Globe-trotting battery swapping motorbike leader Gogoro powers 90% of local electric scooters
When it comes to battery-swapping electric scooters, there are several names floating around out there. But only one can boast near total domination of the market: Gogoro.
The company just announced annual 2022 figures that show its batteries powered 90% of the electric scooters sold in its domestic market.
The Taiwanese-based company is quickly expanding to over a half a dozen countries, but Gogoro’s success is built upon its near complete dominance of its local market where it all began.
Gogoro first demonstrated that its electric scooters could be powered by the company’s swappable battery packs when it started rolling out its battery swap GoStations in 2015.
In the beginning it was difficult to convince businesses to let Gogoro install the small battery swap kiosks in their parking lots. But as soon as word spread that the vending machine-sized GoStations brought in riders (and thus customers), the stations started popping up everywhere. Now thousands of GoStations span the country of Taiwan where they perform around 390,000 daily swaps. There are so many stations that riders are rarely more than a kilometer (0.6 miles) from a battery swap station in large cities like Taipei. Gogoro riders have even circled the entire country, making use of battery swap stations along the way (that circumnavigating Taiwan trip is high up on my bucket list!).
Gogoro’s own electric scooters have proven incredibly popular among riders, but that’s only a portion of Gogoro’s operations. The company has opened its battery network, allowing other manufacturers to build electric scooters that are powered by Gogoro’s batteries. That has lead to companies like Yamaha, Hero, Yadea, A-Motor, eMoving and others developing new e-scooter designs that are compatible with Gogoro’s existing battery network.
Gogoro’s electric scooters are still the majority of all Gogoro-powered two-wheelers, but the other companies in the network also make up sizable shares in the market. In fact, five of the top six electric scooters in Taiwan use Gogoro’s batteries.
Together they account for 90% of all electric scooters sold in Taiwan based on the government’s 2022 annual scooter sales report.
The share of electric scooters is also growing in the country as ICE-powered riders shift towards electric alternatives. E-scooters now make up 12% of all scooter sales, a figure that is quickly growing in part due to government incentives. Battery swapping has helped facilitate that massive shift, with swap stations now outnumbering gas stations in Taiwan’s major cities.
As Gogoro CEO and founder Horace Luke explained:
“We are proud of the progress Gogoro and its partners are making to lead Taiwan into a smarter and cleaner future. With five out of the top six electric scooter makers using Gogoro Network battery swapping, Gogoro is powering 90% of all electric scooters in Taiwan and there are now more Gogoro Network battery swapping locations than gas stations across Taiwan’s major cities. Consumers and governments are demanding cleaner and smarter transportation choices for cities like never before and with Gogoro’s technology, partners and experience we are well positioned to meet their needs.”
The figures behind Gogoro’s success are astounding. The Gogoro Network currently supports more than 524,000 riders and boasts more than 1.1 million smart batteries in circulation. Those batteries account for over 370 million swaps to date across the company’s 12,200 battery swapping GoStations at over 2,504 locations. Gogoro calculates that its batteries have been responsible for saving more than 250,000 tons of CO2.
Gogoro isn’t the only company operating battery swap stations in Taiwan. Its competitor KYMCO also boasts a diverse line of IONEX electric scooters that use KYMCO’s battery swapping stations. The company has rapidly expanded the number of swap stations in Taiwan and is catching up to Gogoro’s over 2,500 GoStations. However, it appears KYMCO has yet to make a sizable dent in ridership compared to Gogoro’s 90% market share.
KYMCO hopes to bring its battery swapping electric scooters to Europe, while Gogoro has so far focused on expanding its operations across Asia. Gogoro has announced that its batteries and/or scooters are now operational or will be starting operations in India, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, China, The Philippines, and Israel.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Gogoro is the de facto battery swapping standard. Other companies like Honda that don’t want to be locked into Gogoro’s standard have set about trying to develop their own competing standards, but they’re not really making any progress. The last I heard, Honda set up four battery swap stations in India. Hey, I guess it’s a start?
I know that competitors would rather control the market, but it would be better for consumers if manufacturers would just standardize. Gogoro’s form factor is convenient, accessible, largely future-proofed (they have solid-state batteries coming in the same battery cases) and they work really well.
