A smart scooter
Gogoro’s smart scooter surprised everyone when the company introduced it at the 2015 CES in Las Vegas. Company cofounder Horace Luke had designed the scooter with his team, and incorporated all kinds of quirky innovations into the design.
Luke himself was born in Hong Kong, but moved to the US while in middle school. He went on to study industrial design, and worked for Nike, Microsoft and HTC before starting his own business in Taiwan.
Designers face a perennial question when developing e-vehicles: whether to “refuel” them by swapping out their batteries, or by recharging the batteries in situ. Gogoro chose to pioneer the use of battery swapping, and developed its own system using Panasonic lithium-ion batteries. It then built a network of battery-swap locations to make “refueling” very convenient for customers. The system is so easy to use that it takes riders only about six seconds to swap their batteries and be on their way again. Users pay a fixed monthly charge for battery swaps.
Gogoro also installs numerous sensors in its scooters’ bodies and batteries to gather data on users’ riding styles. After big-data analysis, this information helps the company plan system upgrades and business developments.
Chen says Gogoro currently has over 600 “GoStations” around Taiwan that have facilitated more than 1.52 million battery changes. Every battery records the details of its swaps, including the time, the number of days it was used, and the distance ridden. Swap stations upload this data to cloud-based servers, which use it to manage recharges at swap locations and ensure there are enough charged batteries to meet demand at peak times. This enables the company to more efficiently manage its batteries and maintain a balance throughout its battery swapping infrastructure, which it calls the Gogoro Energy Network.
Gogoro’s battery swapping method draws on ideas from the sharing economy. Users don’t own, manage or maintain the batteries; Gogoro does, thinking of itself as more of an energy management company than a scooter manufacturer.
A new kind of scooter! Gogoro’s “high-tech” styling and attention to detail won over consumers the minute the scooters were released.