Comments
Taiwan’s Gogoro will not restrict itself to supplying batteries only to Hero MotoCorp, and is keen on bringing as many vehicle makers on board as possible to expand its battery-as-a-service platform. Hero MotoCorp, India’s two-wheeler maker, has a partnership with Gogoro to set up battery swapping stations across India as well as launch electric scooters in India powered by Gogoro batteries.
A top Gogoro official said the company is working on three specific areas for the Indian market, including the setting up of a battery manufacturing plant along with iPhone-maker Foxconn, one of Taiwan’s biggest companies, which will help it achieve economies of scale, and help India become a manufacturing hub for electric vehicle batteries.
Same batteries for 10 other vehicle makers
Speaking to BusinessLine, Horace Luke, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Gogoro, said, “Gogoro started with a Gogoro scooter with a Gogoro network in Taiwan. The platform matured when other partners came in (to use Gogoro batteries). A similar situation will happen in India eventually. The same batteries go into Yamaha, Suzuki, Gogoro. We have 10 vehicle makers, having 47 models across Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Germany, France. The network is designed to be an open network.”
India will see the opening of the first of Gogoro’s battery swapping stations in New Delhi later in 2022. These stations will make available fully-charged batteries for users in exchange of discharged batteries for a fee. By the end of the year Hero MotoCorp’s first electric two-wheeler using Gogoro’s battery technology will mark its debut. This vehicle is supposed to be independent of Hero MotoCorp’s own electric scooter which it has promised to launch before the end of March 2022.
During a post Q3FY22 earnings call Niranjan Gupta, CFO, Hero MotoCorp said, “We are working out is a strategy where there will be certain exclusive EV stores but obviously in more ways than one we will be looking to leverage our existing strength as incumbent including with manufacturing, sourcing, R&D, logistics or our network.”
No plans for Gogoro 2-wheelers in India
While Gogoro has its own range of electric two-wheelers which are on sale in Taiwan, Luke added that there are no plans to launch them in India. The company wants to instead focus on managing the battery technology and improve the user experience at the swapping station. Panasonic, LG Energy Solution and Samsung are Gogoro’s partners for battery cells.
While Hero MotoCorp could be tapping into its existing factories to roll out Gogoro-powered electric two-wheelers, Gogoro is in talks with Foxconn for producing batteries in India.
“Foxconn already has facilities in India. We are now transferring a lot of technology to them. We are in the middle of the planning phase. Second half of this year will see some transition of our manufacturing capability into India. Foxconn is our backend to achieve this. We are literally in discussion of planning our manufacturing investment,” Luke added.
One millionth battery
On February 22, 2022, Gogoro announced the manufacture of one-millionth battery. The company has 10,000 battery swapping GoStations at over 2,300 locations. It is hosting 340,000 daily battery swaps with more than 255 million total battery swaps to date.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.