Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) yesterday launched its first electric bicycle, the Gogoro Eeyo 1, in Taiwan, after unveiling the bike in New York in late May and in France on Tuesday.
The company said it would also introduce the series in other European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands.
The “Eeyo project” is the fourth of Gogoro’s eight projects that concentrate on smart transportation, which includes Gogoro’s electric scooter, battery swap system and electric scooter sharing service, company founder and chief executive officer Horace Luke (陸學森) told a media briefing in Taipei.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
“There are various types of city commuters. We will not focus on only one type of commuter. We want to expand our reach to overseas markets by offering different technologies and products,” Luke said.
“The electric bike market is much larger than that of electric scooters,” Luke said.
In Germany, 1.8 million electric scooters were sold last year, but sales of electric bikes were two to three times that number, he said.
With a carbon fiber frame, Gogoro Eeyo 1 weighs only 11.8kg — almost half the weight of electric bikes on the market — and carries a minimum price tag of NT$119,980, the company said.
Gogoro has packed all of the bike’s electric components — including a motor, battery and sensors — inside its rear hub.
The company has set up its first flagship store for the Eeyo series at Taipei 101. The bikes will also be available at select stores operated by Gogoro and eight stores of its distributor Pentagon Co (聚昕), it said.
Overseas, the Eeyo series would only be available in virtual stores in the initial stage, Gogoro said.
The company said it is in talks with several bike vendors over potential electric bike production, duplicating the business model it has for electric scooters.
Gogoro produces electric scooters for Yamaha Motor Taiwan Co (台灣山葉), Aeon Motor Co (宏佳騰), Motive Power Industry Co (摩特動力) and Suzuki Motor Corp in Taiwan.
“There are a lot of small-scale bike makers that do not have the capability to develop their own electric models. They can opt for Gogoro to help, if they want to tap into this market,” Gogoro marketing chief Peng Ming-i (彭明義) told reporters.
With Gogoro’s rear hub, those conventional bicycles can be transformed into electric bikes, Peng said.
“We are in talks with some partners,” he said.
Gogoro said it does not plan to launch sharing services for its electric bikes in the short term.
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