Hsiao Ding Hong fell in love with his electric moped right away. The battery-powered two-wheeler doesn’t make noise, vibrate or give off any emissions. It has a sleek gray-blue exterior, can be controlled via smartphone app and even sings for Hsiao on his birthday. Best of all, it takes just one minute to get a full charge.
That’s because Gogoro, the Taipei-based company that sold Hsiao his moped, lets him swap out its two batteries as often as he likes for up to 630 kilometers of driving each month, all for a subscription fee of 849 new Taiwan dollars ($27.80). Every weekday, as the 26-year-old university administrator rides to work in Taiwan’s Hualien city, Hsiao’s app identifies the nearest swapping station with charged batteries in stock. Once there, he pulls out his moped’s depleted batteries and inserts them into a vending-machine-like device, which then distributes fresh ones. Within 60 seconds, he’s on the road again with 64 km of new range.
"Had battery swapping not been an option, I wouldn’t have purchased an electric scooter,” says Hsiao, who drove a gasoline-powered model until 2021. "The battery-swapping service is really appealing because it saves a lot of time.”