Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Interview with Gogoro founder Horace Luke — CES 2016”.
Hey everyone welcome to The Verge lounge here at CES 2016, I’m flat Sabbath and i’m joined by Horus, loose from Kogoro you’re, the chief co-founder, the CEO, the everything of the company, and so you have a bit of news to share with us here at CES. Well, as you know, go-girl is both a product and a vision. You know, gogoro is a high performance electric scooter that, along with the go-girl energy network, allows our customers to swap and go in the city anytime. They you know they want and, of course, with the climate change and the pollution issues that we’re facing today, and also with traffic congestion, we’re seeing in cities. You know evie, especially two-wheel electric vehicle. It’S gon na play an instrumental role in to making our lives better for the tomorrow, but there comes a challenge in how people would be able to.
Actually, you know adopt a electric vehicle, for example the city that actually gogoro is in in taipei, about 80 % of people in taipei. Don’T have access to parking and when they do have access to parking, it is not a private parking but off public parking. That makes charging a vehicle an absolute. You know, I would say a non-starter and in 2015 we’ve made a lot of progress, launching our first pilot city, of course, in in in August back in you know, back in Taipei, and up to today we have made some significant. I would say: adoption we’ve now shipped over 4,000 vehicles.
We have about 145 go stations around Taipei and we just recorded 3.5 million all-electric kilometer that, of course, you know, reduce pollution by 95 %, and the really big news that we announced to CES this year is what we call the go-girl open initiative and open stands For owner proposed energy network, think of it as crowdsource, plus a little bit of Airbnb plus a little bit of you, know kind of kind of homegrown the network, both from a community of people that really celebrate and understand and wants to be part of this change. At the same time, you know really help us understand exactly. You know we can guess which city but guessing is guessing, but if you see a lot of hands with your hands raised man, cities that we got ta go to next, because we just simply demand they’re. The new go charge of the ear now switch is a more compact version of the go station, which is your main charging charging and battery exchange stations. Do you think that will help you get into smaller cities, like you said not so much mega cities, but you know small and more targeted locations? I think the main thing behind the go charger is to really accelerate our rate of deployment.
If you look at, you know 140 stations that we now have in Taipei. You know it’s a really densely deployed solution, every 1.3 kilometer or about slightly over half a mile. We have a station, but that did take time it took about four months five months. We can deploy at an amazing rate of one station per day, but imagine that I can deploy in a city within a day or two with a hundred stations that allows people to basically go and not have to worry. We’Re gon na have to charge just stop by a cafe.
Have a cup of coffee pop off your battery? Go to the you know, go on your way for the rest of the day. That’S the vision we see and that will help us deploy into all sorts of cities absolutely and so far. You’Ve rolled out your pilot city was Taipei. Home city you’ve had quite a bit of success. There it’s been very well received. You also have that really impressive. Gogoro experience store, which looks to be very much modeled on the Apple Store, its simplicity and just give things. You know it’s basic and all about the device as possible.
Amsterdam is your next destination. Yes, when is that going to happen? We’Re gon na actually deploy the retail store and also deploy the energy network first half of this year, so within the next six months, and what cities are going to follow Amsterdam, do you have some sort of an idea when of course, next year we have an Idea you can share with us. I think it’s you know into time will will will law announce the right. You know that city. What I can share with you is that the vehicle is now European certified. So any any cities in Europe in the neighboring countries is really an accessible target for us. Well, in any case, you’ve had a lot of success already. I want to thank you on behalf of the verge for validating us and giving you the best of CES 2015 award.
We looking forward to everything that you guys do in the year and in the new year and the one to come, so see you again, probably before CS 2017 right, absolutely more gogoro news before their absolutely, and I think you know if I can leave everybody with One thought you know we are facing a huge crisis, the you know the biggest crisis the earth has ever seen. You know with climate change with pollution. With you know, population there’s moving from villages into cities and and and expanding you know, I would say, demand on energy like never seen before. We need to find a solution, and, what’s amazing is that go-girl has a solution, is here and now and ready? You know if you look at the impact we’ve made to Taipei, it’s significant the amount of kilometers that was accumulated over the last three months, equal to about one hundred.
Ninety seven tons less of co2 footprint. You know the Hat in itself, you think about it. It took a mountain impact we can make if we all go electric on transportation. I can only imagine what that what life would be like and how you know how how good of a quality life we can have, especially in these emerging cities across the world, if you’ve been to Beijing if you’ve been to Shanghai, if you’ve been to Taipei, if You’Ve been to South it is, you know, Southeast Asia.
Have you been to London? You know those are. Cities are they’re extremely polluted today, yeah, so London, of course, you know, as is the worst of, unfortunately, is one of the worst in the in the you at the moment. Horace, please fix it. Yes, we will absolutely want to do that, and we think you know.
That’S that’s back you. You know you asked me earlier about breakfast. You know why. You know why a quarter you know quarter of an egg, can get me a half an egg.
Get me through this. It’S the idea of changing the world for the better. It’S the idea of applying all the creativity we have ever done on smartphone on connectivity on software and applying that to a sector that desperately needs it: energy in transportation, something real-world problems, service, yeah serving the world. Thank you very much, free time, Horace! Thank you! That’S it from the ver CES lounge. I think I’ve got out right this time for now stay tuned for more and also make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is youtube.com, slash, Virg, .