[quote]Another incentive to get an e-scooter … tax the gasoline powered high enough.
If you asked me, for stinking around down by my window, it should be 10 NT$ for every 5 minutes and for waking me up in the middle of the night, another 100NT$.[/quote]
Most modern tech faces this problem: the outdated, polluting crap is subsidized, or the externalities are paid for by the government.
Even so, it should still be possible for Gogoro to undercut the running cost of a gasoline scooter. As for top speed, I suspect city drivers won’t be that bothered: it’s torque and acceleration that matters for commuting.
True up to a point. Most of the e-scooters on the Taiwan market are crap. There are good ones (E-Moving are well-designed and use big LiFePO4 batteries) but for whatever reason, people still aren’t buying them.
Gogoro have a very specific target market. They’re not interested in Americans, or people who drive hundreds of km. They’re focusing on that (large) segment of the population who want a lower initial outlay and zero-hassle commute (and yes, 7kg is a lot to carry up the stairs every day if you’re a 45kg, 5-foot-nothing Taiwanese woman). Everyone else has other options available. They can even import a Brammo or a Zero if they like.
[quote=“David”][quote]David • 3 months ago
This does appear poised to become the Project Better Place of e-scooters. Why on earth abandon the plug altogether? I’ll take a cynical perspective. The battery swaps are expected to be around the cost of petrol per km (even though the total distance one can travel on these batteries is far shorter than with an ICE). If users could charge at home, they’d become quite aware that the price per km of electricity is 1/4 as much as petrol, or in some case much less. That’s lost revenue for Gogoro! It’s a shame…one of the key advantages of electric drive should remain the dramatically lower cost of ‘refueling’ with electrons, and the ability to bypass out of the way stations altogether in favour of convenient home charging. I wish Gogoro success, because all EV successes improve the overall field, but, these points of no home charging and losing the far cheaper cost of running on electrons will become an object lesson in what NOT to do for new EV models. If that does transpire, than Gogoro will have starkly highlighted these benefits of EVs which for some, might not have been as clear previously. Painful lesson for the company, beneficial for the evolution of EVs in the mainstream. I sincerely do wish Gogoro – they’re a Taiwanese company, and Taiwan has been intimately involved with developing and producing components for Tesla Motors since the gen 1 Roadster. Taiwan itself has a far better chance of becoming what Israel could have been with Project Better Place.[/quote][/quote]
What this guy said/\ he represents id say 80-90% of many educated westerners concerning EV Vehicles
[quote=“Guy1983”][quote=“David”][quote]David • 3 months ago
This does appear poised to become the Project Better Place of e-scooters. Why on earth abandon the plug altogether? I’ll take a cynical perspective. The battery swaps are expected to be around the cost of petrol per km (even though the total distance one can travel on these batteries is far shorter than with an ICE). If users could charge at home, they’d become quite aware that the price per km of electricity is 1/4 as much as petrol, or in some case much less. That’s lost revenue for Gogoro! It’s a shame…one of the key advantages of electric drive should remain the dramatically lower cost of ‘refueling’ with electrons, and the ability to bypass out of the way stations altogether in favour of convenient home charging. I wish Gogoro success, because all EV successes improve the overall field, but, these points of no home charging and losing the far cheaper cost of running on electrons will become an object lesson in what NOT to do for new EV models. If that does transpire, than Gogoro will have starkly highlighted these benefits of EVs which for some, might not have been as clear previously. Painful lesson for the company, beneficial for the evolution of EVs in the mainstream. I sincerely do wish Gogoro – they’re a Taiwanese company, and Taiwan has been intimately involved with developing and producing components for Tesla Motors since the gen 1 Roadster. Taiwan itself has a far better chance of becoming what Israel could have been with Project Better Place.[/quote][/quote]
What this guy said/\ he represents id say 80-90% of many educated westerners concerning EV Vehicles[/quote]
I don’t know, but you and he still don’t get it … this is Taipei, not a suburb in the US where most houses have a two car garage.
Any company that expects people to carry batteries to and from their apartment is also in for a painful lesson. You can go on and on and on about how it’s cheaper to charge by plug in but it’s a monumental task to update the infranstructure (parking areas) with controlled access metered plug ins. This is a reality in Taiwan and it’s why plug in only e-scooters will only make up a small % of the scooter market. No doubt they will be a great option for those with private parking areas (garages) but those are in the overwhelming minority.
I don’t know. Fat people can carry 9kg of fat to their apartments. It’s not impossible to carry a baby or a dog to an apartment. Even weak people can carry a couple of 5-liter water bottles.
