After first getting into Korea in 2019 as a part of a meals supply partnership, Gogoro is now increasing its battery-swapping electrical scooters across the nation and opening up ridership for on a regular basis commuters. It’s a transfer that follows Gogoro’s tried and true technique of getting into international locations with an preliminary deal with enterprise clients after which increasing to non-public shoppers.

Gogoro is well-known for its high-speed electrical scooters and their swappable batteries, which eradicate the necessity to cease and cost the scooter for a number of hours. As a substitute, riders merely pull right into a battery swap station and roll again out seconds later with new, totally charged batteries. Gogoro’s battery mannequin has turn into one thing of a de facto customary, although different trade heavyweights like Honda have tried imitating it in an effort to finally provide a competing customary.

In Gogoro’s home market of Taiwan, 1000’s of swap stations cowl the nation and guarantee riders are all the time inside a couple of minutes of a station. The corporate counts a whole lot of 1000’s of battery swaps every day throughout these stations.

Shifting past its residence market, Gogoro has been aggressively increasing internationally over the previous few years to succeed in international locations throughout Asia together with China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Israel.

The Korean growth announcement comes as a part of an evolving partnership with BikeBank, a number one electrical two-wheeled automobile service in Korea.

Collectively, the 2 firms will introduce Gogoro’s Smartscooters and the corporate’s lauded battery swapping to Korean shoppers in Q3 2023 underneath the Dotstation model, increasing the battery swapping community to seven further cities past the present operations in Seoul.

Gogoro founder and CEO Horace Luke mentioned the expanded partnership, saying:

It’s nice to be rising our partnership with Bikebank, an organization that shares related values and is dedicated to accelerating the shift to electrical transportation in Korea. Seoul has one of many largest meals supply ecosystems on the earth and was one of many first markets to embrace Gogoro battery swapping for meals deliverie. Collectively, we’re introducing Gogoro Smartscooters and battery swapping to Korean shoppers whereas we proceed to develop our B2B meals supply enterprise the place we work with market leaders to allow sustainable meals supply.

To assist the key progress anticipated by the growth of providers, Bikebank has opened two Dotstation retail shops for shoppers and final mile supply riders in addition to expanded the battery swapping community to greater than 70 battery swapping stations throughout Korea. These battery swapping stations might be obtainable within the cities of Seoul, Daegu, Sejong, Changwon, Incheon, Gyeongsan, Gyeonggi, and Ulsan.

Minkyu Kim, CEO of Bikebank, expanded on the announcement:

Along with Gogoro, we’re accelerating the transformation of city mobility in Korea. We created Dotstation to guide us ahead into a brand new period of sustainable city transportation that gives a path for Korean shoppers to embrace sustainability in a brand new and sensible approach. Dotstation is increasing Gogoro battery swapping providers to eight Korean cities, and we anticipate launching extra battery swapping areas this yr with a spread of automobiles together with Gogoro Smartscooters for shoppers.

The transfer may sign an elevated deal with increasing B2C (enterprise to shopper) operations around the globe, after Gogoro has spent the previous few years considerably rising its worldwide B2B (enterprise to enterprise) operations.

That might align with the prevailing Gogoro technique we’ve seen these days, as, Luke defined to Electrek:

“The growth of our partnership with Bikebank in Korea as we speak exemplifies our market entry and worldwide growth technique. In Korea, we started with a pilot program after which progressed to a profitable B2B meals supply service in Seoul and are actually introducing Smartscooters and battery swapping to shoppers throughout eight Korean cities.”

Electrek’s Take

That is massive information for anybody who has drooled over Gogoro’s battery-swapping electrical scooters. I occur to be fortunate sufficient to stay in a rustic that already acquired Gogoro’s scooters for shoppers, and now I depend the Gogoro S2 Efficiency ABS as my every day rider. I’m joyful for Koreans that they’ll get to expertise these superior scooters and battery swapping system quickly, too.

The mannequin after all is sensible for supply riders, since they’ll spend all day on their scooters and don’t have the luxurious of ready for a recharge. In comparison with combustion engine bikes and scooters, a battery swap takes even much less time than a gas cease at a fuel station. And of courser riders get all the opposite advantages of electrical automobiles, such because the lowered noise, smoother operation, cleaner and decrease upkeep expertise, and so forth.

However for shoppers, the flexibility to by no means fear about charging once more can be a welcome benefit. And whereas Gogoro has considerably expanded its business operations to companion with meals supply firms round Asia, its shopper operations haven’t expanded fairly as rapidly. Seeing Koreans lastly get the prospect to purchase Gogoro’s scooters for private use is a significant step and demonstrates that Gogoro continues to be specializing in increasing its shopper operations as properly, marking the third and ultimate transfer within the Pilot > B2B > B2C technique it has adopted.