Gogoro Pulse first ride: Testing the most high-tech performance electric scooter
When Gogoro rolled out its new high-performance electric scooter, the Pulse, the world got its first glimpse of an entirely new side of the company. Best known for its battery-swapping system and cute, brightly-colored scooters, the Pulse launched an edgy new look for Gogoro. But even more importantly, it also showed off an entire suite of new high-tech innovations.
And so when I received an invite to be the first Westerner to test ride the Pulse and share the experience with the world, I jumped on it. Every company seems to proclaim that their new e-scooter is like none other before, but only the Gogoro Pulse is one of the few that can truly mean it. This electric scooter marks a paradigm shift in what is possible for this form factor and with Gogoro’s swappable battery standard.
Gogoro Pulse First Ride Video
To get a sense of what it’s like to throw a leg over this scooter, check out my video below.
But don’t forget to keep reading afterward, for all of the fun details!
I arrived early in the morning at a nondescript, largely abandoned airstrip in central Taiwan. There weren’t any planes on the tarmac, but lined up at the end of the single runway was something that looked just as fast and aerodynamic – the Gogoro Pulse electric scooter.
In fact, there were around a dozen of the silvery, angular scooters. Lined up shoulder to shoulder, they beckoned for an afternoon of fun. I soon found myself shoulder to shoulder as well, though it was with around 40 local journalists, all as eager as I was to get a first ride on the powerful, techie new electric two-wheeler. There was so much shared excitement in the air, I almost didn’t notice the “one of these things isn’t like the other” moment I was having, at least until the Mandarin started flying.
After a short safety briefing (that I thankfully had a translator for, thanks Cameron!) and a chance to gear up, we were off to the races. Literally. There was a drag strip set up as one of several testing stations, making full use of the short runway to test the most powerful mode on the scooter: Launch Mode. It unlocks every last watt available from the 9 kW-rated powertrain, letting riders absolutely fly off the starting line. But more on that in a moment.
First, I got to test out the traction control. In a sandy area off to the side of the airstrip, a coned-off section of loose sand and dust made for the perfect (i.e., worst) conditions. The scooter comes with a specially designed Dirt Mode meant to help keep traction on loose surfaces like this. It relies on the company’s new Hypercore, a powerful smart system that delivers state-of-the-art traction control.
I’m not much of a dirt rider myself, and you’re more likely to find me riding elbow distance between two delivery trucks than hugging the berms on trails. But I still did my best to get the scooter sideways.
Even in that loose and silty soil, each time I felt the rear starting to fishtail, the traction control helped me bring it back and keep the rubber side down. I was sure I would lose it a few times, but somehow the Pulse seemed to anticipate my pending disaster in the turns and take care of the hard parts for me.
From there, I moved to the slalom course, which was a series of cones set up on the angle strip. Gogoro’s pro rider showed me a demo first, in which he rode so fast and cornered so hard through the slalom that he dragged the edge of the side stand more than once. I certainly wasn’t about to push it that hard and leave bits of steel on the asphalt, but I still enjoyed pushing the scooter through the course and feeling how easy it was to flick back and forth.
Of course, the main event was that Launch Mode demonstration, where I got to line back up on the main strip with a set of Christmas tree lights counting me down for good measure.
To enable this ultra-fast takeoff program, you have to initiate launch mode with a video game-style series of secret inputs, the last of which includes holding in the rear brake lever like a clutch. If you put the cheat code in successfully, you’ll get the prompt and the scooter will literally start shaking. It’s actually just the mid-mounted motor cleverly rocking itself to create the simulation of a high-revving engine ready to pop the clutch. And to launch, that’s exactly what you do – except that the clutch is really the rear brake lever, and releasing it sends you flying down the road at peak acceleration. It’s hard to explain what 378 Nm (279 lb-ft) of torque at the rear wheel feels like, but I definitely saw another journalist almost slip off the back of the scooter when he wasn’t expecting the acceleration to be so punchy.
