Okay, would you accept that it was roughly at the same level of production as the 2012 Zero bikes revealed at EICMA? Obviously they're not yet shipping, but Brammo has indicated a clear intent that this is the production bike.
Brammo launched the Enertia+ Oct. 2010 to deliver 80 mile range.
Zero announced a 100 mile range ZF9 a year later.
Within three months Zero shipped.
Brammo still hasn't shipped a 80 mile range product never mind one to compete with Zero's 114.
Why debate the status of a second fictitious product, the Empulse? Let's wait for them to ship the previous now two-years-late product before we debate the one-year-late product.
Enertia Plus was
announced in October 2010, for delivery "in 2011".
At EICMA in November 2010
Brammo was telling people the E+ would ship in June or July 2011.
The Enertia+ is very late, no doubt. If it ships at the end of the month - and we'll see if it does - it'll be almost two years since the announcement. But by that logic, the 2012 Zeros were 3 months "late" when they shipped. The Enertia+ was just announced well in advance of its targeted delivery date, and then the delivery date slipped a year.
But it's not a production bike. The price keeps changing as they discover, like new owners of a fixer-upper house, that the cost curve to get from an 80% completed renovation to a finished home is asymptotic. In a house you can always move in with the crappy bathroom that you hoped to tear out but ran out of money to fix because fixing the electrical wiring consumed the budget but with a production car or a motorcycle that means the thing don't friggin work.
That's an awful analogy IMO.
The Empulse price has changed exactly one time, when Brammo revealed the production bike which differed significantly from the initial configurations. IET, level 2 charger, regen braking, brembo brakes, only a single top-end battery configuration. The initial Empulse configurations are closer to the 2012 Zeros than they are to the production Empulse .. which is partly why both Richard230 and I bought them.
Maybe Brammo would have been better served to retire the Empulse name and give the new bike a new name. Regardless, the Empulse as originally conceived is dead. I don't see an "asymptotic cost curve" - I see a one year slip in delivery, a significant change in the bike configuration over the two years between announcement and delivery, and a reveal of the final design and price shortly before delivery.
Here's a trio of "theoretical production" Empulses.
Three hand crafted bikes like you'd make in your basement.
Not production.
Here is what a motorcycle production line looks like, with QA and all the process needed to crank out bikes that don't come back to haunt you and chew up your profits
.
I wish I could crank out an electric bike like Brammo or Zero in my basement. You're moving the goalposts, though; first you criticized the Empulse because it was imaginary or theoretical, now it's that it's hand-crafted? Do you imagine Zero's assembly line was fully operational when they showed bikes at EICMA 2011?
Tell me more about the "QA and all the process needed to crank out bikes that don't come back to haunt you and chew up your profits". Brammo and Zero are both in the fairly early stages of standing up new manufacturing and design companies. Flaws happen; Brammo and Zero have both done an admirable job taking care of their customers when they do.
But if that's your definition of production, then Zero still does not have a production bike .. which means they're "late" .. which rounds up to "now two-years late"??
I still don't understand how a transmission in a Brammo bike is a travesty before god and man, but a transmission in a Zero bike will result in market domination.
An existing 6-speed gear box (heavy, high friction, unoptimized) stuck onto an electric bike = a custom 2-speed xmission (light, low friction, optimized)?
How?
IET is not an "existing 6-speed gear box" as fitted to an ICE bike. It is an integrated transmission / motor package. SMRE makes both the motor and the transmission as a single unit .. the transmission is specifically designed for the motor.
***
One thing I would like to say in ZERO's behalf as a company. I put a deposit on a ZERO DS two years and one week before I got delivery of the 2010 DS. The first real production DS from ZERO. When I made my deposit two years earlier they listed the price of the DS at $9,000. To their good credit they grandfathered me in at that price and never attempted to raise it over the two year period. When I took delivery it was $9K even though the price to everybody else had risen to $10K. I got the bike for $1,000 less than they were selling for, and they threw in a low profile Corbin seat for nothing, as a token of appreciation for my waiting so long.
It would take a lot to get me to switch away from ZERO as a manufacturer. Case in point I now own two ZERO DS's and if I have enough years left on this planet I'll bet those aren't going to be my only ZERO's
What is Brammo doing for those who have waited?
Trikester
When they announced the Enertia Plus, they also announced a $2500 loyalty discount for the E+ to those that purchased an original Enertia. I haven't heard anything about the discount recently.. it may have fallen by the wayside.
Brammo bumped the price of the Enertia Plus by $2000 this February with no explanation and no special treatment for existing preorders. And unlike the Empulse, the Enertia Plus is basically the same configuration originally announced.
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