In this episode, why Gogoro’s scooters invite comparisons to Elon Musk’s Tesla. This is your Manufacturing Minute.
Taiwan-based Gogoro’s smart scooter has all the trappings of a luxury vehicle. The scooters are sleek and stylish, feature customizable settings from dash colors to overall performance via your smartphone and it’s entirely electric.
But what really separates Gogoro’s scooters from the rest of the market is the swappable battery pack.
Because the notion of at-home charging is much more of a Western luxury, Gogoro snubbed the plug-in option and instead opted to create a battery network system called the GoStation that’s easier and more convenient to riders. Each charging station would have a bank of battery slots where riders could quickly and easily swap out their used batteries for fully-charged replacements.
Gogoro says Taipei will have more than 150 of these stations by the end of 2015.
So, What Do You Think?
Do you think a network of battery-replacement stations would be viable elsewhere? Could this scooter be a look into the future of EVs?
Email us or comment below. That’s all the time we have for today, but tune in every weekday for your next Manufacturing Minute.