I only had 250 meters (820 feet) before the “STOP” section of the course began, but I was already into the triple digits on the speedometer, which converting km/h into mph means I had just surpassed 62 mph before having to quickly engage the brakes as the end of the course neared.
Each test was designed to show off another aspect of the Gogoro’s Pulse performance, from the traction control to the maneuverability and finally the insane power that can be unleashed by those brave enough to demand it.
But what’s perhaps even more impressive isn’t the groundbreaking performance but rather the technology that ties it all together.
The Gogoro Pulse shares several features that sound more at home on new sports cars than on an electric scooter. The scooter’s Smart Cockpit dashboard is 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. Fortunately, I was glad to see that there are still easy-to-use push-button controls and dials. Touch screens are nice for something things, but I’ll never want to give up the tactile feedback of real buttons and knobs. The mode selector is an oversized and generously knurled physical knob, which makes you feel like you’re selecting functions in a fighter jet cockpit. Now THAT’S a knob!
I’m glad to hear that turn-by-turn GPS navigation will be available on the screen, though that feature wasn’t quite finished during our testing. I can picture in my head what a map looks like on a giant screen though, so I’m just glad to hear it’s coming. That also means I don’t need to keep my phone on the handlebars anymore when I want to use a nav app – I can just let the scooter’s massive display handle it for me.
Gogoro’s Smart Cockpit also makes the Pulse the first two-wheel vehicle in the world to be powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon QWM2290 digital chassis. Again, this is stuff that has no business being on a two-wheeler, at least not until Gogoro decided that riders shouldn’t have to take a backseat to drivers anymore in the technology department.
And then there’s the headlight. Or I guess I should say, headlights. An array of 13 individual LED units fire on and off dynamically depending on riding conditions, helping to throw the beam closer or further depending on speed, as well as angling the light around curves when necessary, all without any physically moving parts.
And while I didn’t actually test this part out during the test riding since you just can’t go very far within the confines of an airstrip, the scooters obviously make use of Gogoro’s world-famous battery-swapping standard.
That means you get the benefits of Gogoro’s recognizable bright green batteries that are spread all over the markets where Gogoro operates. In Tapei, riders are never more than a few hundred meters from a battery-swapping station. Across the island, thousands of stations perform hundreds of thousands of battery swaps daily.
And now Gogoro is in more countries across Asia than I can keep track of anymore. The options are growing seemingly every month.
The beauty of this battery-swapping system is that range simply doesn’t matter anymore. Who cares if the scooter can get 50 km or 150 km of range? It doesn’t really matter since, in both situations, you’ll probably pass 100 different battery-swapping stations during that time.
So as you can see, this isn’t just a high-performance electric scooter. It’s also a high tech vehicle that takes advantage of much of the tech we generally associate with luxury cars, but has now been brought to us as riders.
Having ridden around Taipei recently, I can tell you that this is probably more scooter than many people will need. It’s just so much power and performance that it’s the equivalent of a sports car in a city. But then again, sports cars are fun for the simple fact that they’re fun, so even locked in a city, the Pulse would be a blast. But once you can get out onto some faster roads and really open it up, that’s where the scooter will come alive.
If staying in a city, that Launch Mode can still be fun, but I don’t think many people need to fly off as quickly as this scooter can each time the light turns green. But what it does do is give riders the opportunity to do more with their ride. The same bike that serves as a weekly commuter can also be a fun weekend performance ride up and down twisting mountain roads. It can take you offroad and onto the trails, knowing full well that traction control is there to back you up. And it can enable safer riding with GPS navigation front and center where you need it and lighting that predicts your turns to illuminate the curves ahead of you.
That’s pretty darn impressive for an electric scooter, if you ask me!
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China’s EV automakers have surged ahead of the competition in global EV sales, and a new report shows just how far ahead they are.
