Taiwan Will Soon Have More Electric Scooter Battery Swap Stations Than Gas Stations (electrek.co) 29
According to Electrek, the number of Gogoro electric scooter battery swap stations in Taiwan will soon eclipse the country's total number of gas stations. From the report: Gogoro's battery swap stations look something like a bright green and white vending machine. Users of Gogoro's batteries (which include scooters of many different brands thanks to its partnerships), simply roll up to a station and swap out their depleted battery for a freshly charged unit. A subscription service makes it a quick and easy process that takes just a few seconds. At the end of 2021, Gogoro counted a total of 2,215 GoStations nationwide, according to the Taipei Times. The number of gas stations stood barely higher at 2,487. At Gogoro's current rate of expansion, 2022 very well may be the year that the number of GoStations surpasses the number of gas stations.
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You get to trade that brand-new battery out for a used battery the first time you drive it?
Maybe you can keep your original and the subscription comes with your first battery? I did not read the article so just a guess.
Re:What happens when you buy a brand-new scooter (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe you can keep your original and the subscription comes with your first battery?
It is even simpler than that. You buy the scooter with NO battery, then you swap in a Gogoro battery at the scooter shop and drive away.
In Taiwan, scooters are way more common than cars, and their 2-cycle engines produce a lot of pollution, so going electric is a big win.
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When I was last in China there were a lot of electric scooters everywhere. They seemed incredibly dangerous. Silent, fast and offering little protection to rider or pedestrian.
I read that the danger is a big driver for low cost EVs in China. People want the added safety of a car, and prices have come down hugely in the last few years. Europe should be getting some of them too, like the Ora Cat with a >200 mile range and expected price of around 22k GBP.
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When I was last in China there were a lot of electric scooters everywhere. They seemed incredibly dangerous. Silent, fast and offering little protection to rider or pedestrian.
I read that the danger is a big driver for low cost EVs in China. People want the added safety of a car[...]
Don't go too far down that road... it leads to soccer moms in Hummers. The rise of the SUV in the USA was largely due to fearmongering among auto-sellers: pushing the big, safe (for the one kid strapped into back seat), vehicles on parents.
A little danger is good, it teaches us not to be reckless.
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The OP is looking at it very pessimistically.
The other way to view it is that your battery will never get old and worn out - this system will remove old batteries from circulation.
My Xiaomi scooter battery is starting to die after about 3 years of ownership - it does about half the mileage it used to. Swappable batteries would prevent that.
I wish we could have tech like Gogoro in our first-world, western countries but it's forbidden here.
Re: What happens when you buy a brand-new scooter (Score:2)
They could sell the scooter without a battery, and offer you the choice of either buying a battery pack or signing up for a 'battery swap' service.
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They could sell the scooter without a battery, and offer you the choice of either buying a battery pack or signing up for a 'battery swap' service.
Yes, that is exactly how it works. You can save money by buying your scooter without a new battery, so there is no "ownership" problem.
You can also charge your swappable battery at home for routine commuting and use the swap service for longer trips. The latest Gogoro scooters have a range of 170 km (105 miles).
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Gogoro's business model revolves around making money off the batteries. You are required to sign up for the monthly battery swap service, even if you buy the charger and charge the scooter yourself.
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You are required to sign up for the monthly battery swap service, even if you buy the charger and charge the scooter yourself.
Yes, and if that is not what you want, there are many other companies happy to sell you a scooter with no strings.
Since Gogoro makes money on the batteries, they are offering their battery as a standard to other scooter manufacturers, so Gogoro batteries can be rented to owners of more scooters. Hopefully, the world can avoid a proliferation of charging interfaces.
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If you're constantly swapping, why does it matter? One day you have an older battery, the next you have a newer one. As long as Gogoro ensure that the batteries have a minimum charge and regularly inspect them for damage, you get what you pay for.
For that matter, we do the same thing with propane tanks. When one gets a refill, one usually swaps their empty tank for a full one. And there is no guarantee that the full tank is "newer" compared to the empty one.
