The ride-hailer has formed a joint venture with local company TBS Energi Utama to make two-wheeled EVs, the pair announced on Thursday.
In addition to making electric two-wheelers, the joint venture, dubbed Electrum, will be involved in battery packaging, battery swap infrastructure and financing for EV ownership.
“We will be able to support Indonesia’s transition to building a cleaner, more accessible and sustainable mobility system,” Gojek CEO Kevin Aluwi, said in a statement, “ultimately making EVs the norm in our country, contributing to the country’s emissions reduction targets and improving air quality in our cities”.
Pandu Sjahrir, vice-president director of TBS, said that developing a comprehensive EV ecosystem “is crucial” in order to enable large-scale adoption of EVs in Indonesia.
“As EVs become more widely available, we hope that this will inspire greater confidence in EVs from members of the public and encourage them to give it a try so that they can also enjoy the many benefits of EVs.”
The joint venture is “an even split” between Gojek and TBS, and Electrum will need to invest up to US$1.1 billion over the next five years to develop a comprehensive EV ecosystem, according to the companies.
The announcement comes just weeks after Gojek announced a pilot programme with Gogoro, Taiwan’s “Tesla of scooters”, to test electric scooters on the streets of Jakarta.
The pilot programme will begin in the next few months, Gojek said at the time, initially in South Jakarta, with 250 Gogoro scooters and four battery-swapping stations. They plan to increase the number of scooters to 5,000 and add more stations in the future.
Both announcements come on the back of Gojek’s pledge in April to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030, and transition its fleet of 2 million four-wheelers and two-wheelers into electric vehicles in the same time frame.
That pledge, Gojek hopes, will help alleviate Indonesia’s emissions of carbon dioxide as the country aims toward net zero by 2060.
Indonesia had pledged in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to cut carbon emissions 29% by 2030 using its own resources, or 41% with international support.