Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki And Yamaha Join Hands; To Form New Battery-Swapping Company

Honda, Kawasaki Motors, Suzuki, and Yamaha Motor have agreed to a common specification for a swappable electric motorcycle battery.

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Gachaco is scheduled to launch the sharing service by September 2022.

Big news coming from Japan is that the four largest two-wheeler manufacturers namely– Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha— have joined hands to form a new company, Gachaco, which will provide sharing service of swappable batteries for electric motorcycles and develop infrastructure for it. The technology and the infrastructure will be developed for the Japanese market, and for the electric two-wheelers sold in the country. Japan’s biggest oil refiner, Eneos Holdings is also part of the newly formed joint venture. A similar conglomerate was formed in Europe last year, between Honda, KTM, Yamaha, and Piaggio Group, to develop the future of standardized swappable battery systems for Europe.

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Eneos aims to contribute to the realization of a recycling-oriented society by building a “BaaS (Battery-as-a-Service) platform for electric mobility and other battery recycling systems. Through BaaS, Eneos will provide solutions for issues in widely spreading electric mobility, such as “the hassle of long-time charging” and “concerns about running out of battery charge when going out,” from the perspective of an energy supplier.

On the other hand, amid a rising environmental awareness, Honda, Kawasaki Motors, Suzuki, and Yamaha Motor have agreed to a common specification for a swappable electric motorcycle battery and are studying the establishment of sharing environments to spread the use of electric motorcycles as mobility that is environmentally friendly and highly convenient.

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Gachaco is scheduled to launch the sharing service using Honda Mobile Power Pack e: which meets the common standards for electric motorcycles, by September 2022, starting from Tokyo and other major cities in Japan. The Battery Exchange stations, Honda Mobile Power Pack Exchanger e: will be located at convenient places such as railway stations and at Eneos service stations.

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Gachaco will also promote the use of standardized swappable batteries for other applications, such as storage batteries installed at commercial facilities and private homes. In addition, expended batteries that are generated by the sharing service provided by Gachaco will be collected via the battery-as-a-service (BaaS) platform under review at Eneos for secondary and tertiary use and finally recycling for cyclical battery usage.

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