On September 2, 2022, Gogoro officially announced that it’s taking its battery swapping ecosystem to Singapore. The Singapore Land Transport Authority just awarded the company with a sandbox pilot authorization to bring the entire infrastructure to the Southeast Asian city-state.
Gogoro won’t be going on this journey alone, either. As with other similar expansion announcements into new regions, the company also announced that it’s partnering with an established company in the region to administer the program. Jardine Cycle & Carriage currently has a presence in Singapore, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The latter company’s Singapore subsidiary, Cycle & Carriage, will now become the exclusive distributor of Gogoro electric scooters throughout the nation. It will also install, operate, and maintain the Gogoro battery swapping infrastructure to power the scooters that it sells.
This is directly related to the Singapore Green Plan 2030, which sets a number of concrete targets for programs to address in order to enhance sustainability and decarbonization. As of September 2, some stated vehicle-related goals include all new cars and taxi registrations being “cleaner-energy models” from 2030, which sounds nice, although it’s less than specific in its phrasing.
More concretely, the SGP 2030 also states that it’s targeting 60,000 active charging points by 2030, which should break down into 40,000 in public car parks and 20,000 in private premises. It’s not clear where the Gogoro swappable battery infrastructure fits into this scheme, since it doesn’t directly charge vehicles—it charges batteries that can then be swapped into vehicles. Perhaps it’s additional icing on the cake, or perhaps GoStations will be considered to help reach these goals?
“Cities are in desperate need of sustainable transportation solutions, not just for consumers, but for businesses,” Gogoro founder, chairman, and CEO Horace Luke said in a statement.
“Gogoro battery swapping provides a sustainable path for urban fleets that is safe, reliable, scalable and always available. Today in Taiwan, Gogoro's battery swapping enables more than a quarter of all quick commerce deliveries like food and online purchases and nearly 100% of all electric deliveries. We are partnering with Jardine Cycle & Carriage Group to introduce this new sustainable business model for food delivery and logistics fleets in Singapore today and in other cities across the region in the future,” he continued.
“In support of the Singapore Green Plan 2030, we are excited to collaborate with Gogoro to introduce an innovative electric two-wheeler solution for our city-state’s green ambitions. We are confident that we are well-placed to accelerate the implementation of Gogoro’s best-in-class battery swapping solution by deploying our existing infrastructure to operate the GoStation network in Singapore,” added Jardine Cycle & Carriage managing director for direct motor interests Wilfrid Foo.
“Together with Gogoro, we are looking for partners in the delivery or logistics space that are interested in harnessing this potential and benefiting from this platform with us. Jardine Cycle & Carriage participates across the automotive value chain from manufacturing, distribution, retail to aftersales in several Southeast Asian countries. With our regional network, we look forward to the prospect of facilitating opportunities for the penetration of electric scooters and battery swapping stations in new markets,” he added.
So far, this partnership only concerns Singapore, but statements like these, as well as Jardine Cycle & Carriage’s large presence in the region, make it difficult not to speculate about the possibility of further Southeast Asian two-wheeled electrification projects down the line. This is Gogoro's second partnership in the area, following its earlier teamup with Gojek in Indonesia.
To be clear, additional expansion is all speculation at this point—but as always, we’ll be sure to keep you informed about any news that develops.
