When I spoke with Richard Walker, Zero's CEO, a couple of months ago during a customer feedback conference call, he invited me to visit the factory once they got their 2013 production model assembly line up and running. That day finally arrived yesterday, scheduled to coincide with the arrival of Terry (offthegrid) Hershner, who was riding up from LA via Highway 1. (Check out his Facebook page for the entire story and cool photos:
https://www.facebook.com/lifeoffthegrid) Even though I only live 70 miles north of their factory in Scotts Valley, CA and gave myself two hours to get there on my BMW, I decided to take a scenic route through Santa Cruz and managed to get myself completely lost, thereby arriving a fashionably 15 minutes late.
Upon arriving at Zero's small factory (40K sf, about the size of a typical warehouse), I was introduced to Mr. Walker who decided to personally take me on a tour of their facility. Just as we went outside and turned the corner of the building, up (silently) rides Terry on his long-suffering, but still running great, workhorse 2012 Zero S. The first thing he does is to spot the charging station mounted on the building wall and cozys up to it looking for some juice. Unfortunately there was a car there hogging the outlet. The next thing he does was to show me his bike's odometer, which is now showing 17,500 miles since he bought the bike in April. That is more miles than I ever put on my BMWs during a similar time. I asked Terry where he was able to find power to recharge his bike, which has a range of between 60 and 115 miles, and was told that the best place to "refuel" are at public camping areas. I might add that Terry says one day he traveled 700 miles, charging along the way, and we know his bike is fast because he accumulated 3 speeding tickets during his trip - one was for doing 92 mph! I was impressed and the guys at the factory wanted a copy of that ticket so they can frame it and put it on their wall - for inspiration no doubt.
It appears that Terry has broken all el moto records for distance traveled, for distance traveled over a given period of time and for the number of speeding tickets accumulated by a production el moto. I think he plans to do better on the way back to Florida. Go Terry!
Meanwhile, back at the factory tour, Terry joined Mr. Walker (who likes to be called Richard, just like me) and I. We were shown a row of shipping crates with about 100 new bikes in them waiting to be shipped to South America lined up along the building wall. Then we were taken into the factory building to see the large parts department, the R&D areas, battery assembly area and various other sections of the factory. I didn't take photos of these areas because I didn't want to photograph something that I shouldn't by accident and also because these rooms look just like the inside of every other warehouse you have seen. What I didn't see was any gilded areas with fancy equipment, large photos of the President or babes holding umbrellas over factory racers. No Brammo Babes or construction robots here. Just guys doing stuff with their brains and hand tools and a minimum of fancy equipment. Even their office area is the typical floor partition special, with the CEO having his own corner office with a view of the building driveway and the open office floor and everyone else in cubes. I might add that the only suit I saw was on Mr. Walker, everyone else had on casual working clothes and it wasn't even casual Friday.
Unfortunately, the 2013 assembly line was stalled out due to a delay in receiving critical parts from an outside supplier, so not much was going on there. However, I was able to check out a partially assembled production Zero and noticed that the belt adjustment is now accomplished by the usual bolt and locknut pushing against the rear axle, instead of adjusting the location of the motor as is done on my 2012 model. Little things like this are something that an owner can appreciate. I also really liked the looks of the new motor. It is so small and simple looking. Cables carrying electricity go in one end and lots of torque and power come out the other end. Here we have a motor that makes 54 horsepower, about what my 865cc Triumph Bonneville produces, and looks to be about 1/4 the size and weight of the Triumph's motor. Also the frame and swingarm looks very robust on the new model. I am really impressed with the improvements made to next-years models. I hope I can hold out for at least until the 2014 model before buying another Zero.
By 3:30 we had finished the tour and Terry and I were asked to meet with the entire company staff. Right on schedule, about 80 people showed up in their assembly room and sat down on the room's folding metal chairs to listen to Mr. Walker introduce Terry and myself. To be honest, I was pretty much embarrassed by the attention. Here I am standing next to Terry, who just rode about 4000 miles to the factory on a self-modified production battery-powered electric motorcycle, while getting three speeding tickets, and here I am having ridden the 70 miles to the factory on my R1200R touring bike and managing to get lost in the process. Terry talked about his adventure and bike modifications and I spoke about my use of my Zero to go shopping and how easy it was to ride, clean and maintain. After the assembly was finished, about 75 people went over to Terry to talk to him and check out his bike (it is nice that you can bring a motorcycle into a crowded room and not have the Fire Marshal object) and the other 5 people came over to me and asked about my use and opinions about my bike.
I did get to meet all of the movers and shakers in the Zero organization and I was really impressed with their enthusiasm and how pleasant everyone was. And I didn't see a single chip on anyone's shoulder during my visit.
After more conversation with the troops, the sun was setting and I was starting to feel like a cold bright-yellow pumpkin. So I rode back home in 40 degree temperatures and this time I didn't get lost. But let me give you some advice. Stay away from the town of Half Moon Bay during commute hours. The commute traffic there was completely stopped for two miles along Highway 1 and I had to split lanes to get through the congestion. I arrived home at 6:30 pm and called it a day.
Photos attached.
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Topic: My visit to the Zero Factory (Read 2195 times)