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If you're constantly swapping, why does it matter? One day you have an older battery, the next you have a newer one. As long as Gogoro ensure that the batteries have a minimum charge and regularly inspect them for damage, you get what you pay for.
For that matter, we do the same thing with propane tanks. When one gets a refill, one usually swaps their empty tank for a full one. And there is no guarantee that the full tank is "newer" compared to the empty one.
And tanks either work or they don't (or more specifically are not allowed to), their usefulness is dictated by regulation. Someone with a brand new battery might prefer to just keep that one and charge it themselves, but as that battery gets older the incentive to be able to just swap it inevitably grows.
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That's one option, and definitely not the better option as you're only getting 12-15 lbs. of propane in a tank that holds 20. Go to a gas station that actually fills propane tanks on-premises and you'll get the full 20 lbs. for maybe half to two-thirds of what you'd pay to exchange tanks.
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The batteries are using Panasonic 18650 lithium cells. They will have a built in BMS that tracks their state of charge and the degradation, so Gogoro will know when a pack needs refurbishing.
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It would help cut the cost of purchasing the bike, which makes the brand look better as the battery is now more of a hidden cost.
Like a propane BBQ with swap tank services everywhere. My BBQ didn't have a propane tank when I bought it.
If they could figure out a way to do this with electric car batteries, it could be a game changer. Suddenly it would take a few seconds to "recharge" you electric car instead of 30+ minutes the best is at the moment? Could even make
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With a brand-new battery? You get to trade that brand-new battery out for a used battery the first time you drive it? That's a big no-thank-you. I'll just stick to plugging it in.
Does it really make that big of a difference? The battery you get is fully charged and functional, and you'll be swapping it again soon. Also please don't start your comment in the subject line.
Is it official? (Score:2)
Taiwan number 1... in battery swaps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Propane tanks (Score:3)
This model is very popular in the US for propane tanks, used for applications like gas grills, but I don't think this will work for electric scooters in the US.
The difference is the average consumer feels a sense of ownership for their new battery they bought with their scooter. If the scooters are sold without a battery, and the buyer instead is forced to either buy a battery outright OR sign up for a battery swap service, this could be popular, because the scooter buyer would not feel like they are giving up their new battery for a used one, and paying for the privilege.
Then again, I don't imagine electric scooters will ever reach the critical mass here in America to support wide-spread battery swap stations across the country.
Re: Propane tanks (Score:3)
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I don't think this will work for electric scooters in the US.
Gasoline-powered TaoTao 50cc scooters are available in the USA. Aside from being mechanically unreliable as shipped (some of the Chinese parts are extremely poor quality), they're not very popular because they're very slow and dangerous to drive on roads full of gargantuan SUVs, with drivers who may not notice you until you've gone underneath their wheels.
Electric scooters merely swap out the energy source. They still don't solve the problems of not being able to keep up with traffic, and that there won't
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New ideas face a catch-22: until the infrastructure to support them to exist they're seen as hopelessly impractical, and until they're perceived as practical people don't want to invest in infrastructure. If you build infrastructure that's sufficiently attractive, people will use it.
An *extreme* example of this is Oulu Finland, a city where 20% of commuter trips in the summer are taken by bike. The surprising thing about this city is that that figure only drops to 12% in the dead of winter, when hours of
6 million scooters in taiwan (Score:4, Informative)
this story only makes sense when you've been to taipei, and seen 200 scooters pull up over a period of only a couple of minutes at the front of a 4-lane-wide crossroads. the cloud of smoke as 200 2-stroke scooters start off is deeply disturbing. scooters are so essential that even in a small town of 8,000 people where i used to live, there were around 8 scooter shops and repair centres (you couldn't call them garages, they were too small)
by having stations across an entire city where the battery can be swapped out for one that is already charged, there is no "range anxiety", there is no problem about weight, and best of all there is no massive pollution at every junction. but this only makes sense when you realise that the scooter in Taiwan is *the* major means of travel, and that every town and city is set up for them.
Great - when you have the climate (Score:2)