Electrum, a joint venture between Indonesian major ride-hailing firm Gojek and energy company TBS Energi Utama, is set to expand Gojek’s electric vehicle (EV) commercial trial to facilitate EV adoption in the country.
Electrum, in cooperation with state-owned energy company Pertamina and Taiwanese battery-swapping electric scooter maker Gogoro, will add “thousands” of EVs into Gojek’s two-wheel fleet across the country this year as part of the ride-hailing firm’s plan to make every car and motorcycle on its platform all electric by 2030.
The trial began in 2021 with 250 Gogoro Smart scooters and four GoStation battery swapping stations located at state-owned Pertamina’s gas stations. At the time, Gojek said the company aimed to scale up the pilot to 5,000 scooters and additional battery swap stations in the future.
The trial is still being conducted in South Jakarta and will be expanded to all over Jakarta and other cities in the coming weeks, Gojek CEO Kevin Aluwi said in a streamed press conference on Tuesday.
“The response was quite overwhelming from [driver] partners and consumers,” Aluwi said, commenting on the trial feedback.
According to Aluwi, hundreds of users have said that EV units are easy to operate, have a sizeable travel distance, and the operational costs can be reduced by about Rp500,000 ($35) to Rp750,000 a month compared with its fossil fuel-powered counterpart.
The trial results will indicate how Electrum further scales its efforts in EV manufacturing, battery packaging, battery swap infrastructure, and financing for EV ownership, the company said in a separate statement.
Government support
While Electrum had announced its collaboration with Pertamina and Gogoro previously, the company said it has got into a four-way collaboration with local scooter maker Gesits to make way for EV ecosystem development in Indonesia.
The collaboration between state-affiliate and private companies was inaugurated by Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo as it has become part of a concerted effort for the country to reach net-zero emissions by 2060.
“I need to say that the government is very serious about getting into the new and renewable energy, including [a transition] towards electric vehicles,” Widodo, who popularly known as Jokowi, said in a streamed statement.
Jokowi added that he expects Indonesia to produce at least two million electric vehicles by 2025 to be used locally and then focus on exporting the products later.