Gogoro Electric Scooter Plucked From An Alternate Future

[CES 2015] Form and function ought to always go together – and we are firm believers of that, unless you happen to kickstart a brand new market which no one else has a stake in it, such as Henry Ford and his Model T at the beginning. Still, see how many different kinds of car designs we have on the road these days? So too, does the electric scooter – and the Gogoro electric scooter which hails from a Taiwanese startup is such an example.

The Gogoro is an electric scooter which has been specially designed for commuters who want to do their part in lowering their carbon footprint. However, it does not require any kind of plugging in to juice it up, since it will target user-swappable batteries instead – with the installation of a vast network of battery swapping stations which will obviously start by covering major cities worldwide first.

Sounds like an idea, but at the moment and taking existing infrastructure into consideration, it would be more prudent to have it juice up via a regular wall plug – as this does not need a heavy investment to include battery swapping stations all over the place. Also known as the Smartscooter, it will feature all LED headlights and taillights that boast of programmable action sequences, an always-on Bluetooth connection, and acceleration of touching 50 km/h (31 mph) in a matter of 4.2 seconds, with a top speed of 60 mph. Battery life is estimated to be 60 miles between a swap, which makes it decent for an intra-city ride.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Green, Transportation
Tags: CES, CES 2015, scooter