• The four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers namely Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha will work together to develop motorcycle batteries.

• They should be working on battery swapping technology to overcome long charging times.

• Yamaha is already working with Gogoro in Taiwan for battery swapping.

The four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers namely Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha will work together to develop motorcycle batteries.

The joint effort is to combat the bane of current electric motorcycles: Charging times. Make that long charging times. As such, they should be coming up with a solution to swap low-power or depleted batteries with fully charged ones.

Their solution should be similar to Gogoro’s, which is currently in operation in Taiwan. Electric bike riders visit a charging station, pull out the depleted battery in their motorcycles, insert it into the charging station and swap it for a fully-charged one.

Yamaha is already working with Gogoro on this solution in the island state.

Gogoro first entered the Taiwanese market in 2015. Since then, 750 GoStations have been installed, catering to some 17 million battery swaps. The company is targeting 3,000 stations, ultimately.

Honda and Yamaha are the strongest players in the electric motorcycle sector among the four manufacturers. But with the dateline for electric vehicles looming on the horizon, Kawasaki and Suzuki need to hustle in producing their own electric bikes. Most European countries will revert to new electric vehicles only in a decade or so, while phasing out fossil fuel vehicles.

Malaysia, without a doubt is still lagging far behind. Currently, only luxury cars are hybrid or electric. Consequently, the infrastructure is built by these manufacturers to cater for their own cars.

Motorcycle charging or battery swapping stations? Forget about it. The Malaysian government ought to step this up quickly.