Foxconn & Gogoro team up to expand battery swapping
Apple supplier Foxconn and scooter maker Gogoro today announced an MoU to speed up the expansion of Gogoro’s battery swapping system. Gogoro will use Foxconn’s extensive production capacities to scale up, given recent market announcements in India and China.
The company further refers to a growing interest in its battery swapping ecosystem around the world. With the Foxconn partnership, Gogoro will focus on its own product design, technology development, marketing and branding, expanded distribution and customer service channels.
Horace Luke, founder and CEO of Gogoro, called the need to scale production “vital”. Young Liu, Chairman of Foxconn, added the partnership was to enable “mass distribution of Gogoro’s smart battery swapping ecosystem and vehicles.”
Foxconn and Gogoro will also begin collaborating on R&D projects, including smart batteries, vehicle engineering and manufacturing.
Today’s statement did not, however, disclose any concrete targets for the expansion of production capacity the partners envision.
Established in 2011, Gogoro has been at the forefront of battery swapping for electric scooters and boasts 400,000 riders and 2,100 battery swapping stations to date. It also says the Gogoro Network is hosting 270,000 daily battery swaps, accumulating nearly 200 million total battery swaps.
While mostly active in Taiwan, Gogoro announced in May an expansion to China where it teamed up with two scooter manufacturers, Yadea and DCJ. The company had also entered into a similar agreement with Hero Moto, one of India’s largest two-wheeler manufacturers, in April. Together, “powered by Gogoro” exchange stations will be set up, and Hero will launch corresponding models.
Also established in Taiwan but already in 1974, Hon Hai Technology Group, known as Foxconn, is among the world’s largest electronics manufacturer. Foxconn has identified electric vehicles as an important new business area and unveiled an electric car platform in 2020. This was followed by a series of collaborations, including with Geely, Fisker, and Thailand’s state-owned energy company PTT.
More recently, Foxconn promotes the MIH Alliance by connecting over 1,600 software and hardware partners, reportedly including Nidec. The Japanese company is developing the e-drive for Foxconn’s new EV platform set to debut this autumn. The company also announced looking into developing battery material just a week ago. Foxconn has emphasised several times that it wants to develop a solid-state battery ready to launch by 2024.
With today’s announcement, the company says it was expanding beyond four wheels to include Gogoro’s two-wheel Smartscooter vehicles as well as its battery swapping technologies.
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