A tiny fold-up dolly could work for people too lazy to carry batteries a few meters from their scooter to the elevator.
I don’t know. Fat people can carry 9kg of fat to their apartments. It’s not impossible to carry a baby or a dog to an apartment. Even weak people can carry a couple of 5-liter water bottles.
A tiny fold-up dolly could work for people too lazy to carry batteries a few meters from their scooter to the elevator.
Doesn’t seem like a deal-breaker to me.[/quote]
Try asking the Taiwanese people or even the foreigners that you know if they would get rid of their petrol scooter and put up with this.
I don’t know. Fat people can carry 9kg of fat to their apartments. It’s not impossible to carry a baby or a dog to an apartment. Even weak people can carry a couple of 5-liter water bottles.
A tiny fold-up dolly could work for people too lazy to carry batteries a few meters from their scooter to the elevator.
Doesn’t seem like a deal-breaker to me.[/quote]
My dogs have legs and can walk up the stairs.
Carrying batteries for charging is a deal breaker
… honey, would you please get the batteries to recharge … f**k you, I’m playing mahjong! Do it yourself!
Son, go down and take the batteries up, (daddy is playing mahjong) then do your homework! … sounds familiar?
So, after the doggy-stroller we’ll get the battery-stroller?
Imagine if you had to carry a tank from your petrol-powered scooter upstairs and fill it up from a supply in your kitchen (and for some weird technical reason it took hours to fill). Then you had to carry it down in the morning. And you had to make sure you had enough gas to get home for the refill all the time.
Or you could fill up quickly from petrol stations around the country.
I’d go for the second option. That’s why I like the Gogoro model.
Gogoro have a very specific target market. They’re not interested in Americans, or people who drive hundreds of km. They’re focusing on that (large) segment of the population who want a lower initial outlay and zero-hassle commute (and yes, 7kg is a lot to carry up the stairs every day if you’re a 45kg, 5-foot-nothing Taiwanese woman). [/quote]
Seems like people think that cities around the world are all the same. They aren’t.
They need to read Finley’s message. Gogoro have tried to design a more environmentally friendly alternative to the polluting, nosiy and archaic hell machine called a MIT scooter. In one fell swoop Gogoro can help solve not ONE but TWO problems of local air and noise pollution. There’s no way that a typical scooter, if was invented nowadays from scratch, would be an acceptable vehicle on the roads in a developed country (or even in many developing ones…even cities like Mumbai have mandated that their motorised rickshaws convert to LPG). A typical MIT scooter would fail on at least two and possibly three factors, exhaust, noise and safety features.
Who knows, with added electronics Gogoro could also help to improve safety in future. They should be commended for that, and if the city government gives them the support they deserve in order to improve the environment, they should be able to make a go of things. With Ko at the helm in Taipei, the stars are aligned to grab this opportunity and make it work. Gogoro could be the most truly innovative and ambitious system I’ve seen launched since I’ve arrived on the island well over 15 years ago.
The oil we use is subsidised in Taiwan, it adds to the national debt and when it’s refined in Taiwan it also gives off pollution even before it’s burned in combustion engines. All transport infrastructure is funded by the government, road maintenance costs an absolute fortune, the train networks are consistently funded from taxation and borrowing, and what makes a given transport option accessible and economic, is, by and large, determined by the government.
I read this today, and while it might be two steps forward and one step back, people are starting to wake up to the enormous problems caused by air pollution. taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … 2003615951
[quote=“headhonchoII”]In the land of convenience he who provides convenience wins.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]
Your right! agreed 100% and now that I think about it,… What would be even “MORE” convenient would be a system like the gogoro that allowed
battery swaps and at home charging no one car argue 2 options is definitely better then 1 and more convenient if you live far away from
a swap station with an already low battery
I am smelling a big aftermarket opportunity for the gogoro. From what I understand the smart batteries are chipped and keep data and possibly block
charging from a location that is not a battery swap terminal, but hey this opens the world to a whole new kind of electronic hacking/tuning
I have seen iphones run android and galaxy s run mac os What I’m saying is whether or not gogoro likes it if it really catches on mainstream
you can bet your @$$ there’s gonna be hackers and modders to get there gogoro to charge “off the grid” or from a location that isn’t a battery swap location
Now the next problem is did gogoro plan for this? What will gogoro do if people start modding and hacking there scoot’s to charge from any 110v plug,
then after 5-10 years of using the gogoro’s batteries and the battery life is over/no longer holding a charge simple swap in that old battery into a swap
station and take out 2 new batteries that they use for 5-10 years the same way, never buying new batteries. Will be interesting if they will try to fine
users doing this or make some new law banning this kind of “battery swapping” which is reall just “battery dumping” when you used up the lifespan
of the battery.
