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[Richard230]

Why electric motorcycles are not selling very well might have something to do with the people who have tried to build them before thinking about how to make enough money to stay in business. Below is a link to a really great article detailing the recent history of production electric motorcycle startups and why they have failed. Personally, I am fascinated by the subject. I see all of these smart people with really great ideas and innovations who just seem to have no idea how to get them manufactured, marketed, distributed and to sell enough each year to stay in business. (Note that scooter manufacturers were not discussed in the article as that would probably have added several more pages and a lot of complications. Apparently, the author really wanted to stick with the subject of high performance, street-legal motorcycles and not complicate things by including electric scooters.)  In any case, this article is very interesting and it is nice to see Zero getting a pat on the back for taking the common sense approach to manufacturing electric motorcycles:

http://canadamotoguide.com/2015/09/16/the-electric-superbike-the-end-of-the-beginning/

[Mike Werner]

It's a good article, and in part he's right; amateur hour is over. But where I differ in opinion, it's not that this upstarts are doing things wrong (ie Brammo and their big shows, girls etc), but it's because they are unknowns.

The general public with money to spend will spend it on electric bikes, but with someone they know and trust. In other words, established manufacturers. No one wants to buy a 15-30K electric motorcycle, and the a few months later the company goes belly up.

They'll stick to the likes of BMW, KTM and whoever else comes along. And of course there are always exceptions to the rule, like Zero (or Tesla in the car world). It's not that they are selling like hot cakes, but they tend to survive, and if they manage to hold it together for a decade or so, they will become the mainstream manufacturers. It's a question of money, and how long they can stick it out.

Looking at the figures, BMW and KTM are selling well. With the Frankfurt announcement this week, it's obvious that the big car manufacturers are also going more and more electric. That's because people prefer to buy an electric BMW, Audi, Nissan, etc that spend a lot of money on Tesla without any assurance that they'll still be there in a few years.

Yes, if cost can be brought down, like battery costs, then small startups have a better chance. That's why it works very well in China, where low cost operators manage to sell low powered scoots for dirt cheap.

Anyway, it's a good article.

[Richard230]

I found (Brammo) Brian's comment regarding the article interesting.  He said that many of the author's comments about Brammo were wrong and that the article was poorly researched.  The first thing that came into my head upon reading his comments (interestingly the first one on the page) is that finding any facts regarding the interior workings of the electric motorcycle business is not very easy.  Most of the time you have to depend upon personal interviews and hope you are not being fed a load of BS (positive or negative) that you will then spread around over the internet. No doubt Ted is struggling with this problem in writing his book.  I know he has a number of inside-the-industry contacts, but how he will filter out the wheat from the chaff is a mystery to me. Once that information gets into print in a book, it is tough to retract if turns out to be wrong.

[Doug S]

I have to admit, the whole time I was reading the article, I was thinking "Brammo didn't fail!". They built a successful company and succeeded in convincing a much larger company to purchase them; that's one of the two holy grails of startups (the other being to dominate the industry entirely, the way Tesla is doing).

Having a large manufacturer jump into the ring is a major stepping-stone for the EM market, quite the opposite from a death knell.

[Brammofan]

I have to admit, the whole time I was reading the article, I was thinking "Brammo didn't fail!". They built a successful company and succeeded in convincing a much larger company to purchase them; that's one of the two holy grails of startups (the other being to dominate the industry entirely, the way Tesla is doing).

Having a large manufacturer jump into the ring is a major stepping-stone for the EM market, quite the opposite from a death knell.

Hear, hear!

I like Uhlarik and respect much of his work. This article is not up to his usual standards of quality.

[teddillard]

I found very, very little in the piece that is inaccurate.  Brammo fans and their delusions aside.    For the sake of accuracy and my book, I'd appreciate a point-by-point on what is incorrect - I've been documenting this since about 2008. 

For the record, I've contacted Brammo personally several times for research on the book, and got no response whatsoever.  Completely ignored, would be the way I'd describe it.  I basically attribute that to several years of some pointed questioning of their claims and statements, with an open mind and willingness to listen, perceived by them as me being someone who's not going blindly parrot what they claim.  So be it, I'm left with what I've collected, but a lot of it is from inside information and verifiable sources - some even on the Brammo payroll, though "off the record".

The one bit that annoys the piss outta me is that Mission has NOT filed for bankruptcy.  Seeger told the court he would via a letter.  There is no filing that I can find, and the report in the North Jersey story supports that. 

As for the conclusion: "The electric motorcycle revolution is coming, but it will be a slow-burn transformation instead of an explosive one.  Given the volatility of the motorcycle market, that is a good thing."  ...it's spot-on target. I dare anyone to argue with this:

"It seems obvious that being a motorcycle company is about manufacturing motorcycles, but startup culture in 21st century America has been built around internet business, where physical products aren’t the core focus. The Silicon Valley template is to go from prototype to high volume delivery as fast as possible, to secure later venture funding. This, in the vernacular of venture capital, is called scaling, the end goal of which is either the sale of the fledgling company to a larger one, or to float stock on the market in an IPO (independent public offering).

It’s a formula that’s made tens of billions in the dot-com and app universe, but unfortunately translates very poorly into businesses that actually make things. Physical devices in the tech world, if required, are outsourced to contract manufacturers because they form only a tiny part of the consumer experience. But with motor vehicles, the physical product is the experience."

It's been my observation and conclusion since I put together the timelines for Brammo and Zero.  It's painfully obvious they had two completely different strategies, and Zero's was to build motorcycles. 

https://evmc2.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/zero-motorycles-timeline/
https://evmc2.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/the-brammo-timeline/

By the way, he left out Energica - a company that's also got a laser-focus and some serious backing, and looks to be on it's timeline.

[MotoRyder]

Thanks Richard for posting this lead to an interesting article.
At least I find it interesting, and the critiques to the article allow more perspective on the topic.
The comment that I found to be enlightening and highlights the responses that I've encountered when discussing electric motos with others (not on this forum) is:

...Electrics are at best a sidebar to the current state of the motorcycle industry and frankly bore the living daylights out of me.
Its kinda like watching an Ichiban Moto video….

The thing that most don't seem to comprehend is the exhilaration factor — the excitement from the immediate pull of the bike as power is applied.