electric two-wheelers as Asia’s metropolises bid to improve air quality.
“As those cities like Jakarta, or Delhi, or other big markets grow, how fast they grow of course will then put stress on our supply chain management, but those are problems that are coming in the later part of the year, not the immediate future,” Luke said.
As well as making its own vehicles, Gogoro has electric battery and other partnerships with vehicle makers, including India’s Hero MotoCorp Ltd, and China’s Dachangjiang Group Co (大江集團) and Yadea Group Holdings Ltd (雅迪集團控股).
Gogoro, known for its green-hued battery swap distribution network for riders, generates about 90 percent of its revenue from Taiwan.
Electric vehicle makers have been hit by price hikes for raw materials such as nickel, driven by supply chain disruptions from the war in Ukraine, and Luke said some “minor” price rises had been passed onto customers.
Gogoro’s stock has dropped about 19 percent since listing, matching pressure on other tech plays globally.
However, Luke said Gogoro was confident in expansion plans in countries like China, India and Indonesia, which have a high consumer preference for scooters, with millions sold each year.
“That’s what our investors, our team, is focused on, and that’s what our partnerships are focused on, to take our technology which we’ve created and go into those large markets that have high potential to convert to electric,” he said.
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