Taiwanese electric two-wheeler maker Gogoro is moving ahead with plans to manufacture EV batteries in India. The company has announced that a factory to manufacture electric scooters and its batteries will be built in the country. Manufacturing facilities will be set up at Pune and Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Gogoro will invest up to Rs 40,000 crore for this. The Maharashtra government has approved the project and said that the Taiwanese company will invest $1.5 billion in the initial phase, which is about Rs 12,314 crore in Indian currency. The agreement was signed between the government and the company earlier this year.
Gogoro will manufacture electric vehicles and batteries in India
As part of the deal, Gogoro also said it plans to build battery swapping infrastructure by the end of this year. They plan to set up 12,000 battery swapping stations in Maharashtra over the next few years. They will be placed in such a way that users can quickly replace their dead batteries with new ones.
Gogoro entered India last year for battery swapping network business. They tied up with Zypp Electric to run the pilot project. Gogoro is going to launch electric scooter for online delivery and logistics in India. However, it is not known whether the model will come for B2C i.e. general buyers.
Gogoro founder and CEO Horace Luke said of the new project, “We want to successfully launch an open battery swapping network for everyone. In this regard, various Taiwanese vehicle manufacturers are helping. We are thinking of extending our contract with the Government of Maharashtra. So that smart batteries and swap stations can be introduced in the state.”
Incidentally, Maharashtra ranks first in India in terms of public EV charging stations. Currently, out of 8,735 charging stations in the country, Maharashtra has 2,354.
