Smart scooter company Gogoro to ride into Taiwan this summer

Gogoro, the smart scooter company that ended its three-year stealth period at this year’s CES, announced today it will make its scooters available to the public in Taiwan this summer. The rollout will mark its first worldwide.

At a press event today in Taipei, the company said that it will also build battery charging stations in Taipei and New Taipei city, along with retail stores, parking spaces, and subsidy plans. No prices or specific release dates were disclosed.

Little was known about Gogoro before CES this year, other than that it had had close ties to Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC and US$150 million in funding. In addition to employing a handful of HTC alumni, including Horace Luke (now the startup’s CEO) and Matt Taylor (CTO), the company was backed by investors including newly-crowned HTC CEO Cher Wang.

In Las Vegas earlier this year, the company finally showed its product to the public – an electric-powered scooter that has two removable batteries, which can be interchanged at battery-swap stations throughout a city. Users can also control and track parts of the scooter through their smartphone, and the company will collect users’ travel and vehicle data in the cloud.

Beyond the HTC connection, there are other factors that make Gogoro relevant to Taipei. Like many other Asian metropolises, gas-powered scooters are ubiquitous across Taiwan. In addition, the massive success of Taipei’s UBike bike-sharing scheme makes it easy to feel optimistic towards a like-minded (though certainly more costly) infrastructure rollout. Of course, urban bike-sharing doesn’t require one to actually purchase a bike; Gogoro, meanwhile, will have to convince consumers that shelling out for a souped-up, all-electric smart scooter is worth the savings in gas.