The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) just dropped its third annual Global Automaker Rating, showing that Chinese carmakers dominate the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) space. China now accounts for over 11 million EVs sold annually – over half of global EV sales.
Its massive domestic market has helped Chinese automakers build serious momentum. They’ve scaled up, improved tech, and are now setting the pace globally. Companies like Geely and SAIC have already hit 50% EV sales share, meeting their 2025 targets a full year early. In fact, Chinese automakers took the top five spots for ZEV class coverage, and five out of the top six for EV sales share.
Meanwhile, automakers in the US and Europe are trying to catch up. But they’re facing a dual challenge of falling behind on tech while navigating shaky regulatory environments.
The report also confirmed a big milestone: In 2024, BYD officially surpassed Tesla in global battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales for the first time. BYD’s BEV sales jumped 25%, and its combined BEV and plug-in hybrid sales climbed an impressive 47% year-over-year. Still, both BYD and Tesla remain in the “Leaders” category.
Automakers boosted energy efficiency, charging speed, and driving range thanks to newer, high-performance models.
“Our assessment revealed widespread improvement in BEV technology performance across the industry,” said Zifei Yang, ICCT’s global passenger vehicle lead. “GM and Honda made significant advancements by introducing high-performance models to their previously limited offerings, while companies like Geely, Chang’an, and Chery improved substantially with new high-performance EV lines.”
India’s Tata Motors also hit a turning point. For the first time, it graduated from ICCT’s “laggard” group to “transitioner,” thanks to new EVs and big moves on battery recycling and repurposing. While Japanese and South Korean automakers are still lagging behind, Honda and Nissan are inching forward. Honda launched its first US BEV, and Nissan finally clarified its ZEV targets.
One newer addition to this year’s report: a green steel metric. Since steel is the second-largest source of emissions in vehicle manufacturing (after batteries), ICCT now tracks which automakers are cutting emissions in the supply chain. European brands like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and VW earned high marks for sourcing renewable-powered green steel.
ICCT’s CEO, Drew Kodjak, summed it up: “The rapid evolution of the EV market in China has created technological and manufacturing advantages for companies there. For the wider global auto industry, this is no longer just about meeting future goals – it’s about remaining competitive today in a market that’s charging up.”
The full Global Automaker Rating, covering 21 major automakers, is now live on ICCT’s website.
Read more: EV prices dipped in May – and Tesla Model Y led the slide
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Environment
Bloomberg just released the most embarrassing report about Tesla, Waymo, and self-driving
Bloomberg has just released an embarrassingly bad report about the self-driving space, in which it claimed Tesla has an advantage over Waymo by misrepresenting data.
There are currently many eyes on Tesla’s imminent launch of its “robotaxi” service in Austin, Texas.
We have just published a new report today to highlight how the launch is a game of smoke and mirrors, meant to reframe the optics of Tesla’s self-driving effort following years of broken promises.
At the same time, Bloomberg Intelligence released its own report, claiming that Tesla is ahead in self-driving technology, but the firm misrepresented data to support its claim.
The report compares Tesla’s and Waymo’s self-driving efforts, going so far as to claim that “Tesla is closer to vehicle autonomy than peers.”
Here are the two main charts that Bloomberg circulated from the report:
The problem is that the report is misleading by comparing completely different data.
Steve Man, the Bloomberg Intelligence analyst behind the report, based his report on Tesla’s own quarterly misleading “Autopilot Safety Report.”
The report is widely considered to be unserious for several main reasons:
- Tesla bundles all miles from its vehicles using Autopilot and FSD technology, which are considered level 2 ADAS systems that require driver attention at all times. Drivers consistently correct the systems to avoid accidents.
- Tesla Autopilot, which is standard on all Tesla vehicles, is primarily used on highways, where accidents occur at a significantly lower rate per mile compared to city driving.
- Tesla only counts events that deploy an airbag or a seat-belt pretensioner. Fender-benders, curb strikes, and many ADAS incidents never appear, keeping crash counts artificially low.
