Gadgetory

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 gonna 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 gotta 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 gonna 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 gonna 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