The Quickshift
- The shift to electric has seen oil and gas companies invest in diversification to maintain relevance in a changing industry.
- The latest to hop aboard this trend is Castrol, with the company announcing a $50 million investment in Taiwanese e-mobility firm Gogoro.
- Gogoro is one of the pioneers of the battery-swapping industry, and has taken a majority of the Asian market by storm in recent years.
With electric mobility gaining more and more traction every day, it’s clear that big petroleum companies need to find a way to keep themselves relevant. Lots of companies are promising carbon neutrality in the coming decades, and it’s obvious that the use of fossil fuels doesn’t align with this goal.
And so these days, we’re seeing big oil and gas companies investing in things like battery technology and alternative fuels. A good example of this is Castrol, a big global lubricant brand. As the go-to brand for a lot of car and motorcycle owners, there’s a chance that there’s a bottle of Castrol oil or lubricants in your garage. Heck, you might even be running the stuff in your engine as we speak.
Castrol is part of an even bigger oil and gas conglomerate, the BP Group, and is embarking on a mission to diversify its products and services in the electric age. To do this, the company has made quite a hefty investment in Gogoro, the world’s leading company when it comes to battery-swapping infrastructure and e-mobility in the urban setting.
Castrol is investing up to $50 million in Gogoro, with the ultimate goal being the exploration of diversification opportunities beyond its fluids and lubricants. It’s all part of Castrol’s “Onward, Upward, Forward” strategy, which is really just a fancy way of naming its initiatives of remaining relevant in a world that foresees reduced dependence on fossil fuels in the not-too-distant future.
As for Gogoro, it seems that the Taiwanese company has been an unstoppable force, particularly in the e-mobility scene across multiple Asian countries. Gogoro has clearly hit the nail on the head with its battery swapping stations, with riders able to swap out depleted batteries for fresh ones in just a matter of seconds. In the context of the urban jungle, this means that range anxiety is pretty much off the board.
Michelle Jou, the CEO of Castrol, highlighted the important role Gogoro plays in the future of mobility, and how partnering up with the company could present more growth opportunities for Castrol. “Gogoro is a global leader in two-wheeler battery swapping and our investment in Gogoro is a strategic step towards diversifying our portfolio, remaining relevant in our customers’ lives, embracing new opportunities to future-proof our iconic 125-year-old brand and to create additional value for our shareholders,” he said.
Developments like these point to potentially big things for the mobility industry. Big companies like Castrol certainly have the funding to accelerate the growth of e-mobility providers like Gogoro, and it’ll certainly be interesting to see how the bright minds over at Gogoro put that money to use.
In recent months, Gogoro has expanded to South America and many parts of Asia, partnering up with other big names such as Shell and Uber Eats. It’s clear that Gogoro’s onto something big, and it has no plans of slowing down in its quest for world domination.
