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[cogito]

IMHO Honda will bury all these marginal startups in a year or two when they enter this space. Just a matter of time.

Re Bramscher's idea that these bikes will become mass commodites akin to cellphones and the like, I find this to be a very dicey and ill-conceived concept given the huge discrepancies in scale, mfg and support costs, etc. (See Vectrix et al.) And the recent pricing debacle only tells me Brammo failed to do the most basic marketing research before releasing these at $12K.

Bottom line: this is a niche market product suited only to short-distance commuting. Brammo's own people are admitting that if you pin the throttle out on the highway your run time will be all of 20 minutes/miles. How many consumers will be content with this very limited range even at $8K?
And how can you possibly equate these bikes with a mass market commodity like cellphones? Makes no sense. I give them 24 months before they fold their tent.

I'm not sure the recent pricing change is a debacle. I considered buying at 12k, but didn't. I may very well do so at 8k (less tax incentives.) It reminds me of when the iPhone dropped their price also by 33% just months after introducing the original iphone. Didn't hurt them at all. Yes, I'm aware Best Buy doesn't have long lines of people buying Brammos.

[skadamo]

Could Brammo fail? Of course. They already have in past endevors. Re: electric Arial Atom.

The thing is they changed course quickly, sold their assests (the "rouge" name to Nissan) and built the Enertia.

Also, don't discount motorcycle enthusists tendency towards being unique. The motorcycle market has become very stale over the last 10 years. Choose your sportbike color. Choose your dirtbike color. Red, yellow, blue, green, or KTM. Same stuff, different color.

Given enough momentum groups will form around the product and riding styles and patterns will change. Range won't mean much to the enthusists who ride with othe electric riders. Cafe to cafe, town to town, bar to bar, most bike groups are destination oriented. It's a very social interest for most.

An added benefit to electric is virtual communities can more easily form around these groups as they have GPS and wifi and can transfer data to a computer. Don't forget they are tunable by computer.   

I could be wrong but I don't think I am.

[Brammofan]

Yes, I'm aware Best Buy doesn't have long lines of people buying Brammos.

Actually, as of this afternoon (November 12), Best Buys in Portland are quoting delivery dates out to November 21. Brammo is shipping "emergency stock" to help them get on top of the demand.  At least, that's what I'm hearing from the Brammole.

[leph]

"Given enough momentum groups will form around the product and riding styles and patterns will change. Range won't mean much to the enthusists who ride with othe electric riders. Cafe to cafe, town to town, bar to bar, most bike groups are destination oriented. It's a very social interest for most."

Disagree re the limited range not being a major factor. I personally own an earlier e-moto (Denali Dual Sport) with similar range limitations and found it to be a huge liability. The bike has sat gathering dust in my garage since (I now ride a 1000W Tidalforce e-bike with about 4x the run time of the Denali). Unless the e-club riders are geographically very close, you're talking having to trailer the damn bikes hither and yon to a start point, which goes a bit against the whole spirit of these. The motorcycle clubs in my area typically travel 100 miles+ on their weekend rides. Ride the Enertia aggressively at high speeds and you'll only get 1/4 of that. I'm reading lithium prices might plunge over the next couple years as supply outpaces demand, so perhaps we'll get a decent-ranged bike soon. This isn't it.

[skadamo]

Disagree re the limited range not being a major factor.

I agree for a most of people who ride in rural areas. A lot of my road rides rule out an electric. I could definitely commute on one though. My commute is 25 miles.

I work in a large IL suburb of Chicago. Imagine a few of the 1000's of other people at work had electrics too. No doubt we would start talking and most likely do a leisure ride eventually. Others would join all limited by the same range. Riding habits change to accommodate. Now allow this same networking to happen over the web via web based application. Allow riders to locate and interact with local e-riders. <- that is an ingredient i HOPE Brammo is working on. I think the more dense the population the more this can work out.

I personally think the biggest potential is in dirt riding. Riding patterns for most already work fine with the range of electric. Zero and Quantya will not have to work as hard as Brammo to network people imho.

leph, are you in a rural area?

