The vehicles started rising in popularity when the country’s leading e-scooter producer, Taipei City-headquartered Gogoro Inc. launched Powered by Gogoro Network. Offering a swap-in-swap-out solution for batteries, PBGN is providing services to six e-scooter manufacturers.
Peng Ming-I, Gogoro chief product officer, said PBGN has over 2,000 battery-swapping stations around Taiwan. As locals tend to live in areas with high population densities and few private parking spaces, providing public facilities like PBGN is the most sensible solution, he added.
Kwang Yang Motor Co. Ltd., based in southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City, is the country’s largest gasoline motorbike producer. But it plays its part in advancing the government’s green transportation mantra through its self-operated Ionex network comprising battery-charging and -swapping stations.
The rapid rise of e-scooters in Taiwan owes much to farsighted green transportation policymaking from the government. (Staff Photo / Chin Hung-hao)
Kymco is also keen on rolling out high-end electric models, including RevoNex. Debuting in Milan in November 2019, the motorcycle can reach speeds of up to 205 kph, a definite attraction for more adventurous consumers in the market.
Taiwan’s public and private sectors warrant praise for efforts popularizing e-scooters. The former offers an array of financial incentives, while the latter is spurring cutting-edge design big on practicality.
About 430,000 e-scooters are registered in Taiwan, and 10 percent of motorcycles sold in 2020 run on electricity. The Ministry of Economic Affairs subsidizes each purchase of e-scooters with up to NT$7,000 (US$250) and an additional NT$3,000 if the battery is made domestically.
The cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration allocates extra subsidies of up to NT$3,000 to buyers of all electric two-wheelers, including those not covered by MOEA—namely models running at speeds of less than 25 kph.
RevoNex electric motorcycle is launched by Kwang Yang Motor Co. Ltd. to great fanfare three years ago in Milan. (Courtesy of KYMCO)
Despite broader marketplace acceptance of e-scooters in Taiwan, the vehicles are not forecast to dominate sales in the near future. One of the reasons cited by industry analysts is the government’s decision not to end sales of gasoline motorbikes at this time.
But the EPA is ensuring that new gasoline models meet strict emissions requirements. It has raised official standards for emissions seven times since 1987, and is subsidizing the purchase of scooters that meet the newest emission standards. These steps are seen as hastening the demise of the highly polluting vehicles.
Chien Ching-wu, vice president of Taipei-headquartered China Motor Corp., believes e-scooters will eventually go mainstream. The vehicles are still a minority on Taiwan’s roads, he said, adding that the pie is big enough and the green trend clear enough for serious players in the sector to expect phenomenal growth. (E) (By Oscar Chung)
Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mofa.gov.tw
(This article is adapted from “Buzzing on Bikes” in the March/April 2021 issue of Taiwan Review. The Taiwan Review archives dating to 1951 are available online.)