Taiwan Today

A greener future where electric scooters are the norm is within reach in Taiwan.

Scooters are ubiquitous in Taiwan, from the congested avenues of Taipei City to the near-empty mountain roads in the southern county of Chiayi. Taiwanese like the vehicles for their convenience and low cost compared to cars. Outside much of Taipei and New Taipei City, which enjoy comprehensive metro and bus networks, personal transportation is the norm and scooters remain the default option for many.

With Taiwan possessing the highest density of motorcycles and scooters in the world, at 375 per square kilometer, air pollution caused by the vehicles’ emissions is a concern. In a 2014 study, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland found that two-stroke scooters, which are no longer manufactured or sold in Taiwan but remain a common sight on the roads, may be the single biggest source of vehicular emissions. They potentially spew out thousands of times more pollutants relative to the amount of fuel consumed than heavy trucks or buses, the report found.

The government offers cash incentives to encourage users to turn over their two-stroke scooters and has set a target of phasing them out completely by 2020. Additional subsidies are available if riders want to swap their two-strokes for an electric alternative. These measures provide an opportunity for e-vehicle manufacturers, who see the potential to permanently reshape the nation’s scooter market in favor of a more eco-friendly form of transportation.

Creating an Industry

At the forefront of Taiwan’s fledgling e-scooter movement is Gogoro, a Taipei-based startup founded in 2011 by Horace Luke (陸學森) and Matt Taylor, both alumni of Microsoft Corp. and HTC Corp. Luke has a bold vision for the company. “Gogoro is more than a startup. This is the start of an industry,” he said in a company statement, adding that the firm aims to build a “metropolitan ecosystem with better connectivity, easier access to energy and a more enjoyable urban living experience.”

That quest begins with the Gogoro SmartScooter, which the company claims is the world’s first high-performance, zero-emissions, two-wheeled electric vehicle. Swappable batteries available at vending machines called GoStations power the e-scooters.

The SmartScooter launched in Taiwan in June 2015 priced at roughly US$4,100 before government subsidies. The Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration offers up to NT$4,000 (US$129) toward purchases of new e-scooters, with local governments across the nation providing additional amounts ranging from NT$600 (US$19.40) to NT$12,000 (US$387). Even with these incentives, consumers balked at the price and Gogoro moved to reduce it to about US$3,000 by September 2015.

Sales picked up fast, with the company shipping a total of 6,000 units in 2015 and a further 13,000 last year. Gogoro’s sales comprised almost two-thirds of the total 20,000 electric scooters sold in Taiwan in 2016, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

“Gogoro differs from its competitors because it overturns popular e-scooter stereotypes such as being too slow, having insufficient range and lacking aesthetic qualities,” said Eric Chang (張仙平‬), an automotive electronics analyst at Taipei-based market intelligence firm TrendForce.

A standard SmartScooter can accelerate from 0 to 50 kph in just 4.2 seconds and has a top speed of 95 kph. The high-performance Gogoro S can go from 0 to 50 kph in just 3.7 seconds. “The No. 1 reason anyone buys a Gogoro scooter is performance,” said Yang Chen (陳彦揚‬), the company’s marketing manager. “It’s the only e-scooter to reach the performance standard of a gasoline scooter.”

Ironing out Kinks

While Taiwan’s e-scooter market has made impressive strides in the past two years, the vehicles still have a long way to go. E-scooters accounted for a little over 2 percent of overall scooter sales in 2016, according to the MOEA. Gogoro and China Motor Corp., based in northern Taiwan’s Taoyuan City, dominate this small e-scooter market, with shares of 62 percent and 22 percent, respectively. But in Gogoro’s case, the company’s products are still priced out of the range of most local consumers, according to TrendForce’s Chang.

Bird Liang (梁子凌), chief technology officer of Taipei-based accelerator AppWorks and the owner of a SmartScooter, agrees that the vehicle is costly for what it offers. “It’s the best performing of the e-scooters and the design is good, but the fare plan is fairly expensive,” he said, referring to the monthly battery rental fee.

Liang’s plan, the least expensive offered by Gogoro, costs NT$299 (US$9.65) per month for 100 kilometers. For each additional kilometer, the price is NT$2.50 (US$0.08). “It’s not competitive with gasoline scooters.”

Sharon Liu (劉力瑄‬), an independent app developer and owner of a China Motor E-moving EM198 e-scooter, has been underwhelmed with her electric vehicle. She uses it to take her children to and from school in Taipei’s hilly Neihu District. Typically, it can only reach speeds of 20-30 kph going uphill and 40 kph when the road is flat. “I feel a lot of pressure when there’s a car behind me,” she said.

Liu is pleased with the EM198’s reliable battery, which she charges at home by plugging it into the wall. The main issue, she explained, is the insufficient number of charging stations in Taipei.

Building for the Future

According to Annie Shih (石育賢), a manager in the Automotive Industry and System Research Department of the Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK), a government-supported think tank in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu County, the largest hindrance to the wider adoption of e-scooters is the lack of charging stations. “You need them installed everywhere before electric scooters can become mainstream.”

There is reason for optimism in this regard. Out of necessity, Gogoro has moved swiftly to set up its GoStations and there are now more than 320 of the battery-swapping hubs around the island.

Ernest Huang (黃奕元‬), a manager in the electric vehicles division of China Motor, acknowledged that his company has yet to create an e-scooter suitable for the mass market, but is working to deliver one that is cheaper than gasoline scooters, with a cost per km at below NT$0.80 (US$0.03). “Taiwanese are increasingly accepting of e-scooters, but the price has to be right,” he said. “We’re not in a hurry to bring this product to market. We want to be sure we get it exactly right.”

TrendForce’s Chang recommends local governments incorporate e-scooters into their transportation networks. “Taiwan is very suitable for the development of ride-sharing businesses,” he said. In the long term, e-scooters could become part of a comprehensive mobility solution as they are able to serve as personal transport in the suburbs and rental or ride-sharing vehicles in urban centers, Chang added.

E-scooters have important business applications, too. In January, Chunghwa Post Co., Taiwan’s national postal service, announced that it would rent 1,000 electric scooters for its delivery workers. Within seven years, it intends to phase out its fleet of 9,000 gasoline motorcycles.

Some local governments have already successfully integrated e-scooters into their transportation networks. For instance, southeastern Taiwan’s Taitung County is home to 2,300 electric scooters used by locals and tourists. On Taitung’s Green Island and in outlying Penghu County, visitors receive a discount of NT$100 (US$3.23) per day on the rental of an electric scooter as part of local government efforts to boost low-carbon tourism.

The central government also plans to accelerate measures to encourage the adoption of e-scooters. In February, Economics Minister Lee Chih-kung (李世光) said the goal is to double sales of the vehicles this year. By strengthening incentives for buyers, he added, the government hopes to raise the total number of e-scooters sold in Taiwan to 200,000 by 2021.

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Matthew Fulco is a freelance journalist based in Taipei City.

Copyright © 2017 by Matthew Fulco