Gogoro electric scooter

Next to nothing. 500kms would be in the 20kWh ballpark, allowing for various powertrain inefficiencies, so about NT$80 at current prices.

Agree. This is one reason why I’m a bit on-the-fence about BEVs in general. The cost of capital equipment (and the batteries themselves) far exceeds the cost of the actual electricity.

What price do we put to our lungs?

BTW, we have now 5 electrical scooters in our block. 1 Gogoro, and one big electric blue one that swooped behind us without me noticing -those things are silent!- and Bobby lounged at it in a fury… but it was already gone.

Just read that Gogoro is selling average 600 units a month and increasing. Other electric vehicles use is also growing, with sales last year of over 11 thousand electrical scooters. We need to put them bells or something though.

[quote=“Abacus”][quote=“Yang Gui Zi”]Looks like Gogoro will be offering a charger. I guess they are changing their business model of only have the swap stations. Unless this was in the original plan?

Although, still more cost effective to use a swap station as you won’t be paying for juice to charge the batteries.


[/quote]

It would be interesting to know how much the electricity would cost for 500kms. I am guessing that a big part of the 899/mo cost is due to installing and maintaining the charging stations (including a cut to the retailer location) and the battery recycling costs at the end of the battery’s life.

But this is a step that Gogoro needs to take to be successful. I am very skeptical that they can put in a large enough network of stations for it to be more convenient to the customer.[/quote]

The charging network is quite cheap to roll out according to numbers I have seen before. Something like 1 million ntd a station on average? 100 million ntd or 3 millions USD for a 100 stations? In terms of capital budget that’s very cheap. No problems with planning permission, safety, pollution etc, no need to construct new buildings, small footprint.

Good move from gogoro in providing home charging option. Will open up bigger market for them. They should drop the conditions and sell worldwide with the charger.
theverge.com/2016/1/5/107078 … r-ces-2016

Gogoro are not short of funds.
forbes.com/sites/aarontilley … nvestment/

The macro trend is very very positive for electric technology, it’s not such a risky investment as it seems, the potential market is worldwide especially if they diversity product and business models.

So, how much for a home charger?
How much for the overnight charger and how much for the quick charger?

I thought they should have had home chargers from the start. Now people might think, “OK, it’s a bit more money up front for this electric bike, but if I can ride 500 kilometers for 80 NT, I’ll make up for it.”

I wonder if the people at Gogoro are getting a bit desperate with sales numbers so low, them lowering prices, and now they’re allowing home chargers . . . :ponder:

I have now seen 8 (count 'em) Gogoros on the streets. :moped: :moped: :moped: :moped: :moped: :moped: :moped: :moped:

Did you know that Gogoro users can pick from 129,600 headlamp lighting combinations? It’s true!

Gogoro got an initial reputation of being a bit haughty but it seems they are adjusting to reality and changing the business plan. Low sales have a way of doing that. That’s actually a very good thing for them to learn, no business plan survives unchanged when encountering reality. Seems like they are expanding to Taoyuan and Hsinchu too.
They should dump all this energy network rhetoric and push the design and the emotional aspect more along with the low emissions (which will help them no end in western countries). Lots of cities have environmental and sustainable programs that they can piggyback on and many cities overseas have poor or expensive public transportation.

The home charger option is a complete no brainer. It will open their market to the whole world (literally expand their market access exponentially and speed up market recognition), I really don’t know why they haven’t provided this option yet. Why stop yourself selling into suburban areas like in the US? Just charge a higher upfront price for the bike and/or batteries. Don’t try to lock people into contracts for energy if they don’t want them. The designer worked for HTC, doesn’t he know some like prepaid and some like rental contracts?

Taiwan desperately needs cleaner transportation , really hope they encourage other electric vehicle manufacturers to enter the market and offer cheaper choices to the 20th century polluting relics being ridden around the streets in their millions.

[quote=“headhonchoII”]

The charging network is quite cheap to roll out according to numbers I have seen before. Something like 1 million ntd a station on average? 100 million ntd or 3 millions USD for a 100 stations? In terms of capital budget that’s very cheap. No problems with planning permission, safety, pollution etc, no need to construct new buildings, small footprint.

Good move from gogoro in providing home charging option. Will open up bigger market for them. They should drop the conditions and sell worldwide with the charger.
theverge.com/2016/1/5/107078 … r-ces-2016

Gogoro are not short of funds.
forbes.com/sites/aarontilley … nvestment/

The macro trend is very very positive for electric technology, it’s not such a risky investment as it seems, the potential market is worldwide especially if they diversity product and business models.[/quote]

100 charging stations doesn’t even begin to cover Taipei and that ignores all of the potential customers in Taichung, Kaohsiung, Chaiyi, Tainan, Keelung, Pingtung, etc, etc, etc. They need 1000’s of charging stations just in Taiwan to make it work. Adding the home charging option changes that a lot though.

