Gogoro vs Honda-India motorcycle battery swap market competition

Faced with the threat of carbon dioxide emissions, air pollution and fluctuant gasoline prices, governments around the world are encouraging automakers to replace combustion engines with electricity, and India is no exception. Honda and Gogoro are competing for the battery swap market in India, a huge market for electric motorcycles.

Market status of electric motorcycle market in India

The government of India is taking a number of incentives to promote the production and adoption of electric motorcycles, such as tax breaks for manufacturers and subsidies for the purchase of electric wheelers, including electric tricycles.
At present, most of the more than six million three-wheeled taxis on roads in India run on gas or lead-acid batteries, which is environmentally unfriendly.

Honda’s market layout in India

Honda Motor is hoping to make the switch to electric vehicles through a new battery-sharing service with the incentives from India’s central and local governments.

Honda has always shown great enthusiasm for the battery swapping business, not only from the development of swapping systems, but also the formation of swapping alliances in various parts of the world. The push has been cautious, but so far its battery swapping system has been tested on a small scale in Southeast Asia and Japan.

Electric motorcycle

On December 2, 2021, Honda power pack energy company was established in Bangalore, southern India. This new subsidiary of Honda will also work with electric three-wheeler original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and provide technical support to integrate its batteries into these electric wheelers, which will also be produced in India.

Honda also announced plans to officially launch the electric version of the scooter Activa in the Indian market in March 2024, and simultaneously push its battery swap system to the Indian market. For the upcoming Activa, Honda may launch a base version first, followed by a swapping version in a short time. In order to save costs, the motor and battery of the electric Activa will be purchased locally in India, and other configurations will be shared with the fuel version of Activa. The electric Activa may be produced in the same factory as the fuel version of Activa.

Battery swap cabinet

In terms of the layout of the battery swap network, Honda India plans to set up swap station at about 6,000 stores across India. For a long time, Honda has a wide range of consumer groups in India. It is reported that its sales in fiscal year 2021 accounted for 56% of the Indian motorcycle market.

Honda is one of the main members of SBMC (The Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium, currently 21 brands have joined), and most of these brands’ motorcycles have related business in the Indian market, and these brands may rely on Honda’s battery swapping system and swappable batteries in the Indian market.

The three biggest problems Honda faces are long battery charging times, short range and high cost. Honda’s solution for the first two problems is a Honda lithium-ion Mobile Power Pack (MPP) battery, which works in conjunction with the Honda Mobile Power Pack Exchanger. Each swap cabinet can be equipped with 12 rechargeable MPP batteries and these batteries are located in separate charging compartments. A drained battery can be replaced with a fully charged battery in a few minutes. A maximum of seven swap cabinets can be installed at one installation site.

In Honda’s resolution, an electric tricycle uses four packs of power batteries. Each pack measures 29.8cm x 17.7cm x 15.6cm, weighs a bit over 10kg and comes with a handle. The driver of the electric tricycle inserts the user ID card into the swap cabinet, which indicates which two sets of recharged batteries to take out. The driver loads the two batteries into the tricycle and plugs the depleted battery into the swap cabinet to recharge.

Honda’s latest generation battery, the MPP e, has a rated voltage of 50.3 volts, a capacity of 1.3 kWh, and a charging time of five hours. Considering the tropical climate in India, the battery adopts a heat dissipation design to prevent discharge degradation caused by high temperature. In addition, it is waterproof, vibration and impact resistant under normal operating conditions. A built-in control unit uses sensors to track what’s going on inside the battery, recording battery usage patterns for evaluation by the swap cabinet.

A electric tricycle needs to replace the battery once after driving 60 kilometers, and it may have to go to the charging station several times a day. To reduce potential hassle, Honda will provide drivers with a smartphone app that will display a map of all swapping stations in the area, along with the number of charged batteries available at each station. The service is currently only available in Bengaluru and will later be extended to Mumbai, with Honda ensuring that there will be enough swapping stations from the start for the service to run smoothly.

In addition, the company is exploring more ways to expand the applications of its battery packs, such as small construction machinery, backup power for home appliances, and building battery sharing systems for the civil engineering and construction industries.

Gogoro’s market layout in India

Honda is not the only company that is working to promote the battery swapping business in India, a huge electric wheeler market. In addition to some local battery swap companies in India, Taiwan company Gogoro announced its partnership with India’s Hero Motocorp in 2021 and deployed level swapping stations.

Electric motorcycle

Since April 21, Gogoro has reached a strategic cooperation with Hero, India’s largest locomotive manufacturer. The two parties have jointly established a joint venture company for smart battery exchange networks in India, and developed Hero brand motors Powered by Gogoro Network (PBGN) for the local market. It was an important milestone for Gogoro to enter the overseas market, and it is also the first overseas partner of the PBGN Alliance.

Hero MotoCorp is the world’s largest manufacturer (calculated by the annual sales volume of a single company) specializing in the manufacture of motorcycles and scooter. It has a market share of 35.78% in India and is the largest two-wheeled motorcycle company in India. Since its establishment, Hero MotoCorp has sold more than 100 million motorcycles and sold products in more than 40 countries around the world, including Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South America.

With Hero’s leading position in electric motorcycles, international scale and innovative momentum, and Gogoro’s unique battery swap business model demonstrated in Taiwan and around the world for many years, the cooperation between the two companies is considered to be a strong alliance.

Battery swap infrastructure

In January 2023, GOGORO signed a memorandum of understanding with Mahashtra and Belrise Group to form a 50-50 joint venture that will invest $2.5 billion over eight years to build battery swapping infrastructure, which will become the world’s largest smart swapping network.

“We are partnering with Gogoro and Belrise to deploy the world’s largest and most innovative smart energy infrastructure, to solve growing energy challenges with battery swapping and become a new alternative to fossil fuels.” Devendra Fadnavis, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, said they were leaders in India’s sustainable development and hoped to create a model for other local governments to follow.

The battery swapping infrastructure in Maharashtra is expected to be deployed this year and will integrate the complete Gogoro smart energy ecosystem, which includes battery swapping stations, battery swapping technology, energy management solutions, and more. Various battery applications developed by Gogoro will also be used in smart city planning, energy storage systems, power sharing services, intelligent electric locomotives, grid demand response, distributed energy storage, smart agriculture and other fields.

Maharashtra, located in central India, has a population of 120 million, making it the second most populous administrative region in the world. It is also the industrial powerhouse of India. It is one of the largest commercial and industrial centers in India, with an annual GDP of more than $400 billion, accounting for 16% of India’s industrial output.

If Gogoro can establish itself here, it will not only generate huge revenues, but also have the opportunity to expand its swapping network to other parts of India. Gogoro’s partner is Belrise Group, formerly Badve Engineering, which produce about a third of India’s two – and three-wheeler units. Details of the partnership are still unclear, but it appears that Gogoro will handle the grid, battery and motor specifications, while Belrise will build the hardware.

While India is a huge market opportunity for electric vehicles, the biggest challenge for Gogoro is how to deliver a product that meets the needs of the market, given the relatively low consumer power.