Gachaco opens public battery sharing service for EV scooters in Japan

JAPAN’S Big Four Companies (Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Honda) and the energy company Eneos have formed Gachaco, a electric scooter battery swapping service in the Japanese market.

Initially, Gachaco was targeted for business and delivery use only and could only be used for certain models of Honda electric scooters, such as Benly e:, Gyro e:, Gyro Canopy e:, and EM1 e:.

Only the EM1 e: model is available for public purchase, where interested individuals can subscribe to Gachaco’s battery swapping service.

By reclassifying the battery as a service and excluding it from the selling price, Honda customers can obtain the EM1 e: scooter at a lower cost, approximately 97,200 yen (RM3,167).

What they need to do is subscribe to Gachaco’s battery swapping service based on their current usage. For example, the basic plan starts at about 1,078 yen per month (RM35 per month), while the standard plan costs 2,805 yen per month (RM91.39 per month).

Gachaco also offers a pay-per-use option for each usage, priced at 180 yen per kWh (RM5.86 per kWh).

At present, the Gachaco battery swapping service, which utilizes the Honda Mobile Power Pack e: unit, is only available in Japan.