Go Go Gogoro, is this the future?

[tuxumino]

I believe this will be the future of personal transportation, electric motorcycles that have the ability to swap out used batteries for charged in just seconds.

http://www.cnet.com/news/gogoro-scooters/

The real product: A battery network

Gogoro's big trick is its battery network. The Smartscooter houses two batteries under the seat -- each with easy-to-grab handles, of course. When you need to recharge, you head to a nearby battery swap location for fresh batteries. Most customers pay a monthly subscription fee, although Gogoro gave early buyers two years of battery swaps for free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN8STU0virc


[youtube]sN8STU0virc[/youtube]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFhu_kYqhUM

[youtube]vFhu_kYqhUM[/youtube]


http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34773466

 

[dowlinginchico]

They better have a shitload of battery swap locations, because I wouldn't walk more than a block with a god damn battery in my hand. This one is for the birds, and for san franciscans.

 

[RightCoastBias]

I'd rather see tech go towards more capacity. But I think this is a good interim solution. Seems like it would work better in Asian countries than most US cities.

 

[Marcoose]

Price?

 

[Cookie Monster]

Didn't Tesla try a similar thing with the battery swapping, only to abandon that idea in favor of the supercharging stations?

I don't see how this would really work well, especially if they don't have enough locations to swap batteries. Even then, you'd be confined to areas near swapping stations or end up just charging batteries conventionally, which kind of defeats the point of this scooter.

 

[Marcoose]

I don't see how this would really work well, especially if they don't have enough locations to swap batteries. Even then, you'd be confined to areas near swapping stations or end up just charging batteries conventionally, which kind of defeats the point of this scooter.

It's really not that complicated. Petrol stations have all sorts of vending machines, both indoor and outdoors. These swapping stations would just be one more "vending machine". Easy-peasy.

/thread, did you get my text about swapping bikes to re-pay for the tyre plug?

 

[MikeL]

Didn't Tesla try a similar thing with the battery swapping, only to abandon that idea in favor of the supercharging stations?

I don't see how this would really work well, especially if they don't have enough locations to swap batteries. Even then, you'd be confined to areas near swapping stations or end up just charging batteries conventionally, which kind of defeats the point of this scooter.

So Tesla was going to do it, but I think the super chargers are cheaper than the battery swap stations. They basically designed it to deter usage. They charged people to do the swap, where as, super chargers are free.

I believe Tesla actually put in 1 battery swap station strictly for the tax/carbon credits it granted the company. That is the true reason they did it.

I think they have it in their "back pocket" in terms of tech if they ever wanted to really develop it. Plus, it allows them to compete with the companies saying "WE SWAP BATTERIES, NO CHARGING!!" Tesla can now say "we do that to" even though they really don't.

I'm a Tesla fan boy but the battery swap thing was an obvious gimmick for them.

 

[tuxumino]

I think as battery tech gets better, longer distance and lighter weight, we will see something like this in the Bay Area within 5 years.

 

[Cookie Monster]

It's really not that complicated. Petrol stations have all sorts of vending machines, both indoor and outdoors. These swapping stations would just be one more "vending machine". Easy-peasy.

/thread, did you get my text about swapping bikes to re-pay for the tyre plug?

Unless the scooter takes some sort of standardized battery that every station would end up carrying, I don't know if it'd make sense to have a bunch of stations swapping batteries for only one type of scooter. I could see this working if there were a ton of electric cars all using the same battery to allow for easy swapping, but for one vehicle, I don't see it happening.

(P.S. I don't think I got any texts from you for some reason )

 

[revnort]

They better have a shitload of battery swap locations, because I wouldn't walk more than a block with a god damn battery in my hand. This one is for the birds, and for san franciscans.

Walk a block? Do you drive your bike until it runs out of gas and then go looking for some?

Battery swapping is a good idea, but batteries degrade over time. You might get a "fresh" one that lasts half as long or worse than your last battery.

 

[rodr]

Interesting. The range would not appeal to me but would to others, and can only get better. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

 

[Pking]

Hopefully top-notch security around the swap stations. I see vandalism, Ebay & CL battery sales skyrocketing.

 

[ST Guy]

Didn't Tesla try a similar thing with the battery swapping, only to abandon that idea in favor of the supercharging stations?

I don't see how this would really work well, especially if they don't have enough locations to swap batteries. Even then, you'd be confined to areas near swapping stations or end up just charging batteries conventionally, which kind of defeats the point of this scooter.

