Gogoro electric scooter

Life Cars & Motorcycles
41

Well … there’s support and there’s “support”. Unless you know otherwise, I assume they’re just saying “well done chaps, hope it all works out and you end up paying lots of taxes, but if it doesn’t, fuck you”.

[quote=“Abacus”]I would like to see the government signing on as a charging center partner to start the network. Put a charging center at government buildings, MRT stations, any youbike station. That validates the project and creates a spread out network immediately.

I think it would almost be beneficial to allow other manufacturers to build scooters (but not batteries or charging stations) using these batteries. That would go a long way to making the product a success.[/quote]

Exactly. Somebody needs to get interested parties to sit down at a table and thrash out some technical standards (physical, electrical and communication specs). That way any existing or future company can plug into the infrastructure, the same way people “plug in” to the road network as a public service. If the government provides that infrastructure - they must surely have the cash for it - it will give people enough confidence that chargers will be around for the long term.

42

All of you have observed trends here for years. I can only encourage you to be more of an influence. Consider how you might use your voice and influence in a lobbying capacity. Begin to act. Voices on the matter of EVs and reducing ICE scooter dominance over the island are barely a whimper, so contributions that arise are in stark contrast, and therefore, noticeable. Has Taiwan reduced your appetite for taking actions or steps which are out of ordinary so dramatically? Would suggest that in this case, it’s best not to just follow along, and remain tolerant of the problems, somehow in the interest of general harmony. Consider acting, contributing.

43

I Dont think they need to
share the infrastructure
if they have government support or 7-11 get behind them.
Look at apple or u-bike as an example.

I think Giant and Merida have e-bike/e-scooter programs, and Giant has done a fantastic job at rolling out u-bike.
Those bikes are incredibly robust
and well made and the system
seems well managed and is now
expanding into…gosh…the wilds of New Taipei City!
U-bike is the biggest
competitor to an e-scooter, now that the bikes can ride on pavements in Taipei
city. New Taipei
city barely has pavements
let alone u-bikes
to ride on them,
the problem is most people who live in New Taipei City want cheap arsed shit as the first priority in their lives.

44

[quote=“Ducked”]If I can’t own the battery, then I can’t own the vehicle.

If I can’t own the vehicle. why would I buy it?[/quote]

Tend to agree - there absolutely should be at least an option to buy batteries, for those that wish to, but unfortunately, that’s clearly not what they have in mind at this point in time. Gogoro’s profit model looks to be based, overwhelmingly, on a battery subscription service, a variant of the old razor and razor blades model, or printer and print cartridges scheme. I think it’d be unwise to force this on the public. It might eventually be undone or worked around via aftermarket products, but I fundamentally agree - people should have options, not limitations: buy with or without batteries, plug-in, lease, etc…

Their estimated 95 km range, if riding aggressively, will likely be <60 km. Few will be content for very long with going out of their way to visit a battery station after every ~55 km of riding, four times as frequently as they did for petrol.

For these reasons, it’s wise to be sending out a rather clear message now, on Facebook, in forums, in comment sections on articles, etc, that in the aftermath of their CES debut and before they engage in the next phase of this multi-million dollar effort, digging in the trench of a limited battery option is not settling so well with the entire market. This is happening to some degree in online chatter now, but I would not sit back and let it play out. Startups hear these voices, or allow themselves to hear them, when they’re wise. The knock on effect, even if they do not alter their plan, is that others have heard and seen the needs to be met in the market, and another Gogoro comes up to meet them, sooner.

