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.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS