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[Justin Andrews]

Can you fit a flux capacitor to an Empulse?

If you find out, let me know, I'm buying an Empulse if you can...

In an aside, I used to work with a chap who owned a DeLorian, and would occasionally bring it into work. It IS a nice looking car for all its many faults.

[flar]

Well, by "the company", you have to mean Brammo since Polaris hasn't communicated anything.  The thing is, it's not their call, anymore, is it?  They can send all the emails they want, and post whatever messages of Facebook, but the bottom line is it's not their business anymore.  Right?

There are likely legal requirements on the sale of a vehicle brand, but even if there weren't I don't think they are guessing what Polaris is going to do, they are communicating what is in the terms of the sale.  So, it is up to Polaris to abide by the terms of the sale, and that is what Brammo is communicating.  These kinds of details aren't material for press releases, they are "implementation details" and so they are material for internal memos to the dealers and customers so I don't think "they didn't say anything in the press releases" is reason for pessimal predictions.

Also, keep in mind 2 things:

- Polaris is still a major investor in the Brammo drivetrain company, they merely took the motorcycle side of their business off their hands. They also plan to incorporate Brammo's drive trains in any number of their own future vehicles. As both a major investor and a customer of Brammo, I don't think they'd do that relationship well to immediately dump all of the existing customers even if they weren't legally obligated to support them (through consumer law or sales contract).

- About the only parts on the bike that weren't simply taken out of a stock motorcycle parts catalog (I guess I'm thinking mainly of the Empulse here, not sure about the Enertia) are the drivetrain, batteries, and controllers.  All of those non-common, non-catalog parts would be manufactured by Brammo anyway whether or not Polaris feels obligated to be a supply channel for them - so Brammo is still effectively in control over whether the (critically unique) parts remain available even if Polaris was abducted by aliens tomorrow.

[teddillard]

There are likely legal requirements on the sale of a vehicle brand, but even if there weren't I don't think they are guessing what Polaris is going to do, they are communicating what is in the terms of the sale.  So, it is up to Polaris to abide by the terms of the sale, and that is what Brammo is communicating. 

I agree, but it's also important to note that we don't know the terms of the sale.  At least I don't.  At the very least we can assume warranties will be honored.  And no, Brammo is not communicating that, to be pedantic.  Brammo is really, in concrete terms, communicating nothing other than unenforceable assurances.  Suppose Polaris decides to drop all support.  What recourse does an owner have, other than a class-action suit?

- Polaris is still a major investor in the Brammo drivetrain company

Do we know that to be true?  I haven't seen any statements to that effect.  Can you link a source?

... they merely took the motorcycle side of their business off their hands. They also plan to incorporate Brammo's drive trains in any number of their own future vehicles. As both a major investor and a customer of Brammo, I don't think they'd do that relationship well to immediately dump all of the existing customers even if they weren't legally obligated to support them (through consumer law or sales contract).

- About the only parts on the bike that weren't simply taken out of a stock motorcycle parts catalog (I guess I'm thinking mainly of the Empulse here, not sure about the Enertia) are the drivetrain, batteries, and controllers.  All of those non-common, non-catalog parts would be manufactured by Brammo anyway whether or not Polaris feels obligated to be a supply channel for them - so Brammo is still effectively in control over whether the (critically unique) parts remain available even if Polaris was abducted by aliens tomorrow.

Also speculation. 

As the company has continually communicated to the owners during this process, all service, warranty, parts and accessory obligations will continue to be honored by the dealers.

Well, a) if by continually, you mean in two emails and one Facebook post, then, yeah, I guess so.    And b) for how long? 

My only point, no one knows, and these are merely guesses.  And no on will know until Polaris contacts dealers, which, according to my sources, they haven't. 

[kingcharles]

Well there is a nice example: Vectrix!
They are chapter 7 and all their remaining inventory was auctioned end of 2014.

Today there is lots of aftermarket activities and even upgrade possibilities!
There are complete retrofit kits to triple the original range based on Nissan Leaf cells.

And this for about 3500 bikes sold worldwide.

If Brammo support ends I'm sure that something similar will happen for our bikes.

[chdfarl]

Well said! Well I'm through discussing Brammo here I look on Brammoforum.com for that  later!

[teddillard]

I prefer the discussion here.  A little more balanced.   

[CrashCash]

"Brammo didn't have a short production run"

They didn't?  How many bikes total do you figure they built?  Ever? 

Harley recalled over 100,000 bikes this Sept. 

Yeah, but that's *Harley* which is a totally different box of chocolates. I expect as a SWAG, Brammo made about 5K bikes, roughly about as many Yamaha GTS-1000s were made. Short for ICE but that's pretty good for electric.

[flar]

Do we know that to be true?  I haven't seen any statements to that effect.  Can you link a source?