On Batteries…
HH, Abacus, and others have alluded to the difficulties and risks in owning batteries, so I’d like to point out a few notes about battery tech. Smaller, highly portable batteries are, by nature, not going to provide the additional capacity to avoid damage and a shortened lifespan. In a sense, the way to deal with potential battery degradation will seem quite counterintuitive to those who do not work with batteries at this level, but it is the approach that Tesla takes. Their design factors for battery degradation by supplying considerably more of the Panasonic 18650 cells than are actually required to travel a target distance or achieve a certain impressive performance level. Why? Laptops and smartphones, which for many of you is likely your nearest point of reference for lithium batteries which you’re extrapolating to EVs, are designed for portability and cost. The implications are not just on the size and form factor of the battery, but on its life expectancy as a result of such devices being taxed to run between 0% charge and 100% charge, as people push the daily usage life to its limits.

With properly designed power management systems for EVs, however, this is not done. An EV’s battery is too valuable as a percentage of the total vehicle cost. It is not dropped below ~20% state of charge, nor taken to a full 100%. The software in the Model S or Roadster may indicate zero, or 100%, but it is neither. It’s 100% of what you may give and 100% of what you may take, but there is excess at either end. Prius batteries can go for 200,000 miles, and some Teslas may reach similarly impressive heights, primarily because they are designed and over built with enough capacity to fulfill their duty without suffering from what we typically do with smartphones and laptops, items which aren’t intended to have a useful life beyond 4 years anyway, as people wish to upgrade. So you can work out the implications of this on small portable batteries are. If you want small and manageable, you don’t get an 8 year life, as it would be necessary to increase capacity (size and weight) by ~40%.

Because of Gogoro’s constraints on battery size due to portability needs, their modules will likely be somewhere in between a proper integrated EV battery design and a laptop or smartphone’s, probably skewed towards the latter, as it offers immediate performance in a tolerably-sized small form at less initial cost. In contrast, an integrated high-performance battery would take up all of the battery module space and the helmet space beneath the seat, but properly managed by software, provide a much longer useful life. Helmet and cargo could be stored in an add-on unit on the back, a common item for scooters. I would wire it so one could use a standard Gogoro battery module in the cargo bin if ever in an emergency. The ability to plug in anywhere is certainly a benefit in such situations, and an emergency battery delivery service, as an ancillary industry, could be developed. Between the plug, the removable battery, swap kiosks, home charging of batteries, the option to own or lease your own, plug-and-park stalls at apartments, in other public areas, business plug-and-park options, and battery support services by other providers…the range of options to support smart-scooters is diverse, and we’ll need a combination of them. They shouldn’t be so severely limited by design.

45

You are making a great argument why Gogoro’s battery stations are a superior option.

Option A - Estimated range 95 km and most likely <60km (your numbers). You need to physically stop riding at this point and wait several hours to recharge.

Option B - same range. You need to stop at a battery station and swap batteries. You are back on the road within minutes.

It is a hassle but those are the tradeoffs that someone owning any kind of an electric scooter has to make. In addition to that you overstate the range of a petrol scooter/moto. I can only ride 150 kms on a 5 liter tank (probably 1 liter in reserve) in the city (aggressive conditions) and maybe as far as 250 kms in absolutely ideal conditions. I would need to fill up 3x as often. Still a hassle but waiting a few hours to recharge batteries at that point is a complete non-starter.

46

[quote=“Abacus”][quote=“silas”]

Their estimated 95 km range, if riding aggressively, will likely be <60 km. Few will be content for very long with going out of their way to visit a battery station after every ~55 km of riding, four or five times as frequently as they did for petrol.

[/quote]

You are making a great argument why Gogoro’s battery stations are a superior option.

Option A - Estimated range 95 km and most likely <60km (your numbers). You need to physically stop riding at this point and wait several hours to recharge.

Option B - same range. You need to stop at a battery station and swap batteries. You are back on the road within minutes.

[/quote]

Not really. The point I’ve made is that integrated battery smartscooters allow for vastly more range, more than one could stand to cover on a scooter in one day (150 km, real-world). It charges each night as you sleep, and you effectively never run out of range. Alternatively, if you may own or lease your own set of batteries, removable Gogoro style modules, then they may be charged at home, or work, thus avoiding riding out of ones way to swap and paying a premium to do so.