I say that as the owner of a Gogoro scooter. I live in Tel Avi and use a Gogoro S2 ABS scooter as my daily driver. I end up swapping batteries around once a week or so and it’s a quick, easy and painless operation that takes around 30 seconds. I never charge. I never worry about range. I just ride. If I get low on battery, I’m basically always less than about 2 km (1.2 miles) from a swap station, and usually I’m much closer than that.
I’m not surprised to see that Gogoro still retains such a large market share in Taiwan even as other electric scooter companies grow their operations. What I’m really excited about though is their international expansion plans.
People always ask me when I think Gogoro will come to Europe or the Americas. It doesn’t seem to be in Gogoro’s short term plans, but I could be wrong. As it stands, it looks like they want to dominate Asia first due to the massive size of the market there and the opportunity that such a vast amount of riders offers to make an even larger impact on the two-wheeled landscape and on the environment. But with European and American riders obviously begging for Gogoro to continue rolling westward, it can only be a matter of time.
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Renewables and nuclear provided 40.9% of the world’s power generation in 2024, passing the 40% mark for the first time since the 1940s, according to a new global energy think tank Ember report.
Renewables added a record 858 TWh in 2024, 49% more than the previous high in 2022. Solar was the largest contributor for the third year running, adding 474 TWh to reach a share of 6.9%. Solar was the fastest-growing power source (+29%) for the 20th year in a row.
Solar has doubled in just three years, providing more than 2,000 TWh of electricity in 2024. Wind generation also grew to 8.1% of global electricity, while hydro – the single largest renewable source – remained steady at 14% of global electricity.
“Solar power has become the engine of the global energy transition,” said Phil MacDonald, Ember’s managing director. “Paired with battery storage, solar is set to be an unstoppable force. As the fastest-growing and largest source of new electricity, it is critical in meeting the world’s ever-increasing demand for electricity.”
Ember’s sixth annual Global Electricity Review, published today, provides the first comprehensive overview of the global power system in 2024 based on country-level data. It’s published alongside the world’s first open dataset on electricity generation in 2024, covering 88 countries that account for 93% of global electricity demand, as well as historical data for 215 countries.
What drove the rising power demand
The analysis finds that fossil fuels also saw a small 1.4% increase in 2024 due to surging electricity demand, pushing global power sector emissions up 1.6% to an all-time high.
Heatwaves were the main driver of the rise in fossil generation, accounting for almost a fifth (+0.7%) of the increase in global electricity demand in 2024 (+4.0%), mainly through additional use of cooling. Without these temperature effects, fossil fuel generation would have risen by only 0.2%, as clean electricity generation met 96% of the demand growth not caused by hotter temperatures.
“Amid the noise, it’s essential to focus on the real signal,” continued MacDonald. “Hotter weather drove the fossil generation increase in 2024, but we’re very unlikely to see a similar jump in 2025.”
Aside from weather effects, the increasing use of electricity for AI, data centers, EVs, and heat pumps is already contributing to global demand growth. Combined, the growing use of these technologies accounted for a 0.7% increase in global electricity demand in 2024, double what they contributed five years ago.
Clean power will grow faster than demand
Ember’s report shows that clean generation growth is set to outpace faster-rising demand in the coming years, marking the start of a permanent decline in fossil fuel generation. The current expected growth in clean generation would be sufficient to meet a demand increase of 4.1% per year to 2030, which is above expectations for demand growth.
“The world is watching how technologies like AI and EVs will drive electricity demand,” said MacDonald. “It’s clear that booming solar and wind are comfortably set to deliver, and those expecting fossil fuel generation to keep rising will be disappointed.”
Beyond emerging technologies, the growth trajectories of the world’s largest emerging economies will play a crucial role in defining the global outlook. More than half of the increase in solar generation in 2024 was in China, with its clean generation growth meeting 81% of its demand increase in 2024. India’s solar capacity additions in 2024 doubled compared to 2023. These two countries are at the forefront of the drive to clean power and will help tip the balance toward a decline in fossil generation at a global level.
Professor Xunpeng Shi, president of the International Society for Energy Transition Studies (ISETS), said: “The future of the global power system is being shaped in Asia, with China and India at the heart of the energy transition. Their increasing reliance on renewables to power demand growth marks a shift that will redefine the global power sector and accelerate the decline of fossil fuels.”
