Gogoro leads the world with the largest battery swapping network for electric vehicles. And now the electric scooter manufacturer is announcing a landmark partnership with the largest motorcycle builder in the world, Hero MotoCorp, to fast track the transition to electric two-wheelers.
Hero MotoCorp’s reach is nothing short of massive.
The New Delhi-based company has built over 100 million two-wheelers since its founding in the mid 1980s. The company projects that it will sell its next 100 million two-wheelers before the end of this decade.
Taipei-based Gogoro may not produce nearly as many scooters, but it has something perhaps even more valuable: the world’s leading battery swapping technology.
Taiwan is covered in over 2,000 battery swapping stations that service Gogoro’s electric scooter fleet. Major cities in Taiwan have more Gogoro battery swap stations than gas stations. Over 250,000 battery swaps occur every day.
Gogoro has so far been very selective about the companies it partners with, but both Gogoro and Hero MotoCorp saw shared interests in combining their two strengths to speed up the deployment of electric two-wheelers.
As part of the agreement, Gogoro will bring its battery swapping network to India, while Hero MotoCorp will build a series of electric two-wheelers based on Gogoro’s platform.
Gogoro isn’t ready to reveal an exact timeline for the deployment yet, but indicated that the two companies are ready to get started ASAP.
Gogoro’s vice president of communications Jason Gordon tells Electrek that Hero MotoCorp’s chairman and CEO is quite keen to move quickly. “Oh, he’s in a hurry,” Gordon says. “I believe his exact words were, ‘I’m in a hurry!'”
Gogoro CEO and founder Horace Luke is equally ready to hit the ground running, as he explains on the same call with Electrek. “One day late is one day less,” states Luke. “The world needs this electrification. We need to move fast.”
Luke explains that the last six years in Taiwan have served as a giant pilot to prepare for worldwide expansion. “We’ll grow organically,” says Luke. “We’ll grow organically just like we did in Taiwan. Except it will be much faster in India. We’re now experts at putting in these battery swap stations.”
India currently has over 200 million motorcycles and scooters on the road, and pushing to transition toward electrification of those two-wheelers can create huge reductions in carbon emissions.
Hero has a nearly 50% market share in India but also operates a significant export business to provide motorcycles and scooters around much of the world.
While the new partnership will first see Gogoro’s platform deployed in India, this could be the beginning of a larger international expansion for the company.
Electrek’s take
It’s hard to overstate the importance of this announcement.
This is not just another corporate partnership. These are two giants of their respective industries. Hero MotoCorp wakes up every day and builds tens of thousands of motorcycles and scooters. Gogoro wakes up every day and performs hundreds of thousands of battery swaps (not to mention builds some pretty awesome electric scooters too!).
Combining their two expertises simply makes sense and is likely to jump-start the already booming electrification of two-wheelers in India. And with Hero’s wide reach, this could be a great chance for Gogoro’s tech to find an even more international audience as Hero exports more electric two-wheelers based on the Gogoro platform.
The Gogoro Network is also going to be a useful tool for many Indian cities as it helps solve two major problems: a lack of charging infrastructure and a lack of reliable electricity. Gogoro’s battery swap stations can actually be used for emergency power and feed energy back into the grid when necessary during power outages.
Both companies and countries have a lot to gain from this partnership. And since air knows no political boundaries, so does the entire world.
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