I’m for options, and not having those options designed out of the system at the start.

47

The swapping stations are easier to set up than a gas station and could be at every 7-11 so I wouldn’t say that you are riding out of ones way.

Charging while you sleep simply isn’t an option for a substantial portion of Taiwan’s population w/o huge infrastructure improvements. Setting up metered and controlled access charging points for each e-scooter in apt building and other shared parking arrangements simply isn’t a cost effective option. that is a huge undertaking that apt buildings have no interest in undertaking for a minority of residents that would get e-scooters.

You pay a premium not for the electricity but for battery disposal and replacement. Consumers don’t want that expense. At some point they are going to pay.

48

And more costly and difficult than charging battery modules at home or work, or directly plugging in. I’m for options.

They should be everywhere, I’d hope. I’m for options. But if you are going somewhere for ‘fuel’, then you are going out of your way, as compared to coming home. You might not think of it that way because we’re accustomed to fossil fuels, but imagine having to go to a petrol station to replace a battery next time your smartphone is dying.

It’s an option for some percentage with zero infrastructure improvements, because, fortunately, there are many more AC outlets than petrol stations, but we’ve been there several times.

That’s next level, and it needn’t be for each and every potential scooter or renter, nor would a large scheme be possible without government support, but informal pilot examples or test cases will be informative, and some of those may happen without government involvement. It’s a starting point. Do you think setting up a nationwide network of Gogoro battery kiosks is a light undertaking as well? It does nothing to address parking either.

You pay a premium there for a variety of reasons, but above all, to generate profits. Yes, they replace the batteries - and I’m not aware of how committed they are to their final disposal and recycling plan after their 2nd life usages, nor are they perhaps, but that’s not new territory. Tesla and the majors are there as well.

Hope others have taken something from the discussion above on the performance gains, range, and longer service life of large integrated EV batteries versus smaller swappable modules. Again, a variety of alternatives are needed.

49

Let’s look at this another way.

The Gogoro model - allows for 100% possible participation

The charge at home model - allows for 10-20% possible participation due lack of home charging options (all of those AC outlets that you talk about are in the wrong places)

One of these has the potential for a far larger effect on air pollution and other benefits of e-scooters due to the sheer numbers of people that can use the scooters.

Gogoro doesn’t need to appeal to the small percentage that can do home charging since there are far more people in that demographic. Ironically the charge at home model can still be successful since it’s apparent that some need to save a little money. This isn’t a car that consumes a lot of fuel/electricity. This cost is relatively small regardless of it being charged at home, paying a premium for battery swap or buying gasoline. If someone drives so much that fuel is a considerable cost then most likely an e-scooter can’t match their needs.

50

[quote=“Abacus”]The swapping stations are easier to set up than a gas station and could be at every 7-11 so I wouldn’t say that you are riding out of ones way.

Charging while you sleep simply isn’t an option for a substantial portion of Taiwan’s population w/o huge infrastructure improvements. Setting up metered and controlled access charging points for each e-scooter in apt building and other shared parking arrangements simply isn’t a cost effective option. that is a huge undertaking that apt buildings have no interest in undertaking for a minority of residents that would get e-scooters.

You pay a premium not for the electricity but for battery disposal and replacement. Consumers don’t want that expense. At some point they are going to pay.[/quote]

Taiwan is different than many places, namely SPACE is the biggest commodity in Taiwan (even if the government sometimes gives it away for free to scooter riders and greedy business owners).
Most people don’t have space to store or park vehicles let alone find a place to charge them.
That’s why Gogoro or a shared rental scheme makes a lot of sense. Gogoro would need to work with a space provider such as government or more likely 7-11 or Family Mart, that is the way it should work over most of the island.
It would also be a problem to secure expensive vehicles for most people.