Read more: Made-in-America solar just got a big win in Louisiana
If you live in an area that has frequent natural disaster events, and are interested in making your home more resilient to power outages, consider going solar and adding a battery storage system. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
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The next-gen LEAF is almost here, and it’s looking better than ever. This isn’t the electric hatch you are used to seeing. Nissan’s new LEAF EV has more range, a fresh crossover design, and yes, it can finally charge up at Tesla Superchargers with an NACS port. With the official reveal just around the corner, someone already spotted the new LEAF at a Tesla charger in Canada.
Nissan is launching the new LEAF in the US and Canada
A little over a week ago, we finally got our first look at the third-generation LEAF. Nissan’s iconic electric hatch has grown into a “sleek and spacious family-friendly crossover.”
The US and Canada will be the first to see the reimagined LEAF later this year. It will join the Ariya in Nissan’s North American EV lineup as it looks to spark growth in one of its most important markets.
Based on the CMF-EV platform, the same one underpinning the Ariya, Nissan promises the new LEAF will have “significant range improvements.” Although no other details were revealed, Nissan’s vehicle programs chief, Francois Bailly, told TopGear.com that it’s expected to have WLTP driving range of up to 373 miles (600 km).
It will likely be lower on the EPA scale, but anything even close to 300 miles would be a major improvement over the current 212 EPA-estimated miles offered on the 2025 LEAF SV Plus.
The next-gen LEAF will also be Nissan’s first EV to feature an integrated NACS charging port. With its official debut later this year, the new model is out for testing and was just caught testing at a Tesla Supercharger in Canada.
If you didn’t know what vehicle it is, the LEAF is hardly recognizable. The new image from KindelAuto gives us a closer look at the new crossover design. It almost looks like a Tesla sitting in front of the charger.
The new LEAF is one of 10 new and refreshed Nissan vehicles set to launch in the US and Canada. It will arrive later this year, followed by the fourth-gen Rogue in 2026, which will be available as a PHEV for the first time.
Nissan also plans to build a new “adventure-focused SUV” at its Canton, Mississippi, plant in late 2027. The teaser shows what appears to be a rugged electric Xterra. We’ll have to wait for more details on that one.
Nissan will reveal additional info about the upcoming LEAF mid-year. Check back soon for more updates.
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The Port of Barcelona launched the Ecocat Tres, a highly efficient, all-electric commuter ferry powered by Molabo’s ARIES i50 electric motors.
Ecocat Tres is the latest zero-emission ferry in Bus Nàutic’s growing electric fleet, providing clean transportation between the Drassanes and Llevant wharves. In just its first three months, the Bus Nàutic service logged over 125,000 sustainable trips. Operated by ALSA and backed by the Port of Barcelona, the initiative offers locals and visitors an eco-friendly way to travel, cutting down on road congestion and air pollution in the bustling city.
Built by Spanish shipbuilder Metaltec Naval, Ecocat Tres is a 15-meter aluminum catamaran that carries up to 84 passengers. It even includes a rooftop deck, offering extra seating and a breezy ride across the port. The ferry runs every 15 to 30 minutes for at least 12 hours each day, with the entire trip taking about 10 minutes.
Under the deck are two powerful 48V Molabo ARIES i50 motors, enabling the electric ferry to hit a top speed of 12 knots. Cruising at its regular operational speed of 5 knots, Ecocat Tres can run efficiently for up to 21 hours on a single charge, making it highly reliable for daily commuters.
Molabo’s motors have a low-voltage setup, which makes them safer to maintain compared to traditional high-voltage electric systems. Passengers also enjoy a smoother, quieter ride thanks to significantly reduced noise and vibrations onboard. Azimut Marine supplied the full propulsion and energy system, which includes two ARIES 50 kW electric drives, 36 batteries providing a total of 216 kWh, fast chargers, and integrated solar panels. Impressively, solar power alone can cover up to 40% of the ferry’s energy needs.
Ecocat Tres will cut around 90 tons of CO2 emissions each year, making a positive impact on Barcelona’s ambitious climate goals.
Port of Barcelona president José Antonio Carbonell said, “This 100% electric, zero-emission passenger ferry is helping us reshape mobility in the port and accelerate the decarbonization of our operations.”
To limit power outages and make your home more resilient, consider going solar with a battery storage system. In order to find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and you share your phone number with them.
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