Establishment of “Gachaco, Inc. Gachaco will provide sharing service of standardized swappable batteries for electric motorcycle.

ENEOS Holdings, Inc. (President: Ota Katsuyuki; “ENEOS”), Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Director, President and Representative Executive Officer: Mibe Toshihiro; “Honda”), Kawasaki Motors, Ltd., (Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Officer:Ito Hiroshi; “Kawasaki Motors”), Suzuki Motor Corporation (Representative Director and President: Suzuki Toshihiro; “Suzuki”) and Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (President, CEO and Representative Director: Hidaka Yoshihiro; “Yamaha Motor”) announced that a new company named Gachaco ,Inc. (“Gachaco”) will be established on April 1 to provide sharing service of standardized swappable batteries for electric motorcycle and develop infrastructure for this service.

ENEOS aims to contribute to the realization of a recycling-oriented society by building a “BaaS (Battery as a Service) Platform “*1 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.

We believe that the five companies, which share the common goal of popularizing electric mobility, can further contribute to the realization of a recycling-oriented society by working together to provide sharing service of standardized swappable batteries for electric motorcycle.

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

In the future, besides electric motorcycles, Gachaco will 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.

Gachaco aims to contribute to a decarbonized, recycling-oriented society by building a battery-based power supply network as infrastructure for electric mobility which all electric mobility users can use safely without worrying about running out of battery.

*1 ENEOS
Announced on May 19, 2021
Start of Collaboration for a Battery Recycling Society:
Development of the Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) Platform
https://www.hd.eneos.co.jp/newsrelease/20210519_01_01_2011378.pdf(in Japanese)

＜Overview of Gachaco＞

＜Reference＞

Honda,Kawasaki Motors,Suzuki,Yamaha motor
Announced on April 4, 2019
Swappable Battery Consortium for Electric Motorcycles Created
https://www.honda.co.jp/news/2019/2190404.html (in Japanese)

Announced on March 26, 2021
Agreement Reached to Standardize Swappable Batteries for Electric Motorcycles
https://global.honda/newsroom/news/2021/2210326eng.html

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