The Gachaco consortium was formed in April 2022 as an equity joint venture between ENEOS Holdings, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Kawasaki. ENEOS Holdings, the parent company of ENEOS, the largest oil company in Japan, was a majority shareholder (51%) in Gachaco. Honda controlled another 34%, while Suzuki, Yamaha, and Kawasaki each had a 5% share.
Gachaco is tasked with deploying battery swapping stations in Japan. These swap stations carry the Honda Mobile Power Pack (MPP) batteries and are aimed at propelling urban electric mobility in the country. Scooters that are energised with the MPP include the Benly e: and Gyro e: commercial scooters and the CUV e: and EM1 e: scooters.
All four Japanese manufacturers were expected to develop and design electric vehicles that would be energized with the Honda MPP. ENEOS invested capital and also contributed real estate.
Now Honda has subscribed to 340,000 new shares of Gachaco for JPY 340 million, increasing its shareholding to 47%, making it the largest shareholder. This has made Gachaco a subsidiary company of Honda.
At the same time, Suzuki and Yamaha have together invested JPY 100 million in Gachaco to subscribe to new shares. Post the investment, their shareholding has likely crept up to 7% each.
Kawasaki has stayed away from the fresh investment, and as a result, its shareholding has likely declined.
While Gachaco or Honda have not provided details, likely, the shareholding in Gachaco after Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha’s fresh investments stands at Honda – 47%, Suzuki – 7%, Yamaha – 7%, Kawasaki – 3%, and ENEOS – 36%.
What is Gachaco Missing?
Gachaco was never a marriage of equals. While ENEOS’s contribution was clearly defined amongst the four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers, only Honda was supposed to do the heavy lifting, considering that it is the Honda MPP that energizes the entire ecosystem. On paper, the other three manufacturers were supposed to develop products around the Honda.
None did. At least till now.
While Kawasaki has electric motorcycles in its lineup in the form of the Ninja Z e-1 and the Ninja e-1, and they carry portable batteries, the batteries are not the MPPs. The Kawasaki batteries are of a different format and are supplied by Forsee Power, a France-based supplier.
This is likely because Kawasaki had a choice of packs, and the choice was dictated by the packaging space in the motorcycles, which were compact motorcycles with limited width.
The Forsee pack is also the choice for the Yamaha Aerox E, which is probably going to be launched in the near future in some selected markets.
Apart from the shape and the packaging issues with the MPP, it is likely that the Forsee pack’s 2C discharge rate makes it more usable with electric sports motorcycles and sports scooters like the Ninja-e and Aerox E.
Apart from the upcoming Aerox E, Yamaha does not have a self-developed scooter in its portfolio. Its range in Taiwan piggybacks on Gogoro, while the upcoming EC-06 in India rides on River hardware. River will also manufacture the scooter.
Using the MPP is out of the question in any of these markets. The Japanese market for Yamaha has the Jog E, based on the Honda ICON e:. It is engineered and manufactured by Honda.
Suzuki went ahead and developed the e-Access/e-Address, a scooter with a fixed battery pack. The choice was dictated mostly by the chemistry, as Suzuki went with an LFP pack compared to the NMC on Honda’s MPP. As of now, the Suzuki e-Address is not offered in Japan. In fact, Suzuki does not have an electric offering in its lineup in Japan.
Impact
While their stance has been non-commital till now, their fresh investment in Gachaco indicates that both Yamaha and Suzuki may be turning around and getting more serious about deploying hardware on the Gachaco platform. That’s significant good news for electric mobility globally.
At the same time, with Honda taking complete control of the consortium, the other players could be even more marginalized.