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[zap mc]

As reported here
http://www.octafinance.com/zero-motorcycles-3-53-million-financing-richard-walker-by-jm-lewis-attorney-in-fact-submitted-jun-23-filing/

[Richard230]

That sounds like good news.  I hope they use the funds for improvements to their new models and not on management salaries.  I am sure that they can find some useful suggestions somewhere around here.   

[Doug S]

I know nothing about finance, but that doesn't look like Zero took out a loan, I read it that they financed themselves somehow?? What does that even mean? And the balance of the funding -- the $31,000 -- seems like a very specific number. I wonder if it's like a buy-in being offered to somebody or something.

[Ranga]

Invus is Zero's long-term sponsor, so this sounds like business as usual for the two. A big factor of Polaris buying out Brammo is that they never found a long term sponsor, and instead had to go from funding round to funding round. You can read Ted Dillard's articles for more details on that matter.

Also, the author becomes questionable when they say that Zero is based in New York, then give the address of Scotts Valley CA.

[protomech]

Invis Zero's long-term sponsor, so this sounds like business as usual for the two. A big factor of Polaris buying out Brammo is that they never found a long term sponsor, and instead had to go from funding round to funding round. You can read Ted Dillard's articles for more details on that matter.

Also, the author becomes questionable when they say that Zero is based in New York, then give the address of Scotts Valley CA.

Invus is based in NY. I guess that's where the confusion comes from.

[togo]

And latest infusion was December 2018...

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/zero-motorcycles

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/invus

Hope the SR/F produces the excitement and sales Zero needs to become self-sustainable.

Looks like they are down to one infusion a year instead of 2-3, so that seems like a good sign,
especially since 2018 would have been a larger than usual R&D spend to get the new platform
ready.

[zap mc]

Wouldn’t it be cheaper for Invus to just give people money for NOT buying a bike?
They should just cut out the middle man and save the trouble of having to buy the bikes back a few years down the line when they break down or catch fire

[Richard230]

I wonder if all of the investors have been paid back over the years, or are hanging on in the hope that the company will be bought out by one of the big established ICE manufacturers some day?

[zap mc]

Most of the $9.7M investment is Invus so they are probably in too deep now to let it go and are in the sunk cost fallacy zone. Who would buy it when it is such a loss making sink hole? It’s never been run as a commercial company because they all know Invus will come along and bail them out instead now they fill up the cash tank with $10M at a time instead of $3.5M. Any proper company would have ditched the archaic air cooling by now and invested in a better system. Only the fact that they have no real competitors keeps them ticking over and gives the illusion that they lead a market of one. They only occupy that space because they can sustain the massive losses longer than anyone else because some Belgian wants to offset the losses on their tax bill

[flattetyre]

^ Lots of half-baked assumptions and do I detect a hint of anger toward people with money? 

[zap mc]

^ Lots of half-baked assumptions and do I detect a hint of anger toward people with money? 

If you want to contribute to the duscusssion of the topic fair enough but please keep your ignorant personal comments to yourself particularly in a public forum

[Moto7575]

You seem to have a bad customer experience, and you're not the only one. Why don't open a topic on this explaining what happened, inviting other user to share and proposing solution instead ?

[zap mc]

Thank you for the invitation but I have made a lot of my criticisms previously and don’t really want to be reliving past problems. My issues with Zero are outlined above and concern the fact that many of the problems stem from a general lack of accountability due to the fact that the company is financially supported from outside regardless of how it is operated the staff are free to to underperform or ignore issues with little or no consequences. We have seen the same pattern of behaviour with Brammo, Quantya, Alta ( BRD ) and more recently Bultaco who spent €10M of investors money before going bust. The Electric motorcycle market at this stage seems to be quite simply unsustainable as Zero are technically trading whilst insolvent.

[NEW2elec]

No one really knows too much about how things are going outside of the company because its private.
If you look at Amazon and how many years it took to turn a profit because they were reinvesting in the company and now they are doing pretty good. 

Even Tesla may not make it on their own for say 15 more years we'll see.
Zero has three big issues in my opinion that are fixable.
1.  Lack of public knowledge.  Most people I talk to have never even heard of them.  The press that HD gets may help get the word out as the media makes comparisons.

2.  The lack of tech/maintenance support to customers and dealers in a timely manner and dropping under preforming parts and suppliers sooner (chargers).  It takes money to fund an expanded support staff and the quickest way to do it without a big loan is move the company out of CA.  Leave the HQ offices and RD there if they believe that is the only place they can find EEs with the knowledge for their products.

3.  Sales price.  The main factory/tech support center should come to the east coast, southeast coast to get really cheap, and get the operating costs down to fund bigger productions and parts buys.  They would be closer to Europe which has a much bigger thirst for electric powered vehicles with better charging infrastructure and super high gas prices.  A 365 support staff from the savings and a middle timezone operation for both west coast and Europe.

[Moto7575]

I would add lack a dealers network management : basically they focus on sales, and keep bad dealer that do hard-selling and over promise.
This is not how a professional company behaves, but typical of an engineer company : focus on the product, not on the customer.
 

No one really knows too much about how things are going outside of the company because its private.
If you look at Amazon and how many years it took to turn a profit because they were reinvesting in the company and now they are doing pretty good. 

Even Tesla may not make it on their own for say 15 more years we'll see.
Zero has three big issues in my opinion that are fixable.
1.  Lack of public knowledge.  Most people I talk to have never even heard of them.  The press that HD gets may help get the word out as the media makes comparisons.

2.  The lack of tech/maintenance support to customers and dealers in a timely manner and dropping under preforming parts and suppliers sooner (chargers).  It takes money to fund an expanded support staff and the quickest way to do it without a big loan is move the company out of CA.  Leave the HQ offices and RD there if they believe that is the only place they can find EEs with the knowledge for their products.

3.  Sales price.  The main factory/tech support center should come to the east coast, southeast coast to get really cheap, and get the operating costs down to fund bigger productions and parts buys.  They would be closer to Europe which has a much bigger thirst for electric powered vehicles with better charging infrastructure and super high gas prices.  A 365 support staff from the savings and a middle timezone operation for both west coast and Europe.