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Gogoro – the world’s first ‘smart’ scooter?

gogoro

You’ve got to be pretty ambitious nowadays to even think of developing a new electric vehicle. Forget about the technology, it’s even things like coming up with names, how you’re going to market it, and all the boring stuff that takes such hard work. And this becomes massively more tricky when you try and implement a whole new platform. Which makes the new Gogoro electric scooter something of a titanic effort.

The team behind the new product clearly aren’t just aiming to produce your plain old vanilla scooter, they’ve decided on different. With a capital D. For one thing it uses not just one, but two batteries, and these batteries are specially moulded so they’ll slot into special charging stations which the company hope to install across the target cities. We aren’t told which cities, but it’s a pretty bold statement even with one city.

We’re supposed to buy something without knowing how easy it’s going to be to keep it charged? Really?

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The management team come from Microsoft via HTC, so we know they’re high on style (even when it’s a little light on substance), and true to form, most of the marketing material consists of computer generated graphics, with a few very slick videos thrown in for good measure. What we do know though is the fact that the scooter will travel for 100 kms on the twin batteries before needing a recharge or swap out, and will hit a top speed of around 95 km/h.

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The ‘smart’ scooter bit comes of course from the smartphone connectivity, but also the fact that there are 25 on-board sensors which learn from your riding habits to improve your experience, and from the use of a phone or tablet to reserve swap out batteries on the go. It all sounds so deliciously Minority Report. Convinced yet?

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If you’re still a little doubtful, then rest assured that the company has already drawn down $50 million for development and is currently securing another $100 million to roll out the battery swap stations. There that’s better. Or is it? Unfortunately history has a record of demonstrating that trying to be clever innovators for the sake of it, rarely works in a world where your rival can come up with something very similar for a 10th of the price in the flash of a Chinese factory’s tail-lights. Anyway we wish them luck. They’re going to need it.

2 Comments

  • So, I have to subscribe to my scooter. :-)

    • Heh, actually I think that’ll be the least of your problems as an owner. Prime would seem to be where to find replacement parts for all those lovely custom make ‘precision’ tooled components. Yeah right…

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