Is Taiwan's Battery Swap Tech the Future of EVs? 

A lot of people have mentioned that most scooters are now 4 stroke. Thanks for letting me know. I'm curious as to how the 4 strokes do on the smog front. A really quick search point to them being more polluting then vehicles when it comes to smog, but maybe the newest models are better? www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/greenspace/story/2011-09-28/mythbusters-asks-are-motorcycles-greener-than-cars As for transportation, I totally agree that public transit is the best way to go. Living in Tokyo I don't own a car and generally use my feet, my bike, or take the train (and sometimes bus). I believe Taipei is really trying to boost their public transportation and since they started their MRT system in 1996, they've made a really fantastic system. Combined with the You Bikes (their bicycle share service), it was a great way to travel. What I was reporting on was that there is still a massive amount of scooters on the road in the city and in the country. I think that if a scooter is going to be on the road, the best would be to make it electric, but overall, using public transportation is even better. Have a great day everyone!

As a taiwanese, I would say that improving public transit is much more important than replacing gas scooters with EV scooters, the huge amount of vehicles here really cause to terrible traffic.

I can relate of the amount of scooter, like in Indonesia. Because of mass transit didn't reach the coverage needed, so people using private vehicle such as car or motocycle. Got used to the noise made, air polution is another story. Still got annoyed when suddenly exhaust gas hits your face while driving. People's habit of smoking while driving adds irritation to it. EV especially swapable batteries definitely game-changer.

Very true about the noise of the gas scooters. It's non stop 24 hrs, and in residential areas it's a challenge to sleep well, if you're a visitor, lol. The servicing of gas scooters in Taiwan is absolutely awesome! Extremely fast and plentiful repair shops. I think it will take many more years for electric scooters to replace the very efficient and convenient gas scooter network in Taiwan.

I am one of the 9 million Taiwanese who doesn't own any scooters. Riding a scooter is the most dangerous means of transportation in Taiwan. As you pointed out, it's cheap and convenient, regardless of its danger, it is still the most prevalent transportation here. I won't recommend any foreigner to ride a scooter while visiting Taiwan.

I live in Indonesia We do have Gogoro and other battery swapping EV with Gogoro tech available, but only in few big cities in Java (in particular Jakarta and its satellites) Landscape, infrastructure and cost are the main reason the adoption rate of swappable battery tech is slow As for EV, the adoption rate is getting higher since we have subsidies from the govt Maybe we will someday be the capital of EV in SEA

This is a really well done video! Very informative and I particularly loved the visuals you put for more detail/context/sourcing of the numbers you give, like the small text message like bubble or the yellow frame that doesn't hide the interesting part of the image. Really good visual format overall, I loved it, congratulations :)

Never heard of Gogoro before, but here in Laos, people bought a lot of electric scooters the last couple of years, because of rising inflation coupled with high gas prices. Here, you just plug the scooter with a cable into a wall outlet. No battery swapping and because most people can park their scooters inside their house, I don't think that will be popular anyway. Just a note about the pollution of gas scooters being higher than cars. The paper you mentioned was talking about 2-stroke engines. Most scooters are build with 4-stroke engines now, which pollute less.

Transportation in Taipei is almost perfect. There's: (1) the MRT (subway) system, with clean, reliable and frequent trains coming (a 2-3 minute-wait is the average) - possible the best in the world, up there with Tokyo and Seoul, better than Singapore's imo, (2) the YouBike system, where you use you EasyCard (also used for the MRT and public buses) to rent bicycles at any MRT station (and 100s of other spots in Taipei) to continue your journey (and you can return it at any YouBike station), (3) the GoShare that you covered in your video, there's almost always a Gogoro nearby, and every GoShare has two helmets in the trunk (4) Many bus lines in and outside the city. Buses come frequently and are cheap (5) Taxis and Ubers (6) Sidewalks almost everywhere (except the small streets) if you prefer to walk (7) Your own bicycle - the city is getting to be more bike-friendly, and the riverside parks are a cyclist's dream

I thought the tech was really cool. I was wondering if the could be used in different configurations and in different vehicles. Like could you put 3 or 4 in a vehicle to give it better range or power? Or put a single one on a bicycle (although at around 10kg it's probably too heavy)?