So far I really like the product and I like some of the moves (not all) that they have made but they have a long way to go before they (and others) actually start making a dent in the air pollution situation.

They are up to 130 stations in greater Taipei by this year, including 21 sites at MRT stations, that certainly is far more than a beginning and well on the way to a comprehensive network.
gogoro.com/tw/gostation/ (BTW I think their website is crap in terms of functionality…hopefully their apps are a lot better).

Instead of guessing let’s compare to petrol stations.
new.cpc.com.tw/division/mb/service-search.aspx
CPC, the largest provider of petrol for vehicles, has 57 in Taipei City, Formosa Oil only has 4 stations in Taipei city…others…maybe 10 most? Gives us 57-67 stations in Taipei City. So that’s already significantly less than Gogoro. But gogoro can add stations at about 1 million a pop (from 100’000s NTD to millions NTD according to scale and site). They should be able to build out by a huge factor cheaper than petrol stations especially for the last mile as petrol stations need a relatively huge minimum investment to justify them opening. In fact I would say it’s almost impossible to open a new petrol station in Taipei City these days due to pollution and safety and neighborhood concerns. Not only this, but maintenance costs and personnel and regulatory costs will be a factor less than petrol stations. If one site is not working they just move it somewhere else without any major hassle presumably. If they need to plug in gaps that appear in the network that can also be achieved more rapidly to reflect demand.

So Gogoro already has a more comprehensive network in Taipei city, cheaper to operate and maintain and one that is actually able to react to changes in demand. This year it should also increase significantly in number again. If one added the ability to charge at home or in a coffee shop, the convenience factor goes up by a factor of 1000x! The problem should ultimately not be in the charging infrastructure network that is for sure (they still need to do more work in New Taipei City obviously since more people live there than in Taipei City). The problem is reaching a price point that is accessible to more riders (good progress with gogoro lite but still expensive monthly charging for many). I think there is latent demand there for a nicer and cleaner and more stylish ride, it’s economics that’s getting in the way.

They don’t need to build a national network because people don’t drive scooters on highways and expressways, most people are just driving a few kms here and there or 10s kms at most a day.

I agree that they are making very little impact on air pollution and will not for a long time because take up is limited to higher earners even in Taipei. My hope is that other companies will come in with cheaper competitive products once gogoro demonstrate there is a market and that this will help to speed up changeover to electric vehicles (think expensive iPhones versus cheap but good quality Androids). Ultimately it’s the city governments that are the problem by not mandating stricter emissions rules in the cities. This is by far the most effective policy, anyone interested can check the story of Tokyo’s emissions controls. As a regular visitor to Tokyo, I can attest to it’s excellent air quality compared to all other Asian metropolises that I have visited. Blue skies and white clouds are not a rarity in Tokyo.

japanprobe.com/2012/11/13/ho … -up-tokyo/

Gogoro is coordinating with the MRT to place the charging/exchange stations, hence enhancing a sort of park and ride plan -leave scooter parked near MRT. Same with their partnership with 7-11. So, it will be ubiquitous.

I know it’s not apples to apples, but YouBike also started out with just a few stations, but was able to ramp it up and improve their service offerings in a short period of time. Installing a rack of battery holders/chargers is insanely simple compared to burying all of the gasoline tanks/lines/etc needed for a gas station. I’m seeing more electric scooters in general these days, as well as significantly more Gogoros on the road. I’m not all that interested in getting one myself because public transportation is enough for me in the city (I would be more interested in getting an electric motorcycle like the Zero, if and when the price comes down a bit. Greater range, bigger bike, etc. for day trips into the mountains, and being able to charge it anywhere would rank higher for me personally). But for many years it seems that Taiwan was the Land of the Lost compared with other countries, even China, in terms of electric scooter development, and I’m glad to see some progress being made in this regard.

However, the powerful gas-powered scooter industry, i.e. Kuangyang and Sanyang et al, have too much to lose here. They’ve been basically been turning out the same basic scooter for decades, changing the cheap plastic here and there once every few years, without competition or even having to pay for R&D. Electric startups could kill their golden goose; they are realizing this, and they have enough extra cash lying around to influence the media to introduce biased reporting against electric scooters. I don’t see them giving up without a fight.

I myself would buy a gogoro if I didn’t have to be locked down in a contract. What if I leave TW for 4 months? I still gotta pay for my scooter that Im not using? They really need to develop a home charging system. I would be ok with spending more on the initial cost for home charging. They could easily have two options, contract or home charging.

I recently bought a brand new 2016 Cygnus from Yamaha. It coat 80k. Now, why would I be willing to pay more for an electric scooter that has a monthly contract? It doesn’t makes sense. They need to start getting their prices down, get this contract bullshit out of here, and start offering home charging systems. If there would have been an electric scooter that was in the same price range as a brand new Cygnus, or even a bit more, I would have definitely have bought one.

