Gogoro Smartscooter to launch in Amsterdam

The smart scooter startup Gogoro announced that it plans to expand sales of its electric scooter in the bicycle city of Amsterdam  starting in the first half of 2016. The company also plans to expand to other cities in Europe in the second half of the next year.

The Taiwanese company has been testing its electric scooter network for few months in Taipei. It has started shipping its scooters in the city four months ago after a pilot program.

Gogoro' CEO Horace Luke said, according to Re/code, that the company has chosen Amsterdam for its next electric scooter technology try out as the city has been looking for ways to get additional four-wheeled vehicles off the road, and it makes a good fit for Gogoro market. The company plans to open a demonstration center in the city early next year.

Gogoro electric scooters have a different design from other electric scooters. Gogoro also has a series of GoStation battery swapping stations, according to Engadget.

When the battery on a scooter runs low, the rider can pull into a station to swap their low batteries with the fresh ones.

Gogoro also plans to build its GoStation in Amsterdam. The company is partnering with Amsterdam's Smart City Experience Lab to make the battery swapping stations. It also has to partner closely with local governments to find space for its battery swapping stations.

Currently, the company has 90 GoStations in Taipei, a majority are located in gas stations owned by the Taiwanese government.

According to Forbes, Gogoro Smartscooter has an electric motor equivalent to a 125 cc engine that accelerates to 30mph in 4.2 seconds and maxes out at 60 mph. It has a colorful digital dashboard to display the rider's status.

The smart scooter offers a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone app, where users can lock and unlock their vehicle, check on the machine status, and customize features on the scooter, including customizing light patterns for headlights and taillights.

Gogoro Smartscooter comes with two lithium-ion removable batteries, which give it a range of 60 miles. Instead of charging up the batteries, the riders can swap out the batteries in one of the GoStations.

The company also includes to the scooters two years of free maintenance, one year of theft insurance, and two years of free battery swapping from GoStations.

To help the expansion, Gogoro has raised $130 million in funding including a new investment from the National Development Fund of Taiwan and Panasonic. The startup Gogoro has raised total funding of $180 million since its found in 2011.

Gogoro has managed to sell 2,000 smart scooters in Taiwan over the past few months. The low-end model of the scooters priced at $2,679, a standard model at $2,984, and the highest-end model at $3,288. It is still unclear if it will cost more in other cities.