I've lived in Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan and I'd put them in that order as far as how dangerous it is to drive. I choose not to own a scooter here at this time - previously did when I lived in Taoyuan, which is not a crowded as Taipei. While MRT stations don't always get you within a few blocks of your destination, there's an option you didn't get into: YouBike. Many times YouBike can be used to efficiently get from the MRT station to within a block or two of your destination in Taipei (they have a great app for locations and available bikes). It's a hybrid option but you don't have to buy, rent, drive, or park a scooter. Best of all you just use your MRT card for all of it. Things like this make Taipei a better organized city and more liveable than Bangkok or Saigon. Great video!

Where I'm from (the Philippines) Gogoro is launching this year, hopefully it can help ease the traffic congestion you've documented in Manila and the worsening air pollution, too

Taipei scooters are crazy! Electric will be a major improvement over the noise and stink of the gas powered scooters for sure - their noise detracts from Taiwan’s charms. Curious about the stat you pulled re: VOCs, though - it says 2-stroke engines, but I believe most are 4 stroke, which has a drastically different emissions profile.

Love this classic LWIM story telling style

Nice video! Another advantage of BAAS is that Gogoro can charge their batteries in off peak hours to save costs, and also use a rate of charge that preserves battery health. They are also starting to use their battery swap stations for load balancing so that can be another source of revenue. And old batteries can be repurposed - for example to power traffic lights when the power is down.

Love your new techy videos, keep up the good work

This is awesome! It keeps people way safer and the batteries are taken care of properly. I think this works so well in a country like Taiwan or any country/city that has a cohesive culture that doesn't have too many problems with vandalism.

Without a doubt, the swiftness of the battery swapping service for scooters is just genuinely astounding! This is the way forward! Here’s hoping the cost is reasonable whilst helping to drastically cut down on pollution! Technology will continue to advance and generate more clean solutions.

Thank you for the video! I really liked that you also pointed out the current issues and problems. I think that there is a huge potential for this swapping tech

The charging battery stations would be a great idea in NYC! We have a lot of apartment fires here because of plug-in electric vehicles; plus having ev in New York gives you tax reimbursement for cars, it should be expanded to motorized vehicles that would push more people to switch over

I slightly disagree with what the woman said and about prices in general. If you take full advantage of the government subsidies you can get a Gogoro scooter, basic one with 2 batteries for around 50K NTD (Gogoro Viva MIX), while a cheap gas scooter is also around that range. The cheap single-battery Gogoro Viva is around 30K NTD (50cc class). While the Gogoro Supersport or Yamaha EC-05 will cost around 110K without subsidies, so down to 80K if you maximise everything. While a similarly powerful gas scooter will cost the same or slightly more (100k or more). The price of "fuel" is highly dependent on what plan you use. A regular gas scooter uses about 3L/100KM which costs 33NTD per litre. Let's say 100NT per 100KM. I have a 1300KM per month plan and pay 969 NTD, there are also unlimited plans available for 1500NTD. Especially for people who ride a lot per month, it's cheaper in the long run to have an electric scooter than a gas scooter, and gas prices are rising here as well. (3 NT in the last couple of months) I've been using a Yamaha EC-05 since 2021 and have been riding around over 1000KM per month while living in Zhunan ( sort of the central of Taiwan), which is a rural area. There are more swapping stations than petrol stations in Taiwan. The real world range (city and a bit overland) is around 50-60KM per charge. During my trip around Taiwan (2 people on scooter) we managed up to 75KM per charge, although we never tried to push it that far and the 75KM was a mistake because we were lazy 🤣. I`m glad to see that finally someone with a wider audience is covering this topic as I think this gogoro "movement" is really awesome. Sadly I don't live in Tamsui during the request of people who have gogoro, I could identify every place you've been in Tamsui as it's my new neighbourhood 😅.