Lastly, I have seen new lipo packs come out for e-moving scoot sold on ruten that are 40AH and the same size and fit as the original 20ah batteries the e-moving scoots
come with that nearly double the range. You can bet your @$$ if the gogoro goes mainstream oir catches on enough that an aftermarket company will come out with batteries the same size as the gogoro that nearly double its range to 200km that DO NOT have a chip in them and possibly these batteries may even come with a at home charger will be interesting what gogoro thinks/ does about this if and when an aftermarket battery maker provides alternatives to there monopoly charging system
bigger companies like HTC etc,… might follow the liberal likes of companies like google allowing free charging at there work desk for employees choosing to go green
as an incentive to cut down on pollution making transportation completely free except for battery initial purchase cost If companies or business provided free gogoro battery swaps in an effort to retain employees/get customers then this is another option that could make battery swap stations really work
I still firmly believe there needs to be a reason to switch for most people other then pollution because even swapping batteries at a gogoro station requires more effort
then filing up with gas. And although carrying 7kg batteries=2 gallons of milk upstairs might seem like a lot and would be less convenient then filing up with gas if the reward was 10nt in electricity to go 100km then people would be encouraged/rewarded to deal with the hassle if it made them feel good about saving money and helping the environment at the same time
There is. An electric bike pays less taxes than a gas one, the cost for the license plate is also cheaper, and they require far less maintenance than a regular scooter. In fact, an electric motor usually has ONE moving part (the axle and magnets all together) as opposed to the tens (or hundreds) in a modern internal combustion motor. The servicing is also a lot cheaper. No oil changes. Ever.
It might seem like a small benefit, but it’s not: driving in the city, the gas engines are idle all the time, stopping and starting, and it puts a lot of stress on them. The electric engines only work when you’re actually moving, so the stress is reduced to the minimum. And the only part with friction is the axle vs. the engine housing, anyways.
I sold my car a couple of years ago, and I promised myself the next car I’d buy it’d be electric. I bought a conventional bike for convenience, but I also had to leave it behind when I came here after two years. But if I had to buy another bike, it’d be probably an electric one. It’d be much less of a fuss (besides, the electric engine is ready to perform since Km zero, you don’t have to babysit it for the first couple of thousand kilometers like the IC engines).
Please talk to normal people before you blow off the hassle of carrying batteries to and from the apartment. Continuing to blow it off is an indication that a company has done zero market research.
“[Gogoro plans to release its pricing plan next month.]”
“The location of our stations can be flexible — they can be [near] convenience stores, supermarkets or next to gas stations. We have partners for our energy stations that include parking lots; CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油); the Taipei City Government; and even coffee shops. The day we announce our prices, we will also make public the locations of our available stations.”
Also, you can currently book test drives at their showroom, which will begin next month.
I saw a whole bunch of Gogoros driving around the Taipei101 area the other day - dozens of them. I assume it was some sort of PR stunt. They look nice - a lot less fragile than the press release picture, and they can really shift - all were being driven in standard Taiwanese style. It would be interesting to see how they perform up a steep hill, which is traditionally tough for an electric scooter (max motor power is often a lot less than a similarly-priced gasoline engine).
Absolutely nobody is going to blow six months’ salary on a scooter, however good it is. NT$899 is 20-odd liters of petrol, or 400km. Most people just don’t spend that much on fuel. The nail in the coffin is that that’s about the same price as a US-made, batteries-included machine.
RIP Gogoro. Ah well: worth keeping one’s ear to the ground. There’ll be a fire sale of all their IP in a few months, and I bet some of it is worth buying.
yeah, the economics don’t seem to be there unless there was a stick from city government to ban gasoline scooters in central area. The economics of such a scheme might well work better in some European countries or N.America where cars or polluting vehicles are actively legislated against. There are people who spend that much on scooters, vespas come to mind, but it seems hardly enough to support a city wide network of charging stations.
Yep such a shame, if they were priced similarly as gas ones, plus government subsidy, and would offer several charging plans
or keep the same price for charging but sell scooters MUCH cheaper
no no, there’s hope, they’ll do the big discount thing, plus govt support. the young dudes will see all the other guys with decked out LED lights, smartphone app connected to scooter, etc and the gotta-have-one-vibe will kick in. they’ll eventually offer some around 80-100k nt. you’d be surprised how much money many people here have saved up
