Gogoro plans battery swapping with HPCL in India
Gogoro’s battery-swapping infrastructure plans in India have been made more concrete with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL) which operates more than 21,000 retail outlets nationwide.
Horace Luke, founder and CEO of Gogoro, announced the partnership with HPCL to roll out “thousands” of Gogoro battery swapping stations across the oil company’s retail outlets “in the coming years.”
Neither company is being more specific about the plans, saying only that the broad battery-swapping infrastructure for two-wheel vehicles will grow and sustain a leading electric vehicle ecosystem across India’s cities.
Gogoro is going from strength to strength in India. Earlier this year, the electric scooter manufacturer and battery swapping infrastructure specialist announced an ‘Ultra Meg Project’ with the State of Maharashtra to manufacture vehicles, battery packs and battery swapping stations. The concept Gogoro will implement in India’s largest industrialized State with more than 120 million residents relies on its business model in Taiwan.
Gogoro’s business model was recently furthered with a partnership with Italy’s Enel X in April to combine thousands of battery-swapping stations into one virtual power plant. Here, the stored batteries are on stand-by to balance the grid by adding or receiving excess energy.
Gogoro’s founder and CEO says of the planned partnership with HPCL: “India is in the early stages of a massive electric transformation of its urban two-wheel transportation system, and it is increasingly evident that battery swapping is a critical component to broad adoption, so building out the swapping infrastructure is crucial.”
Luke further iterated that Gogoro is working with the Indian business community and national and local governments to deploy a battery swapping and electric vehicle ecosystem “that is open, accessible and scalable.”
Gogoro is also planning networks in China, is active in the Philippines and South Korea, and recently completed an IPO in the United States. The company says its network currently supports nearly 600,000 riders, with more than 1.3 million smart batteries circulating through its network of 12,000 battery-swapping stations.
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