- Finally, Tesla’s handpicked data is compared to NHTSA’s much broader statistics that include all collision events, including minor fender benders.
All these facts combined render the comparison between Tesla’s accident rate using “Autopilot technology” and NHTSA’s US average completely useless.
Yet, Bloomberg decided not only to use it but also to compare it to Waymo’s data to claim that “Tesla is 10 times safer”:
The problem with this is similar to the comparison with the US average, as the Waymo data includes all police-reported incidents, which is a much wider net than Tesla’s data, in addition to the previously mentioned issues.
To highlight how big a potential discrepancy there is in the data, NHTSA underscored in a report last year how Tesla is not aware of many crashes involving Autopilot and that only 18% of police-reported crashes involve airbag deployment:
Gaps in Tesla’s telematic data create uncertainty regarding the actual rate at which vehicles operating with Autopilot engaged are involved in crashes. Tesla is not aware of every crash involving Autopilot even for severe crashes because of gaps in telematic reporting. Tesla receives telematic data from its vehicles, when appropriate cellular connectivity exists and the antenna is not damaged during a crash, that support both crash notification and aggregation of fleet vehicle mileage. Tesla largely receives data for crashes only with pyrotechnic deployment, which are a minority of police reported crashes. A review of NHTSA’s 2021 FARS and Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) finds that only 18 percent of police-reported crashes include airbag deployments.
Knowing full well the comparison is not fair and completely misrepresents the situation, the usual Tesla stock pumpers on X widely shared Bloomberg’s misleading report positively, and even CEO Elon Musk shared the misleading data:
Electrek’s Take
This is embarrassing for Bloomberg. It’s such a blatant error and misrepresentation that it is suspicious. They should issue a correction right away.
Tesla fanboys are now pushing this to try to prove that Tesla’s robotaxi is safe to launch amid Tesla doing everything it can to hide its self-driving crash data ahead of the launch. This is a dangerous report from Bloomberg.
Additionally, it’s not just the primary claim regarding the accident rate that is misleading. The report also contains several glaring errors.
In this chart, Bloomberg claims that Tesla is at “3 billion miles of data collected since launched”:
It looks like they simply use Tesla’s “cumulative miles driven with FSD (Supervised)”, which includes driver supervision, and the driver remains responsible for correcting FSD at all times.
In comparison, they talk about 22 million miles for Waymo. It looks like Bloomberg only used Waymo’s rider-only mileage in San Francisco, which is currently at 22 million miles, but when accounting all markets, Waymo is currently at more than 71 million miles:
It’s not clear why they would only use mileage in San Francisco for Waymo when they used Tesla’s global customer FSD mileage for Tesla.
Again, these are also “rider-only” miles, which means that there are only people riding inside the Waymo vehicles, compared to Tesla’s mileage being completely supervised by customer-drivers at all times.
We simply don’t know how many “rider-only” miles Tesla has, since it only started with one or two cars in Austin over the last few weeks. It is likely to have no more than a few hundred or a few thousand miles.
Regardless, it’s completely nonsensical to claim that Tesla is “ahead of its peers” in self-driving, especially Waymo, based on this report.
Tesla is currently only trying to launch something that Waymo has been doing for years.
The other argument the report attempts to make is that Tesla’s “self-driving” vehicles are approximately 7 times cheaper than Waymo’s.
Again, the problem is that Tesla’s vehicles are not self-driving. Tesla has yet to prove that, and that’s why it is using “plenty of teleoperation” in this launch in Austin. Mapping, optimizing for geo-fenced area, and teleoperations are the real limiting factors here. Not the cost of the vehicles.
Suppose Tesla has anything less than a 100-to-1 vehicle-to-teleoperator ratio. In that case, its system is not profitably scalable and I wouldn’t be surprised if it has a 1-to-1 ratio for the foreseeable future – at least on its current hardware.
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