Gogoro, a leading player in the battery-swapping electric scooter market is taking a page out of Apple’s book. Or more accurately, it’s working with the consumer electronics giant to incorporate key Apple features directly into its scooters.
The company announced today that it would start leveraging its scooters’ NFC keyless unlocking along with Apple Wallet to let users activate and lock their scooters directly from their iPhone or Apple Watch.
Gogoro Smartscooter riders will now be able to add a scooter key to Apple Wallet on their iPhone and Apple Watch. Riders can then simply hold their device near the Smartscooter’s NFC-enabled reader to unlock and start the scooter. The feature will be available on Gogoro’s new scooters, but will also be backwards compatible with over 300,000 electric scooters already on the road.
Owners will also be able to seamlessly share their digital with friends or family members using iOS by sending it via messaging applications like Apple’s Messages app, WeChat, or others. Riders will be able to tell a friend “Sure, borrow my scooter. Here’s where it’s parked…”, then text them the key. Owners maintain control over that digital key and can cancel shared access at any time.
It’s a feature that is grounded in utility, as Gogoro founder and CEO Horace Luke explained:
“Innovation is a key component of Gogoro’s strategy, and we believe that revolutionary technology can have a positive impact on culture. Scooter Key in Apple Wallet delivers enhanced convenience to our new and existing customers and we are excited to roll out to our vehicles starting today. This feature will not only be available with our latest lineup of Smartscooters, but more than 300,000 of our existing Smartscooter customers will also be able to enjoy Scooter Key in Apple Wallet.”
Gogoro is also working with Apple to integrate another key feature of location tracking. Gogoro scooters will soon come with Apple Find My integration built directly into the scooter. That means that SmartScooter owners will be able to locate their scooters directly from their phones as well as mark them lost if they were to go… missing.
It’s also a handy feature if you forget where you parked, something my wife and I have encountered exactly two frustrating times and look forward to never needing to search every corner and level of a parking garage again.
Gogoro’s integration with Find My will first be available on specific new Smartscooters including the new Gogoro CrossOver S, with plans to bring it to the entire Gogoro portfolio in the future.
I have a few electric bicycles that use Apple Find My integration, and it’s great to have that extra security of always knowing where my bike is. With electric scooters costing several times as much as many electric bikes, having an additional built-in tracker is a great feature to have.
The new Apple features marks yet another hardware improvement to Gogoro’s lineup. Lately we’ve seen the company roll out new models as well as make major announcements regarding international expansion of its scooters and battery-swapping platform.
Gogoro’s Smartscooters often snag the limelight, yet it is the company’s battery-swapping design that is key to its success.
The open platform means that many other manufacturers can build electric scooters that rely on Gogoro’s swappable battery standard, giving riders many options for vehicles that all rely on the same tried-and-true battery swapping infrastructure.