So interesting and well researched as always in your videos👏

I truly believe that this is the future of two wheeled mobility and Gogoro have a proven business model. So I've been an early investor and so far, very disappointed in the stock performance. I hope they can bring their business into other parts of the world, especially where I live; Thailand. I'm sure it would be a success there.

I'm half Taiwanese & have lived in Taiwan for 12 years. Basically everyone I know that has bought a new scooter has opted for a Gogoro. They're fast, have good tech & are cleaner than gas scooters. I believe Taiwan needs to eliminate all gas scooters through government buyback programs, solve the scooter parking issue that clutters streets & sidewalks, & enforce traffic laws if it wants to truly become a cleaner, safer modern society.

If only Taiwanese government can improve on pedestrian walkability and public transport it would be better to further reduce the need of private vehicles to commute around.

There is gogoro scooters in Germany too but when you park your scooter and the battery is low, there comes a service car and swap the batteries for the next person whos gonna rent it

Super interesting video! I definitely think this recharge method for EVs could be useful, especially for long-distance travels. One thing specifically in Taiwan that I wonder about is the efficiency of the scooters, in the sense that depending on how efficient they are and how clean/dirty the electricity that powers the battery is, traditional scooters might even have a lower CO2 impact than electric ones. I doubt this is the case for Taiwan considering coal "only" makes 35% of the total electricity generation, their plan of closing down their nuclear plants definitely doesn't help in ensuring emissions for EVs stay/become even lower than what they currently are, hopefully they change course of action and keep them operating. I spent some time in China almost 10 years ago and already then there were many many electric scooters, it's quite incredible to see how much more common not only scooters, but specifically electric scooters were and still are in Asia compared to Western countries.

a scooter with interchangeable batteries is genius and the fact the manufacturer has battery stations is awesome you don't have to worry about battery derogation

I’ve always thought that this is the program that automobiles need to adopt to prevent them turning into trash when the batteries need replaced.

Great video and thanks for all the accompanying data. As someone who used to ride their bicycle around Taiwan, any reduction of gas powered scooters would have been very welcome! Interesting that Taiwan is a place in the sweet spot of high-scooter ridership with an accompanying comparatively higher economic purchasing power per person. Seems ripe for increased usage of the system.

I am a very pro-gas industry person. I used to work for ExxonMobil. However, there is no denying that battery vehicles are the future and energy storage (batteries) is the way to go. Refining and implementing this technology is the best direction to move forward. This has nothing to do with green technology or green thinking it's just that once high energy storage batteries become reality it's the better choice. We are not Earth creatures. We are atmosphere creatures. Earth will be fine with or without us but without an atmosphere we are doomed.

You are so brave using the scooter in Taiwan! Traffic is so crazy I wouldn't want to drive there. Love the MRT though!

I'm currently in Beijing and I note that helmets are rare among scooter riders (i presume they're not compulsory on the mainland), and riders race through red lights with apparent impunity. I am impressed to see the Taiwanese rider all wearing helmets and waiting at red lights

I like how everyone who should find a downside of a perfectly efficient form of transport gives example of two strokes of the last century or noise, not engine noise, but noise.

I was pretty amazed by these when I saw them on a visit in 2019. Looked so very handy!

It's good that they have charging stations to swap and store the batteries, now the batteries can self combust in one place, while being charged.

I am envy for this kind of revolutionary service. I followed the story of Gogoro since they started and I think that is a real solution for transforming our transporting industry. It is sad that they did not come to europe to do the same. At least they should import their bikes and batteries to Europe without the swapping, charging services. There are very few affordable, reliable e-scooter here.

Love the idea! it's crazy how asia with its big population adapt with their innovations.

very cool! Very underrated topic, thanks for the video!

Loooove when you cover transportation/land use topics!

Great video. As an outside observer (used to visit once per year but haven't been there since 2019; hoping to resume annual visits in 2024), Taiwan seems to be a bit behind (Europe) in decarbonizing its electrical grid. Ironic b/c it is otherwise known for being on the cutting edge of technology.

Greg you did great !!!!🎉🎉thank you for this topic. Its very crowded and too much pollution !!! It has to stop !!!

