Battery-swapping leader Gogoro to begin sales of electric scooters in Singapore

Today Gogoro announced that it has been certified to launch its battery-swapping and Smartscooters in Singapore. The company will launch with its exclusive distribution partner, Cycle & Carriage (C&C), in Q4 2024, who will make Gogoro Smartscooters available to both commercial customers and consumers alike.

The expansion marks yet another major launch for Gogoro, which has now expanded throughout much of Asia while also rolling out early operations in the Middle East and South America.

C&C also announced a partnership with Shell Recharge to launch Gogoro’s battery-swapping GoStations at Shell service stations in the Singapore market.

Those GoStations are key to the company’s business model. They allow riders to swap out Gogoro’s batteries in seconds, which is even faster than a traditional fuel fill-up at a gas station—and much cleaner.

It’s a move Gogoro has used several times before, partnering with local distributors to either pilot its scooters and battery-swapping in new cities, or to begin sales outright while rolling out swap stations installed at local service stations. Due to the small footprint of Gogoro’s GoStations, an area of just one conventional parking space is needed to service dozens, or sometimes hundreds, of electric scooter riders.

This isn’t Gogoro’s first rodeo in Singapore. The Taiwanese battery giant began a local pilot program with the food delivery service foodpanda last year.

That program proved to be quite successful, with Gogoro sharing several performance metrics, including that delivery riders used Gogoro scooters to travel an average of 2,200 km (1,370 mi) per month, usually swapping batteries up to twice daily.

The pilot, which was planned to run for 18 months and will continue until September 2024, has received positive feedback on the performance of the Smartscooters with high satisfaction scores from delivery riders for their speed, lack of heat, silent ride, and minimal vibration.

“While battery swapping technology and two-wheel electric vehicles are relatively new in Singapore, our partnership with Gogoro will accelerate the growth,” said Wilfrid Foo, Managing Director of Cycle & Carriage Singapore. “The positive feedback from foodpanda riders and valuable data gained from the sandbox pilot have given us confidence to commercialise Gogoro in Singapore. We believe that this is a viable green mobility solution for Singapore.”

Gogoro hailed its partnership with foodpanda and C&C, enabling the testing and now rollout of the company’s battery-swapping technology in Singapore.

“After working closely with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) to secure a permit to launch our battery-swapping platform in Singapore, I am pleased to announce that Gogoro is now certified to operate in Singapore. This certification is a testament to how safe, smart, reliable and eco-friendly Gogoro battery swapping is,” said Horace Luke, founder and CEO of Gogoro. “Gogoro, Cycle & Carriage and foodpanda have been participating in a pilot that has demonstrated incredible success and we look forward to transitioning to commercial operations soon. We are looking forward to providing a seamless path for riders to adopt sustainable electric transportation in Singapore.”