[leph]

"leph, are you in a rural area?"

Semi-rural, semi-suburban SE NY (Dutchess County) about 60 miles north of NYC. Used to be dairy country, now mostly bedroom communities for people working south. We still have some beautiful horse farm country to the north but southern Dutchess is a real mixed bag with heavy development in the SW corner (Fishkill area), where IBM has had a big plant for years. My particular town hugs the NY CT border and is pretty quiet and rural with great road biking in almost all directions, but especially north and east. MTB trail riding is there but scattered all around the county.

I did a modest amount of offroad biking on my Denali but found there were just not enough local trials to do it justice unless I was willing to cart the bike on a heavy-duty rack to the trail head. IOW too much juice burned just getting to the trail to be able to do any serious riding. I will admit the Enertia's Valence pack is a lot deeper than the Hawker SLAs the Denali ran, and so I can see these bikes as possibly a lot of fun in this application.

Personally I discovered I like road riding and e-assist bikes better than non-pedal full power e-motos since I get some exercise and can cover a lot of ground in a fairly short time. On a typical weekend ride I can do close to 40 miles in under two hours with a 22 lb 24 Ah lipoly pack and just moderate pedaling. 20+ mph average speed is very decent for a bike, and on shorter speed rides I can average closer to 25 mph.

Someday I would agree with your scenario of the popularity of e-riding clubs but it's probably years down the road before the numbers are out there. There are a few seminal clubs I know of in the Dallas and So Cal areas but they are both road oriented and only have a few members, with very infrequent rides. First adopters such as those found on these boards are by nature early and perhaps a little overoptimistic re how fast the world will change.

I have been e-biking for close to 10 years now, and while the battery and motor technologies have seen truly mind boggling advances over the past five years especially, I DON'T see the general public flocking to these bikes--at all. In fact most still remain unaware of them. A US company called EMS is now putting out a powerful silent 1000W 30 mph e-bike in the $3K range and sales are still anemic despite the brilliant engineering behind the bike. (The Tidalforce S750X I ride was a precursor to the E+). By anemic I mean probably under a couple hundred sold in over a year nation-wide. That's pathetic.

So I remain very dubious about Brammo's sales expectations for a bike retailing at more than twice the price. I've read Brammo started out with $10 million in financing about a year ago. That's not a lot of dough in this kind of business, and I'm guessing they've already burned through a big chunk of it. IMO the huge price cut and free financing were  clear signals that the company is in desperate need of cash flow--now. We'll see.

Will they sell some bikes? Of course. Will they sell enough to support a burn rate of several hundred thousand dollars a month? I seriously doubt it. In a go-go economy I might be more optimistic but the US economy is simply horrible right now, and most people are hunkered down and holding tight to the few dollars they might have.

[Towjam]

I received an email yesterday from Brammo informing me that I would be reading about the price drop today and to "Rest assured we will be passing on this saving to you at the earliest opportunity". That sounds like a refund to me. 

I still can't believe the price drop... I am very happy with the bike, and with that new price it's a great deal! This really is a game changer.

What a great customer service story (although I'd be careful and not mention this to anyone who bought a Buell on Oct. 14th).   

Keep us posted on how Brammo ends up taking care of you. (I'm skeptical that they'd give a flat full refund for the difference but if they give anything, they're won major points in my book.)

[skadamo]

I have been e-biking for close to 10 years now, and while the battery and motor technologies have seen truly mind boggling advances over the past five years especially, I DON'T see the general public flocking to these bikes--at all. In fact most still remain unaware of them. A US company called EMS is now putting out a powerful silent 1000W 30 mph e-bike in the $3K range and sales are still anemic despite the brilliant engineering behind the bike. (The Tidalforce S750X I ride was a precursor to the E+). By anemic I mean probably under a couple hundred sold in over a year nation-wide. That's pathetic.

