The government’s new and larger-scale subsidies for scooter replacements would drive electric scooter demand, Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) said yesterday, boosting electric scooter’s market share to about 20 percent this year, from 15 percent last year.
The spread of COVID-19 has also helped propel electric scooter sales as people avoid public transportation to prevent contracting the virus, the company said.
“The epidemic gave an unexpected boost [to sales],” Gogoro chief marketing executive Chen Yen-yang (陳彥揚) told the Taipei Times at the launch of the Gogoro 3 Delight, a new addition to the Gogoro 3 series.
Photo: Yang Ya-min, Taipei Times
“People are more willing to spend on new scooters now,” Chen said. “In February, we saw sales of Gogoro 2 and Gogoro 3 series jump 300 percent from January, as those models are suitable for long commutes.”
Growth is expected to continue the rest of the year, he said.
In the first week of this month, electric scooters accounted for 15.33 percent of overall new scooter sales in Taiwan, up from 11 percent at the end of last month, he said.
For this year, Gogoro forecasts that about 200,000 new electric scooters would be sold, versus the whole scooter market, totaling 950,000 units.
Central and local governments are providing subsidies for riders who replace their old four-stroke scooters with electric scooters or new gas-fueled scooters, starting this year. More than 5 million scooter owners are eligible for the subsidies.
The subsidies have a wider coverage than a previous program, which was available to only between 700,000 and 800,000 two-stroke scooter owners in the past few years.
Based on new subsidy schemes, owners are eligible to receive as much as a NT$28,000 (US$929) subsidy for replacing an old four-stroke scooter.
To cope with increased electric scooter demand, Gogoro aims to add 1,000 traditional scooter stores to its sales network to promote its scooters and provide maintenance services, Chen said.
Last year, only 100 traditional scooter stores teamed up with Gogoro.
As Gogoro has found success domestically, it plans to expand to Israel this year by selling its ultralight model, Gogoro VIVA, it said, but declined to provide more details about its overseas expansion.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
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