Final week, we reported on information of Gogoro’s founder and CEO, Horace Luke, resigning amid accusations of subsidy fraud by the corporate in its home market of Taiwan. Now we’ve discovered that the Taiwanese authorities has concluded that there’s inadequate proof to assist the claims of fraud in an investigation regarding an earlier case of misidentified non-domestic parts.
The problem centered round what Electrek has since found was a single element on only a portion of a single mannequin of electrical scooters produced by Gogoro. What was described by an insider as a “provide chain mistake” meant {that a} portion of the corporate’s VIVA mannequin electrical scooters used a single foreign-produced element.
The same case regarding a single element used on Gogoro’s JEGO mannequin electrical scooter led to claims of subsidy fraud final week, attributable to Gogoro having acquired massive authorities subsidies meant for corporations that manufacture merchandise domestically in Taiwan. Nonetheless, as native media reported yesterday, the Ministry of Financial Affairs’ Industrial Growth Administration introduced its assessment outcomes, stating that there was “inadequate proof” to conclude that the reported Gogoro VIVA mannequin violated home manufacturing laws.
Gogoro has spent years as a rising star, evolving into the de facto customary for battery swapping with effectively over a million swappable batteries in circulation with a whole lot of tens of millions of battery swaps since operations started. A number of hundred thousand batteries are swapped every day all through its massive community of customers.
Its iconic black and inexperienced battery packs are distributed round 1000’s of battery swap stations, every of which takes up lower than one automotive parking area however can service dozens of scooters almost concurrently. The biggest swap stations can service a whole lot of electrical scooters.
Whereas Gogoro produces its personal electrical scooters, its battery design is open to different car makers, leading to main manufacturers like Yamaha and Aeon additionally producing electrical scooters that function with Gogoro’s battery customary.
The majority of Gogoro’s operations are in its home market of Taiwan, however the firm has expanded to a number of different international locations, together with China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Israel, Singapore, Chile, and Colombia.
Whereas the corporate’s operations have grown significantly, its battery-swapping mannequin has confirmed expensive to develop. The corporate’s internet working losses have grown over the previous couple of quarters, and plenty of have speculated that founder and CEO Horace Luke’s resignation had extra to do with the corporate’s monetary efficiency than the accusations of subsidy fraud.
The corporate is traded on the NASDAQ and has seen a gentle drop in share value during the last two years, with the accusation of subsidy fraud final week inflicting one other steep drop in value.
However hey, low inventory value or not, my Gogoro scooter nonetheless works nice as my every day driver. The truth is, I simply swapped batteries this afternoon.
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