SINGAPORE – Taiwanese electric motorcycle maker Gogoro will offer its first battery swopping station at a Shell service station in August.
This follows the appointment of Cycle & Carriage (C&C) as its distributor for its battery swopping system and Smartscooter electric motorcycles in Singapore, announced on July 17.
The station at 158 Yio Chu Kang Road will be the first in a growing network that C&C is planning for in partnership with Shell Recharge – the EV charging service by the global energy provider – over the next two years.
In an ongoing trial announced in March 2023, Gogoro and C&C partnered with food delivery platform foodpanda to trial Gogoro’s Smartscooters and battery-swopping platform, to gain insights in sustainable mobility solutions in Singapore.
Under this trial, C&C installed two battery swop stations at its service centres in Ubi, near the Paya Lebar Airport, and in Alexandra Road.
Twenty electric motorcycles were allowed for the test, under special permission granted by the Land Transport Authority (LTA). The delivery riders who took part in the pilot clocked an average monthly mileage of 2,200km and swopped batteries up to two times daily, C&C said. The motorcycles can travel up to 100km on a full charge.
Swoppable battery technology enables the rider to remain mobile, instead of waiting for hours to charge up.
Foodpanda and the motor distributor are said to be in discussion to lease the electric motorcycles to the delivery riders beyond the trial period.
After the conclusion of the trial, C&C will offer the electric motorcycles and battery swopping service commercially. It will unveil a Gogoro showroom in Ubi, where its new showroom for electric commercial vehicle brands opened on July 10 is located.
Three different Gogoro electric motorcycles with battery swopping technology are expected to be launched by the last quarter of 2024. The motorcycles can be bought or leased, with battery swopping, service and maintenance included in the leasing package.
Riders use a dedicated Gogoro smartphone app to access the battery swopping stations. C&C did not say how much it will cost to swop batteries when the service is launched commercially.
Besides C&C’s trial with Gogoro, LTA also permitted Singapore-based MO Batteries to trial its battery swopping technology for electric motorcycles from February 2023. In April 2024, The Straits Times reported that the company will not proceed to launch a battery swopping service for electric motorcycles in 2024 as planned.
In June, local company Evotion Labs unveiled its first battery swop station at a motorcycle showroom at Serangoon Road. Meant exclusively for the Niu electric motorcycles it sells, the company announced plans to have 22 swop stations by the end of 2024 and plans to expand to 400 stations over the next two years.