[quote=“Yang Gui Zi”]Looks like Gogoro will be offering a charger. I guess they are changing their business model of only have the swap stations. Unless this was in the original plan?

Although, still more cost effective to use a swap station as you won’t be paying for juice to charge the batteries.


[/quote]

One of the comments I heard is that the batteries are too heavy for a girl to carry and change them. And if you notice, the video has only guys legs, which doesn’t help in dismissing this point.

Had anyone tried to change the batteries and feel how heavy they are?

It is a typical Taiwanese xiaojie conundrum: unable to carry a bag of groceries two floors up, but able to pull a scooter out of a parking spot when a vehicular sandwich has happened.

To be honest, average “48 kilos I am too fat to eat” meinue in high heels will certainly have problems carrying a 5 kilo battery… 10 meters or less to her parking spot. Hence, I assure you, many a 7-11 employee will discover chivalry and help out.

Surprised it has not been mentioned more but they have been getting some bad press for the price of their spare parts (and for once it seems like the media have a valid point given the prices quoted). Yes, I know BEV don’t require much maintaining but if say you need a new body panel after a small accident… The prices do seem a bit insane. Also their aloof image is not without some validity. I was working at a department store in XinZhu/Hsinchu for one day a few weekends ago. They had a stand offering test rides there. My wife was curious, but when she asked about Kaohsiung/Gaoxiong they were quite dismissive (they don’t sell down here). Can anyone tell me of any other Taiwanese vehicle manufacturer that does not sell in at least the 4 big cities?! The second biggest city in the country and you ignore the market? We have a shop front so charging ourselves would not be so hard as we have a plug near the front door…
I like the idea of BEVs and sure believe Taiwan needs them (Tesla please…) but would I consider buying a Gogoro? Ummm NO unless they alter things radically.

OK, anyone with a little bit of marketing knowledge knows exactly what game gogoro is playing.

First of all they come out with a high-pried model, only few replacement stations and no home charge options. That is for the early adopters who are willing to go for anything as long as it’s new, even at the risk of lugging their new scooter 5 miles to the nearest replacement station.

As the trendsetters are coming aboard, you increase the number of charging stations, increase the reach down to Gaoxiong and other places and come up with a home charging station. You would also come up with a cheaper model at this stage. At this stage if you are lucky, sales volumes becomes your friend. When you build in batches of say 500 scooters, they are very expensive to build. I am here talking about tooling costs and also the sheer cost of having parts made for such short runs. As sales volumes increase and your production gets gradually ramped up, you start wringing costs out of the whole procurement and assembly process. If done well, this can happen concurrently with an improvement in design and without a drop in quality - if anything and if they have a brain, early experiences and bug-squatting should make the second or third generation models even better at a lower cost.

I have no idea about where the sweet spot for them is - my guess would be between 1,000-10,000 scooters assembled and sold per month, however I am merely guessing.

Gogoro is not perfect for everybody, what product is?
The thing about places like Kaoxiong is there is nothing stopping some other company investing and promoting their electric scooters down there. There’s no competition, but nobody is willing to take the risk probably due to the poor salaries down there or simply that they are risk averse and rather sell a heap of shit noisy polluting scooter for 70,000 ntd instead as there is still a market for such things.
The batteries are kind of heavy to carry up stairs but if you don’t want to do that don’t buy a gogoro buy something else.
Maybe when gogoro gets their base set up and a bit of revenue or stability they can expand further. Let’s face it, if they can’t make it in Taipei it won’t work in Kaoxiong. They need to make the numbers work. They should start selling the home charger version now though instead of dicking around.

Have the speed restrictions on other makes of electric scooters been lifted? Competition is a nice thing.

There’s a speed restriction?

Something to do with licensing or registration maybe?

Most electric scooters aren’t ‘restricted’, they’re just slow because they’re underpowered, or don’t have a proper powertrain (hub motor instead of the usual CVT).

He’s probably confused with electric bikes God bless him.
Seen more and more gogoros around town. Look so much nicer than most of the crap being ridden around. Wish I could get one but working in Taipei city I have absolutely no use for one ironically!

Just picked mine up on Saturday. The reasons for buying were the design and considering the technology involved the price is not to bad. If you look at the Tesla when that came out. It was also more expensive than it is now.

Now Gogoro is entering the Dutch market this year, but the price will be lower than Taiwan. This has to do with government policy on electric vehicles. Taiwan does not have a new energy policy and I doubt they will come up with one anytime soon.

At the moment they account for 5% of all new scooter sales in Taipei. This is very good considering Taiwan does not have an infrastructure in place for electric vehicles.

Congrats!! How do you like it?

I had one whiz in front of me the other day and I was amazed by how fast it was. Sounded so cool too!

Not sure if this has been posted yet but here’s one in action: