Remember Gachaco? It is a fast-spreading battery swapping network in Japan, a collaboration between the four Japanese two-wheeler manufacturers and ENEOS Holdings. Unlike many other collaborative swapping networks elsewhere, Gachaco is an experiment that has worked out well. It is getting popular in Japan, and Honda has deployed multiple models on the network.
The primary reason Gachaco works is ENEOS’s majority holding (51%), which funds the swapping network expansion and the real estate required for it.
The other major reason is Honda’s dominance in the vehicle and technology sectors. Honda owns 34% of Gachaco, with the remaining 15% split equally between Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki. Gachaco is also energised with the Honda Mobile Power Packs (MPPs), and they remain the underlying battery pack for the entire network. The initial agreement was that Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Suzuki would all develop products around the Honda MPP and deploy them on the Gachaco network.
That hasn’t panned out in reality, with Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki having been sleeping partners, and it would not be too far from the truth that Gachaco has been driven solely by Honda’s energy to date. Kawasaki and Suzuki continue to remain dormant as far as Gachaco is concerned, even though both have been going about their own E2W plans.
Yamaha, while not doing much of its own, reluctantly asked Honda to develop the scooters that Yamaha could sell under its own badge and deploy on Gachaco. This piggybacking is the same strategy that Yamaha follows in Taiwan, with Gogoro as a partner. This is also the strategy that Yamaha plans to deploy in India with the EC 06 developed by River, a Bangalore-based startup in which Yamaha has made a significant investment.
Honda has finally delivered for Yamaha, and the Jog E is the first product that Yamaha will deploy on Gachaco. It remains a Japan-only product for now because Gachaco is Japan-only. It is a 50cc equivalent moped, and the power specs are pretty modest. There is a 1.7 kW hub motor, and energy comes from a single MPP under the seat. The Japan-spec MPP is 1.3 kWh of usable energy.
It Looks Familiar…
If it looks familiar, it should. Under the ‘Yamaha’ skin is the Honda EM1 e: scooter, also sold in the Japanese market. In fact, little effort has been made to conceal the obvious. See for yourself.
As is evident from the image above, the Jog E shares everything with the Honda EM1 e:. Most panels appear similar, and apart from the changed front styling and the Yamaha badge, it is hard to say if any other panel has been changed. Even the front alloy wheels are the same, to keep purchasing optimised.
Obviously, the motor, the MPP, the E&E, and the frame are all carried on from the EM1 e:. We do not have information, but it may be likely that Honda is also manufacturing the Jog E on the same line as the EM1 e:.
Hardware
Coming to the hardware, this is a 1300 mm wheelbase scooter riding on 12″ wheels. Power comes from a 1.8 kW hub motor with a top speed of 30 kph/. Top speed is dictated by the regulations for Class 1 vehicles.
There is a single MPP under the seat for a 53 km claimed range for this 92 kg scooter.
Impact
The Jog E is the first Yamaha created by Honda under Gachaco. More are likely to come. Yamaha sells the Gear utility scooter, which looks just like the Honda Benly. However, while Honda has an electric variant, the Benly e:, Yamaha does not have one. Maybe one is coming?
Then there is the 125cc scooter class, where Honda has the CUV e:, also on the Gachaco network. We cannot discard the possibility that Yamaha will get a close cousin.
However, the worrying thing is Yamaha’s lack of effort. We find it difficult to comprehend that a large manufacturer with substantial cash reserves, a glorious e-bike division, and another division making some rather powerful e-motors targeted at sports, would give electric scooter engineering a complete miss. Over time, even the effort to differentiate from donor vehicles has faded away. In Taiwan, where Yamaha started with the piggybacking exercise, the EMF is a very different scooter from the Gogoros that it is based on. There is a clear effort to stand away from Gogoro and target a different customer.
That effort reduces when it comes to India, and Yamaha did not even bother to remove the River logo from the motor casing. We wrote about it a few weeks back.
Yamaha India Lines up Two Scooters for Indian Market
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The effort is completely out of the window when it comes to Japan, as the Jog E mimics the EM1 e:, panel by panel.