10 years, much respect. I am also into mountain biking. Heading to Palos in IL today. The first thing I think when i see those hub motors is that thing has to weigh a lot. On a 27 lb mtb weight (especially in the wheels) is not good. Don't get me wrong, I would love to ride that. 2wd bicycle heck yeah!

http://www.epluselectricbike.com/TidalForce_M750_x2pt0_Electric_Bike.asp


I think a big difference here is the Enertia look very cool. Dare I say iPod cool. It is very well packaged. Wanted to type more but have to run. More later...

[leph]

"The first thing I think when i see those hub motors is that thing has to weigh a lot."

Yup, I think the hub motor weighs about 20 pounds. OTOH it's capable of putting out bursts of 1600W+ and continuous power of around 1200-1300W, which is 3-4X what most of the cheaper e-bikes on the market produce. Also, since it's a rear hub motor, traction is superb and stability quite good. I routinely take sharp curves at 25 mph without a problem. I ditched the factory battery (Saft NIMH) hub four years ago due to technical glitches and inadequate range (8 Ah) and instead run a rear rack-mounted third party 24Ah 37V lipoly pack. The new lipoly RC cells I'm using exhibit incredibly low sag at full throttle (under 2V) and have been very solid performers this season but cycle and calendar life are still big question marks.

One of the best things about the Tidalforce and E+ hub motors is their total silence--and I do mean total--very easy to sneak up on grazing whitetails and the like on these bikes. Also, the  controllers are built into the hub and like the motors have been essentially flawless, which is a first as far as I know, especially for a high-power e-bike motor. The Chinese-made Crystalyte
hub motors are crude, noisy beasts in comparison, and very prone to controller glitches/meltdowns when run at high voltages/amps. Reports are that somewhere between $20-30 million went into the development of the Tidalforce motors and Wavecrest (now reborn as BluWave) is still trying to sell a larger version of the motor to automakers for use in hybrids.
Matra, the former French race car company, purchased some of the patents on the smaller motors from Wavecrest several years ago and is using it in a new e-scooter they're developing for the European markets.

But getting back to the weight issue, a high powered, decent-ranged e-bike capable of 25-35 mph performance is hard to bring in at much under 70 pounds total, and my bike is closer to 80 lbs fully loaded. Even the handmade $9K Optibike made in Boulder is over 60 pounds I think. This is simply the price of power and range. And compared to the weight of most e-motos the e-bikes are actually featherweights in comparison. It's all relative.

I will say that IMO both the Tidalforce and E+ are basically blacktop/packed dirt road bikes. For high performance offroad riding the new Stealth bikes out of Australia look intriguing--have you seen them? I'm a board manager at the Googlegroups Tidalforce forum and one of our members there recently posted this great review. Enjoy:

http://tiny.cc/9mPWU


Larry Hayes

[leph]

Sorry, scroll up to the first post in that folder I linked to find the review of the Stealth bikes by the poster "remf".

[gasorelectric]

A large company like Hondo or other will not buy out these small guys (Bramo, Zero) because they know they will just buckle and fold. They can not keep spending their VC money like they do selling at a loss. I agree, once the big guys are convinced they have a quality product that the mass consumer wants and enters the market all the small guys are dust. And no buy-outs like you see in computer companys!

[Ronin]

I think that the most at-risk part of their plan is the Best Buy retailing. Well, that and the slow roll out. If Best Buy manages to not screw this up (and the PDI/service), the slow roll out may still cause headaches and cost sales. Brammo has what seems like an excellent product, that is now competitively priced. If they can roll it out across the country within the next three months, they may just make it through the brand recognition window before a major manufacturer slams it shut with a 3k e-bike. Every day that the Enertia isn't available to someone who has the ready cash is a potential (and probable) sale lost.

Hey first post! Nice to be here guys

Ron

[Brammofan]

Hey first post! Nice to be here guys

Ron

Hey Ron... welcome to the forum.
I just wanted to say that it's HIGHLY unlikely any Best Buy stores will be added from now until after the first of the year due to that whole Christmas thing.  Their floor spaces are set up as of today for the rest of the year.  I don't know what the plans are for January onward.  That said, I'm not aware of any major manufacturer who is ready to go in the next few months with a $3k bike.  But anything could happen, I guess.