Gogoro Inc and three other electric scooter manufacturers using Gogoro’s system have been ordered to submit plans before Friday next week to recall electric scooters with unreliable battery performance, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said yesterday.
More than 500 Gogoro electric scooter riders have since last year reported abnormalities in the scooter’s battery depletion rate, leading to sudden power outages while riding and even traffic accidents.
New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) and Vision Zero convener Lin Po-Hsun (林柏勛) further raised the issue in a news conference in Taipei yesterday, in which officials of the MOTC, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and Executive Yuan’s Consumer Protection Committee also participated.
Photo: CNA
When encountering battery problems, riders often accepted compensation packages from Gogoro or scooter rental operators, such as rebates on the monthly rent or riders helping each other by putting a sticker on the battery to warn the next users about the problems, Chiu said.
Both Gogoro and the government failed to offer adequate protection to scooter riders, he said.
Article No. 9 of Gogoro’s battery service contract with consumers essentially exempts the scooter manufacturer from the responsibility of guaranteeing the quality and reliability of battery performance, Chiu said, adding that the court has yet to issue opinions about the article’s legality.
The government has not stipulated the terms of agreement that should be stated in the standardized contract for battery service, based on the authorization of Article 17 of the Consumer Protection Act (消費者保護法), Chiu said.
“A fair contract should guarantee the buyers’ right to receive an electric scooter that operates smoothly, and buyers have the right to reasonably expect reliable battery performance. The government should require that the guarantee for the battery’s quality be stated in the scooter’s battery service contract in accordance with the Consumer Protection Act and Terms of Agreement in the Standardized Automobile Maintenance Contract (汽車維修定型化契約應記載及不得記載事項),” Chiu said.
“The guarantee should state the battery has the quality that was agreed upon when signing the contract and does not contain defects that diminish the value of the vehicle or make the vehicle unfit for any regular or specific uses,” he added.
Michael Chao (趙晉緯), a specialist in the Department of Public Transportation and Supervision, said that specifications of a scooter’s battery are stipulated by the MOEA, while the MOTC would ask Gogoro to review whether they are flaws in the design of the vehicle.
About 80,000 problematic batteries have been removed from scooters in circulation, Chao said, citing Gogoro’s data. Of the 700,000 electric scooters in Taiwan, about 600,000 use Gogoro’s system, which is produced by Gogoro, Aeonmotor Co (宏佳騰), Yamaha Motor Taiwan and Suzuki Taiwan, Chao said.
“Based on the Regulations for Motor Vehicle Safety Investigation, Recall, Correction, Supervision and Management (汽車安全性調查召回改正及監督管理辦法), we have asked the four scooter manufacturers to submit plans to recall scooters before Friday next week, in which they should estimate the scale of the recall and indicate whether scooters have design issues,” Chao said, adding that most of the problems were found in first-generation and second-generation batteries.
Consumer Protection Committee deputy director Chen Hsing-hung (陳星宏) said that the disclaimer in the battery service contract contradicts the relevant regulations in the Consumer Protection Act and infringes consumers’ rights, adding it would meet with MOTC and MOEA officials to review Gogoro’s standardized contract with consumers.
In response, Gogoro said: “We are carefully reviewing any incident that could affect riders’ safety and have informed users about our ways to address these issues as well as compensatory measures. We will continue to give them updates about better solutions that would be taken to ensure a quality and safe service.”
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS