Gogoro launches new Pulse electric scooter as highest performance model yet

After several recent international expansion announcements, Gogoro unveiled its latest electric scooter today. The new model, known as the Gogoro Pulse, relies on the company’s existing swappable battery standard yet ushers in a technological revolution as Gogoro’s highest-performance electric scooter yet.

The design is also starkly modern, swapping the bubbly curves of past Gogoro models for sharp angles and even more embedded tech. That’s quite a feat, considering Gogoro’s existing models have long been regarded as some of the most tech-forward electric scooters on the market.

“Gogoro has been widely recognized for its contribution to the transformation of the urban two-wheel industry with its integration of cutting-edge innovation, performance, and design that created a smart new electric user experience,” said Horace Luke, founder and CEO of Gogoro. “The Pulse introduces a new and exhilarating Gogoro riding experience that utilizes our latest innovations in electric performance and aerodynamic efficiency with advanced lighting and an immersive interactive user experience.”

The Gogoro Pulse uses a brand-new motor developed by the company to power the scooter’s Hyper Drive powertrain. The new 9 kW-rated H1 motor is paired with the company’s new Hypercore, a powerful smart system that delivers state-of-the-art traction control – a critical piece of kit for a scooter that puts out 378 Nm (279 lb-ft) of torque at the rear wheel. For reference, that’s over twice the torque of a Ducati Panigale V4, in case anyone was counting.

The motor is said to offer a 0-50 km/h (31 mph) time of 3.05 seconds, which should blow away essentially any other 125cc-equivalent scooter, gas or electric. Gogoro hasn’t shared the scooter’s top speed, but considering it offers around 50% more power than the company’s existing 95-100 km/h (59-62 mph) scooters, it is likely no slouch in the speed department.

That traction control is also integral for implementing a series of new ride modes that are now available from a dial on the handlebars, with modes including Range, Dirt, City, Touring, Track, and Custom mode.

Interestingly, not only is the H1 motor more powerful than previous Gogoro powertrains, but it is also more efficient. That’s due, in part, by a new cooling method developed by the company. While Gogoro already used liquid cooling on previous models, the Pulse combines it with ducted air-cooling for even more effective heat dissipation. Gogoro also spent considerable efforts on the vehicle’s aerodynamics, ensuring it slips through the wind tunnel (and down the road) more efficiently than any other model.

The just-announced Gogoro Pulse comes with the company’s new Smart Cockpit dashboard built around a massive 10.25-inch panoramic HD touch display that integrates with Gogoro’s iQ Touch HD user interface. The new iQ Touch HD system offers a variety of new features and services including different ride modes, turn-by-turn GPS navigation with real-time traffic information, and Gogoro GoStation locations for quick and convenient battery swaps.

Gogoro’s Smart Cockpit makes the Pulse the first two-wheel vehicle in the world to be powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon QWM2290 digital chassis.

If anything, it looks much more like what you’d see on the dashboard of a luxury car, not an electric scooter.

Continuing with the luxury car theme, the Gogoro Pulse uses a new advanced active-matrix lighting system with 13 independent LED units to create a new level of safety, awareness, and convenience. The system uses parallel arrays of LED units to create the first-ever matrix-sequenced headlight in the urban two-wheel industry.

Each of the 13 individual LED units actively switches on and off depending on various dynamic riding factors to adapt to the rider’s speed, turns, and weather conditions. As the Pulse’s speed increases, the active-matrix lights dynamically extend light further out to provide more visibility at increased distances and create more time for the rider to react appropriately. The headlight also uses active-corner lighting to create a wider band of light aimed in the direction of each turn, further illuminating deeper into the inside of the turn.

The Gogoro Pulse will also include Gogoro’s scooter key in the Apple Wallet app and employ the built-in Apple Find My feature to locate the scooter, which is helpful if the scooter is stolen or simply lost in a large parking lot. With the scooter key in the Apple Wallet app, the Gogoro Pulse can lock, unlock, and start with a tap of an iPhone or Apple Watch device.

Gogoro expects the new model to roll out to consumers in late Q2 2024, though pricing details aren’t yet available. Thanks to Gogoro’s battery-swapping model though, the company is able to charge less for the scooter as customers don’t actually buy the batteries, instead paying a lower monthly fee for battery swapping as a service. In Gogoro’s domestic market of Taiwan, the company has thousands of swap stations dotting the country and sees hundreds of thousands of battery swaps daily.

Electrek’s Take

This is seriously exciting, and not just because I’m already a daily Gogoro rider.

The increase in power has me jonesing for a test ride, and I thought my Gogoro S2 performance was already quite powerful! Plus that 10.25″ screen for built-in navigation is awesome. I know it does a thousand and one other things, but just not needing my phone on the handlebars for GPS navigation is awesome.

I’ll be curious to see pricing and speed figures, but this is shaping up to be a serious urban assault vehicle that will likely be able to handle highway jaunts as well. I mean, my Gogoro S2 Performance does just under 60 mph and I already take it on urban highways, so this even higher-performance scooter should be ready for just about anything.