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According to a joint announcement, Castrol, a global leader in lubricants and part of the oil giant BP, today announced an investment of up to US$50 million in Gogoro, a global technology leader in battery-swapping ecosystems.

The first tranche of the investment will see Castrol invest US$25 million to receive 5.72% of Gogoro’s outstanding ordinary shares, followed by an anticipated second US$25 million investment in the form of a convertible note.

The move marks Castrol’s first step to unlock new diversification opportunities beyond its core lubricants and fluids business under its new ‘Onward, Upward, Forward’ strategy.

Many people know Gogoro from the brand’s high-tech electric scooters, but Gogoro is perhaps better described as an energy company. In addition to its often lauded electric scooters, Gogoro’s main product is its battery swapping standard, which includes nearly two million electric vehicle batteries produced and hundreds of millions of battery swaps to date.

Gogoro has also targeted its own global expansion at countries with high rates of scooter and motorcycle ownership, often in areas where two-wheeled vehicles outnumber cars.

“Two-wheelers are a critical part of our global product portfolio and as our customers transition to electric two-wheelers the Castrol brand has an important role to play in the eco-system,” said Michelle Jou, CEO Castrol. “Gogoro is a global leader in two-wheeler battery swapping and our investment in Gogoro is a strategic step towards diversifying our portfolio, remaining relevant in our customers’ lives, embracing new opportunities to future-proof our iconic 125-year-old brand and to create additional value for our shareholders.”

It’s no secret that Big Oil is investing heavily in electric vehicles, or more accurately, in the infrastructure that supports them. The writing has clearly been on the wall for years, and these global oil companies have the cash to throw around to ensure they stay heavily invested in the energy economy, regardless of the type of energy.

This is just the latest example, seeing BP’s subsidiary Castrol making a major play for a share of electric scooter battery swapping giant Gogoro. While battery swapping has had a hit-or-miss history among electric cars, much more prevalent electric scooters and motorcycles have shown worldwide success with battery swapping. Taiwan’s Gogoro is seen as the industry leader by far, touting hundreds of millions of battery swaps under its belt so far.

“Gogoro’s proven battery swapping platform and smart electric two-wheeler vehicles have demonstrated how cities can be transformed when given access to smart, sustainable and convenient portable power. This investment by Castrol is a testament to this success and enables us to expand even faster,” said Horace Luke, Founder and CEO of Gogoro.

I had the chance to use several Gogoro GoStations to swap batteries in my electric scooters in Taipei

I recently visited Taiwan, where I had the opportunity to test several Gogoro electric scooters and make ample use of the distributed battery-swapping stations during several days of riding around the island.

While touring the company’s scooter and battery factories, Horace Luke shared with me how critical the company’s production methods are to maintaining quality at scale. The robotically operated battery factory precisely produces Gogoro’s batteries without any human hands involved, rapidly churning out batteries to power not only its own scooters but also those built by nearly a dozen other companies creating vehicles to fit Gogoro’s battery standard.

Now, with a major investment from Castrol and several other significant recent partnerships, Gogoro looks set to supercharge the company’s impressive growth and international expansion.

Electrek’s Take

It’s pretty obvious that oil money is headed deeply toward electrification. While there’s a lot to unpack about where that money comes from, the fact that it is now going towards systems that can rapidly shift industries away from polluting forms of transportation is a major win for society (and for all of our lungs).

I think this also speaks to part of Gogoro’s game plan, especially with the several recent global expansions and partnerships. The company’s business model is based on scale, and it needs to invest and expand into large two-wheeler markets to make its battery-swapping as successful as it has been in major markets like Taiwan. This kind of funding can get it there more quickly, and it also shows that Big Oil sees the potential in two-wheeler battery swapping.

I also just received a company-wide email that Horace sent to all employees, which revealed more insight into the Gogoro CEO’s mindset as well as the scope of the partnership. “This announcement is the first step in a partnership between our companies that will modernize energy for two and three wheel mobility in the future. This investment and partnership from a global industry leader like bp Castrol is a clear recognition of our technology and business innovation and how Gogoro’s vision is shaping the future of mobility,” Horace wrote. “Gogoro battery swapping and vehicle innovation have the digitization and usability to play an important role in bp and bp Castrol’s transition from being a leading oil company to being a leading integrated energy company.”

I believe that’s exactly right, and this could be a great win-win for both companies, with the rest of us benefitting from a cleaner world to live in. And since Horace described this as just a “first step,” I’m eager to see what could be coming next.

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The messy middle, hybrid semis, and century old tech comes to trucking

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The messy middle, hybrid semis, and century old tech comes to trucking

On today’s fleet-focused episode of Quick Charge, we talk about a hot topic in today’s trucking industry called, “the messy middle,” explore some of the ways legacy truck brands are working to reduce fuel consumption and increase freight efficiency. PLUS: we’ve got ReVolt Motors’ CEO and founder Gus Gardner on-hand to tell us why he thinks his solution is better.

You know, for some people.

We’ve also got a look at the Kenworth Supertruck 2 concept truck, revisit the Revoy hybrid tandem trailer, and even plug a great article by CCJ’s Jeff Seger, who is asking some great questions over there. All this and more – enjoy!

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

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New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.


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Trump’s war on clean energy just killed $6B in red state projects

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Trump’s war on clean energy just killed B in red state projects

Thanks to Trump’s repeated executive order attacks on US clean energy policy, nearly $8 billion in investments and 16 new large-scale factories and other projects were cancelled, closed, or downsized in Q1 2025.