Indonesia also have high density of scooters and they also use their horns frequently so you get the engine noise plus the horns.

They are on to something there! Can't wait to see this battery tech go mainstream it's genius!

As someone how used to regularly rent a gas scooter on trips to Taipei, it's great to see this new generation of tech making the city quieter and more efficient.

This is absolutely genius. I wish EV cars were done like this.

"Alot" might be an understatement

wow, battery as a service is pretty great

1:40 Pollution from two-stroke scooters The vast majority of scooters are 4-stroke, same as car engines, and also with catalysers. There are very few smoking and poisonous 2-stroke engines left, I assume in the low 1-digit range. Therefore, 4-strokes should have been used as a basis to calculate pollution data. The majority of cars have only 1 or 2 passengers, same as the scooters. But scooters have about 1/2 gas consumption. My choice was a 200 cc scooter. It is a good video and information, please note I criticise only this single point. And lastly, imagine this: All these scooter in Vietnam, Indonesia and Taiwan would be cars. Or half of them only. OMG!

Very cool that you looked into this. I was in China about 5 years ago and I was surprised to see the number of scooters instead of bikes on the road since the last time I was there. And I think they were pretty much all electric scooters so I wondered how they were charging them. Still fun to see a family of 4 on one of them... I ride a maxi scooter in the US but want to switch it to an electric but still want a really good range. What we have in the small city that I live in are ebike stations. There's a number of them around the city and you can use the bike trails to get to places without being on the road for the most part.

I remember seeing the interview of entrepreneur of gogoro with the biggest smile on his face when he was starting the battery swapping scooter company.

As an all-in Gogoro investor I think there is a very interesting EV company that is now ramping manufacturing. It offers a car, truck and van that like the new cybertruck has drive-by-wire technology! Amazingly you can buy the stock for only 24 cents a share! Imagine buying Tesla when it launched! Don’t miss out!They’re just now ramping up production! The stock is GOEV! I just put a $1000 stock order with betting $. I know it’s a long-shot, but the recent pivot to sell B2B to fleet buyers such as Amazon as delivery vans give it a unique niche Tesla hasn’t addressed yet

I would love to see an EV scooter market take off in other countries!

Between this and that video Tom Scott did on that country that only has "cars" for things like home maintenance, construction, etc., something like this should be the main transportation for most people. That's amazing - and they take up so much less space than cars. Always going to be some problems, but here in the US where even huge SUVs and trucks are being made into EVs (the average person definitely doesn't need that), this would be a welcome change. Scooters seem much more pedestrian friendly than roads filled with cars, despite the drawbacks.

I visit Taiwan a lot. I personally opine that the reason for high scooter adoption rate in Taiwan was due to the design of roads. There are way too many traffic lights and crossroads, and the way their traffic light is designed, green but have to wait to turn. It makes more sense to ride a scooter that moves easier rather than a car that accelerates slower

I would like to say that the transportation in Taipei is nearly perfect. They have the MRT, extensive bus lines, YouBike bicycle-sharing system, GoShare Gogoro, taxis, and Uber. However, most Taiwanese still want to own at least one motorcycle because it's as essential to them as their feet.

Taiwan is an amazing place. I myself love electric scooters. but in Greece we still prefer gasoline ones

Interesting topic, it shows how battery swapping is something feasible, I would like to see that in my home country, right now we have heavy pollution in mid and big cities

As Taiwanese, we've seen numerous news reports critiquing the durability of Gogoro. For instance, in my case, I've been using my motorcycle for 25 years, and maintenance costs are practically non-existent. Gogoro, being a relatively new product, may not stand the test of time when measured in years. Despite claims of using environmentally friendly materials, its cost is considerably higher, and it appears to prioritize style over durability. I believe that durability is the most significant factor to consider. Gogoro, when left exposed to the elements on the road, is susceptible to damage from wind and sun exposure. In contrast, traditional Taiwanese motorcycles have evolved to endure outdoor conditions for several years without any problems. However, it's still advisable not to leave them near the seaside to prevent metal corrosion from saltwater exposure.