Swapping batteries will never be viable. The only way electric vehicles will totally replace internal combustion is if the time to recharge the batteries comes down to the same or nearly the same time as it takes to fill a gas tank.

Interesting side note: The Tucker was designed to easily swap engines. When you needed a tune up, you'd drive to the dealer, they'd pull your engine in a matter of minutes and install a loaner engine and send you on your way. Seems of limited value but the basic idea has been around for a long time.

 

[planegray]

Hopefully top-notch security around the swap stations. I see vandalism, Ebay & CL battery sales skyrocketing.

me and the gnomes are working out a business plan

 

[ilikefood]

A company called A Better Place tried this with batteries for battery-powered cars a few years ago. Got an awesome writeup in Wired and then failed soon after. The problem with batteries is that they are really expensive. If you want to make sure that stations don't run out of batteries, you have to have a large supply on hand, which means you have to buy a lot of them. Since batteries are expensive, you're locking up a large amount of capital and not getting a sufficient return on it. Any company doing this would have to charge a LOT more than the cost of electricity, or go bankrupt.

Scooter batteries are of course easier to deal with than car batteries but I don't see this going around the fundamental problem of battery cost and capital requirements for doing this.

 

[CurveSurfer]

Scooter batteries are of course easier to deal with than car batteries but I don't see this going around the fundamental problem of battery cost and capital requirements for doing this.

You have to build the cost of the battery pool into the vehicle price. So each scooter gets sold with 1 installed battery, but the price includes the cost of X more that go into the charging pool. Probably still too expensive for cars, but might be feasible for scooters.

Then you charge a per-swap fee that's a bit more than the price of electricity to help fund replacements arising from failures or theft, and a small profit for the swapping station (minimal as self-serve designs are possible for scooters too).

 

[CurveSurfer]

I don't see how this would really work well, especially if they don't have enough locations to swap batteries. Even then, you'd be confined to areas near swapping stations or end up just charging batteries conventionally, which kind of defeats the point of this scooter.

The US isn't set up for this, but when I was in Taipei and in some Chinese cities there were literally millions of scooters, and scooter repair shops on every single block. Sometimes several on the same block in urban areas outside the financial centers. They'd have no problem setting up enough swap locations in places like this.

 

[ilikefood]

You have to build the cost of the battery pool into the vehicle price. So each scooter gets sold with 1 installed battery, but the price includes the cost of X more that go into the charging pool. Probably still too expensive for cars, but might be feasible for scooters.

Then you charge a per-swap fee that's a bit more than the price of electricity to help fund replacements arising from failures or theft, and a small profit for the swapping station (minimal as self-serve designs are possible for scooters too).

The cost of the battery is a substantial % of the total electric vehicle cost. People won't pay 2x or 3x the price of a regular electric scooter just for the convenience of battery swapping

 

[Marcoose]

The US isn't set up for this, but when I was in Taipei and in some Chinese cities there were literally millions of scooters, and scooter repair shops on every single block. Sometimes several on the same block in urban areas outside the financial centers. They'd have no problem setting up enough swap locations in places like this.

Given or taken some obvious details, a swapping station would be no different than Red Boxes. Petrol stations, car/moto sales and repair shops, AutoZones, NAPAs, gear shops, coffee shops, etc could have a machine. It's easy as pie. A city like SF could be dozens of those.

The cost of the battery is a substantial % of the total electric vehicle cost. People won't pay 2x or 3x the price of a regular electric scooter just for the convenience of battery swapping

So, a $8K scooter would cost as much as $24K because of 2 batteries under the seat? Could you please put forth the financials behind that?

 

[ilikefood]

So, a $8K scooter would cost as much as $24K because of 2 batteries under the seat? Could you please put forth the financials behind that?

In the overall system, you'd need a lot more than just one extra battery per scooter to make sure that any scooter can pull up to any station and swap a drained battery for a waiting fully charged one. If you don't have a lot more extra batteries, at peak times all the fully charged batteries will be gone, and customers will have to wait for the next one to finish charging. Which defeats the whole purpose of a battery swapping scheme.

The total ratio of batteries in the system to vehicles will depend on usage otter s and charging speed of the battery, vs. how long it takes to drain it. You'd have to model all that to come up with a number, but is bet it will be significantly more than just one extra battery per scooter.