Taiwan-based electric Smartscooter manufacturer Gogoro in collaboration with Bosch subsidiary COUP, announced plans to bring 600 Smartscooters to Paris this summer for their first electric scooter sharing program in France.
COUP first launched the electric scooter sharing service in Berlin with 200 Gogoro electric scooters in 2016. It expanded to 1,000 scooters less than a year later. It’ll be going up against the Cityscoot service which launched in Paris last summer with 150 electric scooters.
Paris is one of the most congested cities in Europe with urban transport plagued by traffic problems. It is also one of the top scooter cities in the world so Paris is a natural next step. COUP and Gogoro want to deliver positive alternatives to urban mobility that can be available to all city residents.
As in Berlin, the COUP service will be available in select central Paris districts and customers will be able to park them in dedicated two-wheel parking zones within the COUP service area. The COUP service will be available to anyone with a Class B driver’s license or an international driver’s license and is of legal age.
Through the COUP app, customers can locate and reserve the closest Smartscooter without any hassle. The app will be available in summer 2017 in French for iOS and Android. Like Berlin, the pricing model in Paris is straightforward and easy for users to calculate: users are charged in 30-minute increments, known as rides.
“We have received a lot of positive feedback for the COUP eScooter sharing in Berlin since launching last August. The opportunity to experience a city quickly, flexibly, and without any fuss on the stylish Gogoro Smartscooters has proven extremely popular. The success in Berlin is motivating us to bring greater mobility to another European capital, so today we are announcing our Paris launch this summer,” says Mat Schubert, CEO of COUP Mobility GmbH. “Gogoro has been supporting with features to make our innovative sharing service even better and more user friendly. We are confident Parisians will enjoy the ease of use and overall experience.”
“Gogoro and COUP are focused on delivering new services that encourage consumer adoption of more sustainable transportation choices like the Smartscooter. The COUP e-scooter sharing model has been proven successful in Berlin and we are looking forward to introducing it in Paris this summer with the same success,” said Horace Luke, co-founder and CEO of Gogoro. “We created Gogoro to be a technology company integrating innovation and sustainable energy to create new business models, services and products that ignite urban residents and city governments to embrace sustainable energy with the new fuel of the future.”
Gogoro Smartscooter
Gogoro introduced its first Gogoro Smartscooter EV and the Gogoro Energy Network at the Consumer Electronics Show in early 2015 and launched it in Taipei, Taiwan in August 2015.
The Gogoro Smartscooter EV was the world’s first high-performance, smart electric two-wheel vehicle with swappable batteries.
Key Gogoro Smartscooter Facts
– More than 20,000 Gogoro Smartscooter EVs sold
– 60+ million kilometers ridden by customers
– 350 GoStation battery swapping stations deployed across Taiwan
– More than 12,000 battery swaps per day
– Nearly 3 million liters of gasoline saved, 5.7 million kilograms less CO2 emitted and nearly 5,000 kilograms less NOx emitted.