The $7.9 billion in investments withdrawn since January are more than three times the total investments cancelled over the previous 30 months, according to nonpartisan policy group E2’s latest Clean Economy Works monthly update. 

However, companies continue to invest in the US renewable sector. Businesses in March announced 10 projects worth more than $1.6 billion for new solar, EV, and grid and transmission equipment factories across six states. That includes Tesla’s plan to invest $200 million in a battery factory near Houston that’s expected to create at least 1,500 new jobs. Combined, the projects are expected to create at least 5,000 new permanent jobs if completed.

Michael Timberlake of E2 said, “Clean energy companies still want to invest in America, but uncertainty over Trump administration policies and the future of critical clean energy tax credits are taking a clear toll. If this self-inflicted and unnecessary market uncertainty continues, we’ll almost certainly see more projects paused, more construction halted, and more job opportunities disappear.”

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March’s 10 new projects bring the overall number of major clean energy projects tracked by E2 to 390 across 42 states and Puerto Rico. Companies have said they plan to invest more than $133 billion in these projects and hire 122,000 permanent workers.

Since Congress passed federal clean energy tax credits in August 2022, 34 clean energy projects have been cancelled, downsized, or shut down altogether, wiping out more than 15,000 jobs and scrapping $10 billion in planned investment, according to E2 and Atlas Public Policy.

However, in just the first three months of 2025, after Trump started rolling back clean energy policies, 13 projects were scrapped or scaled back, totaling more than $5 billion. That includes Bosch pulling the plug on its $200 million hydrogen fuel cell plant in South Carolina and Freyr Battery canceling its $2.5 billion battery factory in Georgia.

Republican-led districts have reaped the biggest rewards from Biden’s clean energy tax credits, but they’re also taking the biggest hits under Trump. So far, more than $6 billion in projects and over 10,000 jobs have been wiped out in GOP districts alone.

And the stakes are high. Through March, Republican districts have claimed 62% of all clean energy project announcements, 71% of the jobs, and a staggering 83% of the total investment.

A full map and list of announcements can be seen on E2’s website here. E2 says it will incorporate cancellation data in the coming weeks.

Read more: FREYR kills plans to build a $2.6 billion battery factory in Georgia


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Tesla delays new ‘affordable EV/stripped down Model Y’ in the US, report says

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Tesla delays new 'affordable EV/stripped down Model Y' in the US, report says

Tesla has reportedly delayed the launch of its new “affordable EV,” which is believed to be a stripped-down Model Y, in the United States.

Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a pivotal decision that altered the automaker’s direction for the next few years.

The CEO canceled Tesla’s plan to build a cheaper new “$25,000 vehicle” on its next-generation “unboxed” vehicle platform to focus solely on the Robotaxi, utilizing the latest technology, and instead, Tesla plans to build more affordable EVs, though more expensive than previously announced, on its existing Model Y platform.

Musk has believed that Tesla is on the verge of solving self-driving technology for the last few years, and because of that, he believes that a $25,000 EV wouldn’t make sense, as self-driving ride-hailing fleets would take over the lower end of the car market.

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However, he has been consistently wrong about Tesla solving self-driving, which he first said would happen in 2019.

In the meantime, Tesla’s sales have been decreasing and the automaker had to throttle down production at all its manufacturing facilities.

That’s why, instead of building new, more affordable EVs on new production lines, Musk decided to greenlight new vehicles built on the same production lines as Model 3 and Model Y – increasing the utilization rate of its existing manufacturing lines.

Those vehicles have been described as “stripped-down Model Ys” with fewer features and cheaper materials, which Tesla said would launch in “the first half of 2025.”

Reuters is now reporting that Tesla is seeing a delay of “at least months” in launching the first new “lower-cost Model Y” in the US:

Tesla has promised affordable vehicles beginning in the first half of the year, offering a potential boost to flagging sales. Global production of the lower-cost Model Y, internally codenamed E41, is expected to begin in the United States, the sources said, but it would be at least months later than Tesla’s public plan, they added, offering a range of revised targets from the third quarter to early next year.

Along with the delay, the report also claims that Tesla aims to produce 250,000 units of the new model in the US by 2026. This would match Tesla’s currently reduced production capacity at Gigafactory Texas and Fremont factory.

The report follows other recent reports coming from China that also claimed Tesla’s new “affordable EVs” are “stripped-down Model Ys.”

The Chinese report references the new version of the Model 3 that Tesla launched in Mexico last year. It’s a regular Model 3, but Tesla removed some features, like the second-row screen, ambient lighting strip, and it uses fabric interior material rather than Tesla’s usual vegan leather.

The new Reuters report also said that Tesla planned to follow the stripped-down Model Y with a similar Model 3.

In China, the new vehicle was expected to come in the second half of 2025, and Tesla was waiting to see the impact of the updated Model Y, which launched earlier this year.

Electrek’s Take

These reports lend weight to what we have been saying for a year now: Tesla’s “more affordable EVs” will essentially be stripped-down versions of the Model Y and Model 3.

While they will enable Tesla to utilize its currently underutilized factories more efficiently, they will also cannibalize its existing Model 3 and Y lineup and significantly reduce its already dwindling gross margins.

I think Musk will sell the move as being good in the long term because it will allow Tesla to deploy more vehicles, which will later generate more revenue through the purchase of the “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) package.

However, that has been his argument for years, and it has yet to pan out as FSD still requires driver supervision and likely will for years to come, resulting in an extremely low take-rate for the $8,000 package.

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