So was doing some research on how successful gogoro is at the moment .
They predict approx 30,000 vehicles sold in Taiwan this year after successful launch of gogoro 2. Multiply by conservative 60k it’s 60 million USD. Pretty good eh!
Then I researched Taiwan scooter market.
Woo-wee.
Did you know that just one company, Kymco, has 1 billion USD sales just in Taiwan every year (including vehicles such as beach buggies), with over 300k units/yr sold!
They occupy almost 43‰ of the market.
1 billion USD market mostly for scooters that look largely the same now as 20 years ago!
The second biggest is Sym with 20% of the market selling approx 160,000 scooters per year.
Both companies have actually increased market share over the last few years.
These companies duopoly and massive financial influence may explain why the government is so slow to regulate gas scooters and reduce their numbers.
Taiwan really is the golden goose that they will hang on to very tightly…
yea you are right, most scooters are these brands, same style butt ugly designs. they are machines of convenience, nothing else. you can see the people who have more interest in it choosing ones with a better design, or a gogoro, vespa or an actual motorbike.
but most are just these ugly plastic looking things. we could do without them.
According to the sales girl I talked to when I tested the Gogoro 2, there’s roughly 20,000 Gogoro 1 and Gogoro S on the road in Taiwan. Honestly, that’s not a lot after 1.5 or 2 years they have been in business.
I’m also not surprised about the difference in numbers between Kymco and Gogoro. It’s almost like Toyota vs Tesla.
I think the deciding factor is that people are seeing Gogoro as a luxury item and the monthly fee in which you pay for batteries is set in stone. People see it as a restriction where when you pay for gas, you have the freedom of going as far as you want with no limitation. With Gogoro, you’re only allowed as far as xKM because there’s no battery station along the way!
I think people are still choosing convenience, which is a gas scooter, over a Gogoro, which is not very convenient at this moment in time. I’m really hoping Gogoro continues to step up their game and we can move toward seeing more and more electric scooters on the road, not only from them, but from the big names like Kymco and Yamaha too.
The numbers for gogoro 2 are really pretty good, 13,000 pre-orders and will double sales this year from 2016, I’d say they are executing pretty well in a competitive business and lots of market share still to take. Bringing the price down was key. It’s now possibly cheaper to go electric. There’s still room for others to jump in.
With the network rollout all over Taiwan and continued govt support its good news, convenience advantage is quickly moving to gogoros side
The new bike can also be easily serviced by regular mechanics and parts from 3rd party vendors.
Kymco and Sym are polluting dinosaurs selling dinosaur bikes.
The city regulations are too lax in terms of emissions and parking. The duopoly also means they can crank out the same old shite at high profit margins so they have no push to change biz strategy.
The thing is, lots of people are saying they’re expensive. The first gen and S series were prived over 100K, but government incentives brought it down to around 80K. However, the 2nd gen was priced very very well. 79,000NT for a 125cc in that size is just about right. The Yamaha New Cygnus is priced that much and so is it’s Kymco counterpart. However, the 2-stroke government incentive was coming to an end AND buying electric government incentive above that brought the price down even more.
Before I bought my new scooter a few years ago, I asked my Taiwan friends which scooter I could buy that would be cool and that I could add some style. They all said we Taiwanese don’t care about that.
I notice in Japan that some people fix up their scooter to look cool. Taiwan, almost no one does.
I still wonder why people don’t customize their scooters here.
[quote=“tango42, post:9, topic:161726”]
I still wonder why people don’t customize their scooters here.
[/quote] Pretty much all meaningful mods are illegal.
i saw a vespa gang a few days ago all hooked up together in a roadside cafe.
i would say gogoro falls into more of a hobby category along with the motorbikes and vespas. the money incentive for gogoro is cool, but its not enough to make a dent in the convenient crap scooter market. i don’t see the government doing jack either. this place is gonna stay a madmax wasteland for the foreseeable future.
I do not think that is entirely correct at the time of this post. If you Google maps search gas stations vs charge stations, in Taipei, gas stations still exceed charge stations.
Reports are saying they’ve signed contracts with 7-11, Carrefour and RT-Mart, so they are adding more, but I haven’t seen many of them pop up yet.
Not sure what your standard of cool is, but there’s plenty of modded scooters on the road. Whether it’s cosmetics or engine mods, they’re everywhere. Ever been to BeiYi/北宜 on a weekend?
First of all it’s not an electric bike it’s an electric scooter. Massive difference! Anybody who has ridden both can tell you they are totally different vehicles in terms of durability, feel, performance, speed etc
GOOD scooter batteries start to fail after three years and I heard they cost around 16k NTD for new ones. Do the maths. So it’s just as cheap and easy to pay for power than buy a new battery and lug it around everywhere, apart from the fact that you can’t easily charge a scooter outside your house either nor would it instant recharge.
Gogoro do provide home charging option by renting the charger.
Gogoro is not going to fail it’s looking at pulling in around 70 million USD just in scooter sales this year not including subscription. They have big investors behind them and I’m sure they could raise a tonne of money from.china or silicon valley at this stage.
That 70 million USD at just over 5% markershare in terms of annual sales in Taiwan alone. I reckon the sky is the limit especially with much cheaper scooters and packages now. I don’t think it will hold majority share in the market for a longtime , that depends on city and national government policies.
I think they could think about opening up a gogoro share scooter or electric bike scheme though it’s not a necessary step if they can put out cheaper scooters. The current model works well for them as they don’t have to cover scooter maintenance costs and can get capital back in to expand. There’s definitely a gap though for a rideshare cheap as chips electric model but again that company would need to setup a charge network of its own.
I know they have plans for other products but I think they need to get electric mobility right first particularly in Taiwan which is a 1 billion a year scooter market! Vietnam., China, Indonesia , India , Europe…all interesting but different commercial issues.
I would have agreed with you at one but now the second model I think is much more useful and is being pushed and encouraged and accepted more than the first one.
A major factor for not buying an electric scooter from the other brands is, not everyone can charge them at home. Unless you live on the first floor with a small garden or you live in a high end apartment complex, there’s a no chance there’s a power outlet available for you to charge.
Whereas a Gogoro, all you have to worry about it finding parking for it since there’s battery stations available for you to charge
You buy an escooter from a random brand and the battery will be half dead in 3 years. Bad one battery will be screwed within a year. Thats because of the different chemistry they use in the batteries. Some claim to use lithium but they are actually lithium manganese batteries which are also shit.
What kind of random brands are we talking about? I have really only seen those non-white plate e-scooters from Kymco and Giant (yes, Giant as in the bicycle company)
