Katherine Noyes at TechNewsWorld writes Gogoro: The Little Electric Scooter That Could?

In short it is an electric scooter with a fast-swappable battery. They propose to have a network of swapping stations. We saw this attempted with Better Place, which did not turn out well, as well as the early days of EV taxis in New York with the lead acid trust at the turn of the last century..

Location, Location, Location

“Being in Minnesota, currently with a -25F wind chill, I am not sure smart scooters will work everywhere,” said David Levinson, a transportation analyst and professor at the University of Minnesota.

However, “in the markets where they do work, battery swapping is good idea, and six seconds would be very fast,” he told TechNewsWorld.

Gogoro’s big challenge will be deploying its network of swapping stations, “since if they are not near where you are already going, they may not be of much use,” Levinson said.

“In other words, unless GoStations are as ubiquitous as gas stations, swapping will remain inconvenient for many potential users,” he pointed out.

“We will need to see a shipping product before we can really determine whether and how well this works,” added Levinson, “but I wish them good luck and hope they can find a viable deployment path with upfront capital expenses and sell their product.”