Much of what I went over is covered in Polaris press release.  It is a good place to start if you want to understand the situation:
http://www.polaris.com/en-us/company/news-item.aspx?articleID=315

[teddillard]

lol you're kidding right?

http://insideevs.com/?s=brammo+polaris

Please note the author.   

I find that going a bit further than the lead sentence in a press release gets you a little more of the, well, truth, but that's just me.     There's also a big difference between "leading investor in a recapitalization..." and "major investor in the Brammo drivetrain company" (your words) - in a press release, it's all about balancing the implication with the facts. (...a big part of my freelance work is just that - writing press releases.)

Once again, we simply don't know all the facts. 

[teddillard]

Yeah, but that's *Harley* which is a totally different box of chocolates. I expect as a SWAG, Brammo made about 5K bikes, roughly about as many Yamaha GTS-1000s were made. Short for ICE but that's pretty good for electric.

Point taken, but I'd argue not a totally different example.  I think we often lose sight of how microscopic the electric motorcycle market really is, when compared to expected sales in the motorcycle market.  Harley, or any of the other major companies can even field a bike that only sells in the thousands, since it has bikes that sell in the hundreds of thousands. 

Interestingly, Energica is hoping to sell only 500 bikes in the first year, which, to me, sounds perfectly reasonable.  They can, too, since they're backed by a large, established company with other healthy revenue streams.  Three, actually. 

[flar]

I find that going a bit further than the lead sentence in a press release gets you a little more of the, well, truth, but that's just me.     There's also a big difference between "leading investor in a recapitalization..." and "major investor in the Brammo drivetrain company" (your words) - in a press release, it's all about balancing the implication with the facts. (...a big part of my freelance work is just that - writing press releases.)

Once again, we simply don't know all the facts.

I agree that the details are slim right now, but I don't take this wait for information as a cause for speculating the worst as you seem to do.

The entire press release talks about their continuing involvement in a partnership, it's not just that one sentence in the opening paragraph.

In any case, we seem to both agree now that warranties will continue to be honored.  In one of your articles you seemed to call that into question because of a lack of communication to the dealers despite a clear communication from Brammo that it would be honored.

I realize that it is frustrating to not have any details right now.  I'm frustrated as well.  But, I'm not going to speculate the end of the world based on it.  For example...

One of the things that keeps coming up is "Brammo says X, Y, and Z, but the dealers haven't heard anything".  Most of the X, Y and Z are related to the customers, not the dealers.  The fate of the dealers may indeed be one of the things that is undetermined at this point.  Polaris may be deciding whether to use Brammo dealers (legal department examining existing dealer contracts), or through Polaris dealers (service branch investigating cost of training existing personnel on new machines) or some combination of the two. While that is being determined, they still know that some variation of those options must be found, it's a question of which option works out best.  So, they can indeed reassure customers and not be lying while not saying much to the dealers.  It sucks for the dealers, but I don't see that as a reason to doubt the original messages that the customers will be cared for.

One interesting piece of communication to note is an email to customers stating that "Brammo Dealer remains your sole source of ..." but it ends with "Any changes to this arrangement will be communicated to you by Brammo".  That last statement can be take as "... for now" and be an indication that the source of the support is still being worked out as a detail without calling into question the actual fact of continuing support...

[teddillard]

Agreed.  For the most part.    I'll add that for a lot of my articles I've actually spoken to real, live people and been able to ask them questions.  I've also spoken to a lot of people who I can't quote, or refer to, for obvious reasons, so that may affect my perspective.

I don't, however feel I'm speculating for the worst.  At the very least, I'm trying to give a balance to the speculation.  I'll also add that there are multiple contradictory statements coming out of Brammo.  For instance...  Polaris has bought the motorcycle business, yet your quote that all support will be coming from Brammo.  How is that even possible?  If anything, I'm trying to separate the speculation from the fact, or at least identify the speculation for what it is. 

Thus, my repeated statement.  We simply don't know.  And we won't until we get an announcement through the dealers. 

Does anyone know what the SEC requirements are for making further announcements, by the way? 

I've got to add - I do have some personal experience from the dealer end of things in the digital photo market.  A while back, when I was an Imacon dealer, they bought out Hasselblad - even a more messy deal, since Hasselblad didn't have a digital camera on the market, and Imacon then branded all their cameras as Hasselblad.  Since these systems sold for upwards of $30K, you can imagine there was a lot of stress and speculation as to how it would shake out.  In the camera business, the dealers have to buy demo stock outright - at a discount, but still, we were sitting on over $100K of hardware that was due to become useless. 

Imacon, (or, "Hasselbad") had their NE rep in my showroom within the week.  Just sayin'. 

