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[JohnFind]

You would think that if somebody actually got hurt they would be documenting and screaming bloody murder.

[NEW2elec]

Don't forget that most Zero employees are getting a pretty good salary, along with decent, but expensive, benefits, due to their technical expertise and the high cost of living in Scotts Valley, CA. Keeping that company going every year has got to be pretty expensive due to labor, much less the cost of running the factory, its equipment, buying the Zero parts, paying back loans, etc.  It is amazing to me how they manage to keep the doors open selling just a few thousand bikes a year.  No wonder they seem to watch every penny that they spend. (I just wish they didn't save so many pennies on the lack of after-sales customer service.)

Since a good CA man like Richard breached the subject I won't be a total CA hater.
I have felt for a while now the customer service issues have been a result of CA culture.  "Don't bother me dude I'm having fun in the sun" seems like a shop slogan.  Zero is paying too high rent too high labor and too high shipping.
They could keep R&D there but the factory and parts warehouse and call center needs to come east.  South east for the best rates but look at their dealer map, most are on the east coast and their expansion into Europe makes shipping faster and cheaper. 
It has to be cheaper to ship China parts by sea to the east coast than to ship bikes over the road cross country.
Don't get me wrong I think CA is a great place for a vacation or to retire but for pure business operation the cost of living is crushing.

[Richard230]

Don't forget that most Zero employees are getting a pretty good salary, along with decent, but expensive, benefits, due to their technical expertise and the high cost of living in Scotts Valley, CA. Keeping that company going every year has got to be pretty expensive due to labor, much less the cost of running the factory, its equipment, buying the Zero parts, paying back loans, etc.  It is amazing to me how they manage to keep the doors open selling just a few thousand bikes a year.  No wonder they seem to watch every penny that they spend. (I just wish they didn't save so many pennies on the lack of after-sales customer service.)

Since a good CA man like Richard breached the subject I won't be a total CA hater.
I have felt for a while now the customer service issues have been a result of CA culture.  "Don't bother me dude I'm having fun in the sun" seems like a shop slogan.  Zero is paying too high rent too high labor and too high shipping.
They could keep R&D there but the factory and parts warehouse and call center needs to come east.  South east for the best rates but look at their dealer map, most are on the east coast and their expansion into Europe makes shipping faster and cheaper. 
It has to be cheaper to ship China parts by sea to the east coast than to ship bikes over the road cross country.
Don't get me wrong I think CA is a great place for a vacation or to retire but for pure business operation the cost of living is crushing.

I agree that would make a lot of business sense, as many other manufacturing firms have followed that path. But I think Zero's problem is that the vast majority of their staff are engineering design professionals - that are well paid of course because of their education and experience. Moving the factory to some other location would not do much to defer their expenses. That would leave the engineers thousands of miles away from the factory assembly line where they can respond immediately to any issues.  Finding the numbers of EV engineers anywhere else in the country that are needed would likely to be almost impossible. Plus, all of their staff now have a lot of technical expertise and experience that is needed to keep the company running and most of them wouldn't want to move away from their established homes and families.  Plus the Santa Cruz area is a really nice place to live, work and play.  That plan would likely work if the company was making metal hardware, but I don't think it would be viable for a high-tech company making a very unique product.

One other thing to consider is that the assembly staff seems to consist of just a few part-time workers who are hired seasonally during the production run and then are let go after the last bike of the model year is assembled. So the manufacturing end of the company is run very efficiently.  Of course, this system may also be the reason for some of the after-sales problems customers are experiencing. 

[nevetsyad]

Well, do they make everything on site? Or do they have plastics coming in on a slow boat from China, and that's why no one's getting their new plastics for a while? Probably put in 2 or 3 large orders a year to keep prices down?

I'm sure they considered moving production to a cheaper area. They may be so small still that it's not worth the effort, especially if they're just bringing in part time work for a few months out of the year to pump them all out at once. I didn't think they only made them for a few months, then let them sit in their warehouse until a dealer requests one.

[Richard230]

Well, do they make everything on site? Or do they have plastics coming in on a slow boat from China, and that's why no one's getting their new plastics for a while? Probably put in 2 or 3 large orders a year to keep prices down?

I'm sure they considered moving production to a cheaper area. They may be so small still that it's not worth the effort, especially if they're just bringing in part time work for a few months out of the year to pump them all out at once. I didn't think they only made them for a few months, then let them sit in their warehouse until a dealer requests one.

From what I have seen just about everything on a Zero is sourced from somewhere in Asia (mostly China).  However, Zero does assemble and test the battery packs in-house.