I was really supprise when were there in2018, a girl come to a public leasing battery holder in a small hotel where i stayed for exchanging her battery. Omg, like an Atm station, simply convinient, shocked me at that time. Taiwan is a very modern place, very different with their motherland, even their looks and sounds are same... a lot good things from Taiwan can be learnt for any other countries.

Been talking to my Taiwanese wife about this and i dont think there are as many electric scooters as they should. Gogoro has been around for quite some time and you dont see many. I was in Shanghai recently and i was surprised how many people had electric scooters.

Its so cool to have seen this video before I go to Taiwan for the first time! I'll be in Taipei and Taichung in January. Where does the electric power grid get its power though? Thanks for the interesting video!

Beautifully shot and to the point! This is a reference/bookmark video for sure. 👍

Good info. Just a heads up, NIO, the electric car company, has a unique car battery swap service. Which is to drive the car into the swap station, and the station will automatically remove the existing battery from the bottom of an NIO electric car and swap a fully charged one back on. It took about 15 minutes for the whole swap. Two of my friends have NIO, and they said watching the station do its thing is kinda fun.🤣

Heard last month that Gogoro Escooters will enter PH market soon.

In China, especially southern China, e.g. Guangdong, eScooters are the prevalent mode of transportation as well. During rush hour, it sometimes feels like you see flocks of migrating birds, so dense is the scooter traffic. The battery swap is an interesting idea indeed. Would make the usage figure higher for the batteries, avoids mostly the danger of home charging (battery fires are nasty!) and also alleviates range anxiety. Nice!

You are definetely a one man National Geographics. Awesome dude!!

It's funny to think some car manufacturers had a battery swapping feature. From the late 1800 until the early 1900s. If you were subscribed you'd drive into a garage and in about 3-5 minutes your car had a fully charged battery.

Another well done video on an Interesting subject. Greg just did a great video on Okinawa where they have a terrible problem, With TOO MANY CARS , Traffic, Pollution ect. Greg should bring this technology to Okinawa. If he succeeds he will likely be Elevated to "National Hero" status!

Nice advertorial for Gogoro. Would have been interesting to have had a more complete research on EV’s and batteries, including all EV’s (f.i. bicycles) and the other side of lithium.

Spend thousands of hours on electric high reach fork lifts. Two lead acid batteries per lift. One in the machine, one in the rack charging. Could lift a ton 27' in the air. The heavy battery provided stability. Took ten minutes to change the battery. Only needed to change the battery every 10 hrs or so.

I love that Gogoro Electrum, fun fact about that bike is that originally they didn't have those back handle/guard so people sit in the back would just slide off from the huge torque this beast produce, and it's pretty silly since nobody thought that it would be so nimble.

Very interesting and sort of like the cars with swappable batteries. Not sure about the 10 year lifespan though..

i always forget how much energy we 'waste' each day on just transportation alone "the battery is 3kwh" "last only 30-80km" jeez. i can power my entire appartment on 1 of those batteries for like half a freaking day.

When I left Taiwan in 1984, Taipei was so polluted, I've rarely seen any blue skies, and you smell the godawful car exhausts everywhere, but now you can see the blue sky all the time, and the exhausts are almost all gone.

When I heard that EVs needed 1 hour to charge to full battery, I did wonder if fuel stations could have EV Mechanics that could do a battery swap in 5-10 mins, making EV charging quite viable So when I heard about battery swap scooters, I must admit I was super currious, and quite thankful that it is the predominant way to charge EVs in Taiwan, as I was predicting. Very interesting.

I think you've mistaken a 2 stroke and 4 stroke scooter.

Kinda weird that Greg's wife is scared to appear on camera so he has to use his wife's sister as the partner in various videos

I just got back from the Philippines and visited the Gogoro store there in Makati. They just started selling their scooters there this month and have 5 battery swap stations in metro manila. Their scooters are definitely pricey compared to other similar motorcycles, but they're targeting a wealthier demographic and I think the main selling point will be that they're more fun to drive. They have >2x the torque of comparable sized motorcycles.