AND, on the other end of the spectrum, similar camera systems companies got bought, stripped, and vanished by companies like Fuji and Kodak.  In the case of those, we didn't hear squat from the new mothership, at all, until we got the notice that the hardware wouldn't be supported past existing outstanding warranties. 

[flar]

It sounds like we are on the same page (modulo hopes) about the dealers, but earlier comments in this thread that the Brammo bikes are now orphaned and unwanted just seem a little overblown and that was mainly why I was responding.  Obsolescence is a bigger problem for any electric motorcycle right now than "what if Polaris doesn't expend much effort towards the future of the current Brammo models".

On the plus side, the delays may be more "how do we incorporate the existing dealers into our different corporate setup" than "will we".  The "your Brammo dealer remains" comment can be seen as temporary, or it can be seen as guardedly optimistic with an intent leaning more towards adding "in addition to (some or all) Polaris dealers".  And, yes, for now the crystal ball is foggy at best.

On the "why is it taking so long" front, there are probably a lot more regulations covering motor vehicle distribution channels than there are for electronics, even high end electronics.  More regulations, a larger concern over (public safety) liability, the fact that MV dealerships are specifically called out as a protected species in many states, etc.

[teddillard]

Right - and this: http://insideevs.com/polaris-registers-victory-charger-trademark-electric-motorcycle/

This is following, pretty exactly, the trajectory I've seen for a "mother" company who's planning on introducing their own branded (and re-designed) product based on an acquisition's core tech.  Several times, actually. 

I'm trying to think if I've actually ever seen a company do this and keep the original brand intact.  Nothing comes to mind.

Not sure about SEC requirements and such regarding dealer support, so I can't speak to that.  I also am not at all clear on whether dealers have to actually purchase bikes, as they do with most auto and motorsports dealerships.  Maybe someone can answer that.   

I guess we're sort of getting off the OP topic, but I have a post going live today on InsideEVs about my thoughts on the Brammo drivetrain business plan... 

[Richard230]

Regarding motorcycle dealers purchasing their bikes, my understanding is that Zero dealers have to buy the bikes that they sell outright and then try to resell them to customers.  I think this is why they try to obtain a heavy deposit from every customer, or sometimes the full purchase price, before ordering a particular model for each customer.  My dealer (whose franchise and building I understand, BTW, has just been sold, lock, stock and barrel, to another motorcycle business in San Francisco), does apparently purchase a few of their Zero motorcycles so that they can have some on the showroom floor to encourage sales and provide test rides.  That is a bit of a risk so they really have to know their local market. 

In a couple of cases, they have had previous years Zero models sitting on the floor for a year or two before being able to sell them at a stiff discount. That makes the deal similar to accepting a used bike as a trade-in and then not being able to sell it for a while.  (When I traded-in my 1991 BMW K100RS with 65K on the clock for $4500 off against the $8500 price of the Yamaha FZ1 that I bought in 2002, my poor BMW sat on their showroom floor for 3 years before their service manager finally bought the bike for his long commute. No doubt the shop really took it in the shorts on that deal.)

However, most large motorcycle brands "floor" their bikes to the dealer.  That means that the new bikes sitting on the showroom floor are still owned by the manufacturer, with a lien placed on them by a finance company.  So there is no money immediately out of the franchise dealer's pocket for a given period of time.  But if the bike doesn't sell for a certain number of days (typically 30 to 90 days), then the dealer has to start paying interest on the value of the motorcycle to the finance company that has the lien on that bike. 

That system provides a place to warehouse the new bikes for the manufacturer and/or distributor, while giving the dealer a bike to display on the showroom floor to attract customers and hopefully sales without having to purchase the bike outright first. Being responsible to start paying the interest on the value of the bike after a certain number of days, encourages the dealer to make every effort to actually sell the bike before that happens, thereby making a profit for both the dealer and the manufacturer, which keeps the entire flow of bikes from the factory into the marketplace moving as efficiently as possible.

This system is why dealers really hate it when the manufacturers require them to order a certain number of their "dogs" to be able to also order a larger number of hot selling models.  That is why you sometimes see something like that weird and expensive Honda scooter/motorcycle/transformer-looking thing that came out this year collecting dust on the showroom floor. 

Also, I believe that motorcycles that are used for test-rides are actually owned and insured by the manufacturer or distributor.  The dealers are required to put a certain number of miles on each test model and at some point they are either returned to the distributor, or allowed to be sold by the dealer to customers at a discount, after a certain number of miles have been accumulated and/or the next year's model has been introduced.

Please note that my comments above are a summary of what I have gleaned over the years from talking to dealership owners and other people in the motorcycle business over a cup of coffee and not from actually any hands-on experience. So no doubt there is a lot more to selling motorcycles (and staying in business at the same time) than I have explained.