Now there are places like Linkou , Sanxia etc where there are parking facilities and possibly could arrange charging, the problem? Many people need to commute using cars or subway line not scooters. So no use for commuting,
just used as a run around.

51

[quote=“Abacus”]Let’s look at this another way.

The Gogoro model - allows for 100% possible participation

The charge at home model - allows for 10-20% possible participation due lack of home charging options (all of those AC outlets that you talk about are in the wrong places)

One of these has the potential for a far larger effect on air pollution and other benefits of e-scooters due to the sheer numbers of people that can use the scooters.

Gogoro doesn’t need to appeal to the small percentage that can do home charging since there are far more people in that demographic. Ironically the charge at home model can still be successful since it’s apparent that some need to save a little money. This isn’t a car that consumes a lot of fuel/electricity. This cost is relatively small regardless of it being charged at home, paying a premium for battery swap or buying gasoline. If someone drives so much that fuel is a considerable cost then most likely an e-scooter can’t match their needs.[/quote]

As long as you can own or lease the batteries, and have an AC outlet at home, as 100% of the pop does, then you could remove the batteries and charge at home. That is one of the options contained in the charge-at-home model, which Gogoro is not allowing for. Rolling out battery kiosks everywhere is a massive undertaking as well, not to be downplayed, so if we were to see a similar infrastructure investment in other models, then even more would be enticed and served. They aren’t all mutually exclusive. I’m for options. I’m merely pointing out, based upon the tech that I’ve seen, experienced, ridden, and discussed with those who really do have expertise in these matters (Azizi Tucker, Martin Eberhard, Chris Paine, Ian Wright, Chelsea Sexton), that we do not want to totally restrict ourselves and settle for the limitations of small portable, lower power, short range, reduced life span batteries that you cannot own or lease, in a vehicle that you can’t even charge yourself. For some that’ll be fine. For others, it won’t be. It certainly isn’t optimal for everyone.

If someone drives so much that fuel is a considerable cost, then an EV can make all the more sense, a good, long-range integrated battery EV, as those fuel savings, particularly in car, really amount to something the more you drive. Petrol costs for scooters are minor, but still 5x that of electrons at home, plus the costs of maintaining a scooter, largely absent in an EV.

52

Carrying batteries up to your apartment? You have got to be kidding me if you expect people to be on board with that. Storing scooters inside an apartment? I don’t think you understand the Taiwanese consumer at all.

If someone drives so much that fuel is a considerable cost then they are likely outdriving the range of scooters in one day (on occasion). And that is the range of scooters that are being developed but are not actually even available.

Rolling out battery kiosks is a massive undertaking but in many cases it is one organization (Gogoro for example) talking to one organization (7-11 for example). Retrofitting apartment buildings with metered controlled access charging is 1000’s of individual homeowners associations voting on improvements that require investment. These associations basically redefine cheap short term and could care less about long term cost savings.

I guess if you are alright with putting your eggs in the charge at home model that’s fine but imo it’s a roadmap towards having a <10% market share with petrol scooters still being ridden everywhere in a decade.

53

Just charge the battery modules at work by your desk, in many cases for free. One can place and use a charging dock anywhere it suits one. I’m not putting eggs into a single basket at all. I’m for options, and not designing those options out of the system at the start.

If it seems a surprising amount of attention to the larger, non-removable battery smartscooter has been given, it’s because I do expect them to have a significant impact on overturning old e-scooter stereotypes quite disproportionate to their actual numbers. When you see them traveling for 150 km and considerably outperforming ICE scooters in terms of acceleration and ride quality…it changes the game, and that will have ramifications for future initiatives.

54

Have you ever worked for a Taiwanese employer, silas? :wink:

The thing is, people obviously don’t want to buy batteries, or they’d all have electric scooters by now. It’s just another maintenance liability to worry about (what if the company goes out of business and I can’t get a new battery when this one dies?). At least if there is some other company - preferably a huge, well-known one - looking after the battery side, they’ll have a bit of peace of mind in that regard.