This is the right solution not only for Scooters but for EV cars as well. This should be implemented instead of "charging" stations Robotic replacement of battery pack for EV cars...

My first lesson in riding an electric scooter was through Ho Chi Minh city commute traffic. I lived to tell the story 🙂

The best thing that you can do in Taiwan is to hop on a U-Bike. It's the bicycle share system. You can go somewhere, do something for your health and safe the environment at the same time. The first 30 minutes are even for free.

I really hope for success with this. It could easily be extended to light 4-wheel vehicles with the same type of battery pack, and with swapping taking less time than tanking gas you get infinite range in practice. Both exhaust of chemical pollutants and noise could be lowered a lot, and the scooter is about as practical as a motorized vehicle can be.

I feel like the Netherlands could use these Gogoro scooters. It's a small and relatively wealthy country so it should be an easy market.

Thank you for the video, i really appreciate the all the important information you researched and presented. I was thinking about bringing gogoro to my country but now I see the many issues, This has changed my perspective on this subject.

It's always interesting to see your content!

That Gogoro station is slick!

These “statistics” always get me. It states that TWO STROKE scooters have the highest pollution per capita, but in this entire video I saw nothing but 4 stroke scooters 😂

I think the battery swap is a genius way to go. No upfront battery cost for the consumer, and no time lost for charging. The hardest thing will be that a lot of places in the world would cry about a battery monopoly, or have so many battery types that the convenience is lost.

I know about Gogoro for about 10 years now I think. I remember sending inquiry to buy one so that I can import it to Europe but transport fees and registration problem put that idea off. I remember that Gogoro was supposed to enter European market about 5 years ago? Still didn't happen AFAIK

Battery swap been around in the Mainland for years, even for cars like the NEO who installed station to do car battery swaps in less time than it takes to fuel a car.

The reason battery swapping is more expensive is that it also covers the cost of the battery. A battery swap system for cars would also be more expensive than gas.

Norway has a similar model for their domestic electric automobile Market. There's not a national roadway so you can't go very far from here to there, are basically stuck within the metropolitan area making long trips an impossibility. Their locally-made electric cars are part of the electrical grid, keeping your car plugged in at all times supports the electrical grid, charging at night time when the wind is strong supporting power Peaks during the day, the batteries are owned by The Electric Company. Driving all day, you swapped the batteries out automatically at the service station, a robotic device removes and replaces the batteries in the vehicles whenever they need a recharge, you swap the battery out, taking about 90 seconds. No need for charging stations or time wasting for the batteries to charge, Tesla cars are popular but are not hot-swappable.

Love it, seen the concept but never realised this is a real thing. Very insightful

In the early 1900's there was a lot of electric taxis, and I mean a lot in NYC. They ran on lead acid batteries and sat on a wood plank in the trunk of the vehicle. They had battery swapping stations all of NYC for these services and it was like a NASCAR pitstop for electric cars lol

The ola S1 air from india's OLA ELECTRIC provides a range of atleast 100km on a single charge. We charge it at home at night and during lunch time. There is no need for battery sway station if the range is 100km for use within cities and even in highways in india fast charger take 30 minutes to charge it to 80% with ola hyperchargers. So battery sway won't work well in india. But if the gogoro scooter is priced half the price of ola s1 ( 120000 Rs ) which will be 60000 Rs then it would make sense. But with upcoming Ola S1X which costs 100000Rs along with battery the gogoro won't find much traction.

Woww cool to see you in Taipei ❤

I believe it is the future. It has a lot more potential than current EVs.

E Scooter, Mopeds, dirtbikes, Motorcycles and Cabinerollers are definetly the future of Transport, I love mine, its fast, fun cheap and good for the Environment. They need to have removable Batteries, otherwise their design sucks. Its so cool to see Swapable Batteries on the street.

Thanks for the video. From the places I’ve been to on the USA, although electricity at home is cheaper than gas per mile, that’s not the case with public charging. Electricity costs at public stations cost as much as gas for a car that gets 25mpg.