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[Richard230]

In today's sad news, Erik Buell Racing has declared bankruptcy, laid off 126 employees and has stopped manufacturing motorcycles:

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/15/erik-buell-racing-declares-bankruptcy/

All of which goes to show you that you need more than just a great design, decent funding and a solid partner.  The most important thing is to have a good business plan.  Erik seemed to be relatively well-funded, but I think he had the wrong product for a start-up and probably too small a distribution network.  He was going head-to-head with the high-end Ducati, BMW, KTM and Japanese sportbike market.  Not an easy thing to do if you want to make enough money to stay in business.

I think this shows that Zero is on the right path. Start out slow and creep up the technology ladder with (relatively) middle-of-the-road bikes that provide basic transportation instead of high-end flash.  Just think about the manufacturers who swung for the long ball, such as Mission, Brammo, Lightning, etc.  Where are they now (in the big scheme of things)?     It really is a tough business.   

[Cortezdtv]

Isn't "middle of the market" where most bikes are sold?


If you were Honda or a big company wouldn't you wait until electric motorcycles are profitable and then just come in and buy the company

Or like Polaris just buy even earlier

[MotoRyder]

It is a tough business indeed, especially when a company doesn't understand the market in terms of what can be offered (the company's expertise), what customers are desiring, and the potential for selling that product into the intended market.  This portion of the business plan is essential, and too many times it seems like companies offer products with inferior market intelligence...where the rubber of reality hits the proverbial road. 

Buell Racing was unfortunately targeting a small(er) market with a lot of competition (as Richard points out).  They seemed to have the other aspects of the business accounted for, except for the part of selling enough product at a profitable price point to stay in business.

Brammo's demise seems partly due to a lack of understanding of what the market wanted/wants and was/is willing to pay for. Most of the early adopter segment has selected Zero's significantly over Brammos (either Empulses or Enertias), as we know because Brammo's sales just wouldn't take off and Zero's sales propelled them forward. 

Case in point, I remember about four years ago that Brammo hired a sales executive from H-D to run their sales department.  This was when they had about 10 dealers nation-wide to distribute their motorcycles.  I then saw them franchising some H-D Dealers (on their Dealer locator webpage), and a few of the exotic motorcycle dealers in locations that could support sales of those machines  What were they thinking ??   That really showed that they didn't have a good understanding of who was going to buy their electric motorcycles and how they should try to reach and sell into that market.

[RNM]

Abe Askenazi was at Buell for 15 years and then moved to Zero in 2010.

Buell started with innovation, almost all of which came from Abe. After Abe left, did Buell innovate much...?

When you stop innovating, you die.