Hero MotoCorp partners with Taiwan-based Gogoro to bring e-scooters and battery swap tech to India

Hero MotoCorp and Gogoro tie up to bring battery swapping infrastructure to India

Electric vehicles are the future, this is a trend globally, and in India too, EVs have been gaining increasing push. The newest development here is Hero MotoCorp, which has now announced a strategic partnership with Gogoro to develop EVs and charging infrastructure in India.

Gogoro is a Taiwan-based e-scooter manufacturer that has become popular since its first vehicle launched back in 2015. Gogoro’s belief in battery swapping has lead the company to manage over 2,000 swapping stations handling over 265,000 swaps in a single day.

The battery swap stations take away from the long charging times that every EV owner inevitably has to deal with. The batteries and the charging stations all connect to a cloud service by Gogoro. This keeps a check on individual battery health and charging capabilities and then decides how fast the pack needs to charge. For the customer, there is no delay as they can just swap out the battery with another fully charged one.

To try and bring this technology to India, Hero MotoCorp will try and gain the design and charging and swapping infrastructure. The company could in all probability launch e-scooters based on Gogoro vehicles with Hero branding and after a launch in India, could export to other countries.

Pawan Munjal, Chairman and CEO of Hero MotoCorp said this strategic partnership is in line with their vision of ‘Be the Future of Mobility’.

"Today marks another major milestone in our journey, as we bring Hero’s leadership in two-wheelers, our global scale and innovation powerhouse, with the leadership of Gogoro in swapping business models, as they have demonstrated over the years in Taiwan and the rest of the world," he stated.

Horace Luke, founder and CEO of Gogoro said the transformation of urban mobility and evolution of smart cities is at a "critical stage."

"With more than 225 million gas-powered two-wheel vehicles in India, the need for smart and sustainable electric transportation and refuelling is vital. The Hero-Gogoro partnership addresses these challenges and will leverage Hero’s market strength and Gogoro’s industry leading innovations to deliver smart vehicles and refuel with Gogoro Network battery swapping," Luke added.

E-scooters are seeing a lot of traction in India, with offerings in the space from Bajaj Chetak, TVS iQube and even the Ather 450X, a company in which Hero already owns 35 percent stake. Additionally, Ola Electric is also readying an e-scooter of their own.