It’s all well and good offering people “choice”, but I think Gogoro have a basically sound, well-tested business model and the tech to go with it. It would be a pity to compromise that just to placate a tiny minority of buyers. Remember what Apple did with Flash? Sometimes it’s better to deliberately exclude customers who you can afford to lose.

The only fly in the ointment - as you already said - is that the battery could be hacked. I’m pretty sure I could do this simply by replacing the drive (which, presumably, is where the security algorithm actually resides) … or if I were confident of selling more, I’d swap out the control board with a custom design, leaving the (expensive) DC bus capacitors and power module in place. $50, maybe. No doubt some enterprising enterprise will offer this service.

But is that a problem? Printer manufacturers grudgingly put up with ink-refill businesses and rip-off cartridges because they know that most people simply can’t be arsed with all that. 90%+ of consumers buy the branded product. The smart response by Gogoro might be to actually release technical details to the public domain so that people can hack the scooter if they want to. The scooter itself would have to be sold at a profit (rather than at or below cost) just in case a flood of modders came out of the woodwork. But why would they? if you really want a scooter with a battery, there are plenty of people already making them, and people would quickly discover that a battery is not a cheap item.

All of the reasons you give for owning a bundled-battery scooter are valid. But even I wouldn’t buy one today because (a) I can’t be confident of the battery quality and (b) I don’t want to spend that much money up-front. I imagine the general public have their own reasons.

55

Taiwan is battery heaven, they make almost all 3th party, or have them made in China but developed (copied) here … there is a website that has batteries that even the the original manufacturer of the device it’s needed in doesn’t have anymore. So, no worries about the batteries, just the charging station’s software upgrade/maintenance over the years.

56

I’d imagine that people should have a choice. If home charging really is inferior, then Gogoro can sell the batteries and home charging kits to the bozos who want them (and make a profit on the sale). The smart riders can be steered to Gogoro’s charging/swap stations. Then everyone is happy.

57

I don’t think there’d be much profit involved: the batteries are inherently expensive and couldn’t take much of a markup, and there simply wouldn’t be that many customers, for all the reasons other posters have listed. Far better, IMO, to just let some other company pick up on it, if they want to. But yeah, an aftermarket kit would probably solve the issue.

58

I used an electric scooter in green island on a recent trip, found the scoot was just about able to do 1.5 times around the island. There were a couple stations, battery change was free (guess built into the rental cost), though you had to pay at 7-11. Everyone seemed to swap even if half full when passing a free station, just in case you ran out later. It became tedious fairly quickly. I’m sure some batteries seemed to last longer than others.

I wonder thou, what happens 12/24mths into the plan when a large percentage of batteries are no longer able to hold a full charge, especially if not getting full cycles. Assume you will still be charged the same battery swap cost… but you have no real guarantees how much real capacity you are getting… over time it would seem cost per km would increase as the batteries wear out. It would seem Gogoro would have no real desire or benefit to retire batteries early…

59

That’s still a range factor. The scooter you were using had a range of <30 kms in optimal conditions. Gogoro has 3x that. As batteries improve so will the swappable batteries.

It’s isn’t without flaws but the demographics of Taiwan do not allow for home charging for an overwhelming majority. It’s simply not a realistic expectation for Taiwanese to be on board with carrying a battery (or two) up to their apartment, parking a scooter in a small apartment or storing it in a 1st floor entryway using common area electricity. Yes, areas can be retrofitted with controlled access (card and pin code) electric metering but that hassle is going to be considered too much bother. Expecting any of these things to happen show a fundamental lack of knowledge about the target customer (Taiwanese).

60

Really? So Taiwanese can’t carry anything heavier than a handbag? Like for example a 5 liter water bottle? Or a bag full of shopping?

The Taiwanese might not be very good at doing anything, but you’d be surprised of the lengths they’d go to just to save a dime.