Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Israel]

Zero Motorcycles supporting BDS? certainly seems so.
Israel was Zero Motorcycles #1 market for a while.  Then new senior management at Zero Motorcycles Inc began refusing orders for Israel government, delayed/stalled/deferred when not refusing dealer/distributor/customer orders for years, for over 1 year have refused to sell ANY motorcycles to Israel and now for 7 months now have REFUSED to service and/or provide any warranty support for Zero Motorcycles in Israel. This is BDS right?  The generally illegal Boycott Divestment and Sanction of Israel.

[wavelet]

Zero Motorcycles supporting BDS? certainly seems so.
Israel was Zero Motorcycles #1 market for a while.  Then new senior management at Zero Motorcycles Inc began refusing orders for Israel government, delayed/stalled/deferred when not refusing dealer/distributor/customer orders for years, for over 1 year have refused to sell ANY motorcycles to Israel and now for 7 months now have REFUSED to service and/or provide any warranty support for Zero Motorcycles in Israel. This is BDS right?  The generally illegal Boycott Divestment and Sanction of Israel.

I'm in Israel, and think you're making a ton of unwarranted assumptions here. First, as far as I know Zero doesn't sell its motorcycles directly in any market, it's all done through country/region importers/distributors.
 I have no inside knowledge, or any personal stake in this, but what one of the major local motorcycle news sites (Fullgaz) reported in March was that the previous importer got into a quarrel with Zero (reason not given), and has stopped all sales & support of the bikes (the zero.co.il website still redirects to that importer's own site, but there is now no mention of Zero there (or for that matter, Energica -- the importer was in the process of homologating Energica bikes), nor mention of what existing owners are supposed to do.)

The news site said that Zero is looking for a new local importer,  and had probably settled on Metro (the largest local importer of bikes, including Yamaha & Kawasaki).

There's no indication this has anything to do with BDS.

Personally, I suspect the previous importer (barely more than a one-person operation) was too small to handle the business from Zero's PoV; when I contacted them for information several times, I was either ignored or given partial & misleading information (re charging options, for example, or future models).

 If you're concerned, or have an issue with a bike you bought, contact the MoT -- they can seize the hefty bond every motor vehicle importer needs to post to help local owners if the importer doesn't fulfil the legal obligations (among them full parts supply & servicing for 7 years after purchase; the MoT has done so in the past and used the money to appoint 3d-party caretaker service garages, and buy part stocks, for example when the Hyosung importer went bankrupt).

Edit: Looking at all previous posts posted by the user "ISRAEL", that user is indeed the previous official importer, a.k.a. Mark of AutoElectric. My comment re bond seizing ended up unintentionally ironic.

Mark, you should really provide proper disclosure about who you are when posting stuff like this, it makes you look bad otherwise.

I also don't see the point of your post quoted above, or, for that matter, the  majority of your 15 posts on this board, which have been simply harsh and unexplained criticisms of Zero, in some cases amounting to accusing them of fraud ; if you have proof, great, post it as a matter of public interest for the folks here, or file a criminal complaint with the proper authorities.

[Jarrett]

I have no contribution here other than to say this thread made me learn what BDS

[flattetyre]

The CTO's name is Abraham Ashkenazi so one might doubt there is an anti-Israel conspiracy. More likely the company is just not well integrated or well led and this is one of very many visible effects of that.

[NetPro]

And then there is the issue of not having enough product to sell to everybody.
Imagine all the fire Zero would be the target of if the American community found they were exporting bikes to (any country, for that matter) while falling behind on their scheduled deliveries for the orders taken domestically.

On the other hand, if they had warehouses full of bikes and refused to sell them to Israel, then it could be considered a potential BDS but that is far from being the case.

[Doug S]

I wonder if something else is going on. Maybe the Israeli government has decided all vendors have to be ISO9000 certified or something, and Zero doesn't want to or can't comply. There's any number of reasons it could be difficult or impossible for Zero to export bikes to a particular company.

[Auriga]

I think it's far more likely that they discovered the old distributor was up to something. Especially based on his comments on the forum. Add in some lawyers and a legal battle(maybe they were supposed to be the exclusive distributor), and that really dampens their ability to do or say much.

When they get a new distributor, which if you believe the Zero employee on the facebook group should happen very soon, then they'll have some catching up to do.

[wavelet]

And then there is the issue of not having enough product to sell to everybody.
Imagine all the fire Zero would be the target of if the American community found they were exporting bikes to (any country, for that matter) while falling behind on their scheduled deliveries for the orders taken domestically.

On the other hand, if they had warehouses full of bikes and refused to sell them to Israel, then it could be considered a potential BDS but that is far from being the case.

We're a small country, with a very small motorcycle market. There are, AFAIK, <100 Zero bikes registered in the country (all imported by this importer over several years, when he was the (exclusive, first and only) distributor, selling 25-30/year). Those numbers are not likely to affect availability anywhere else 

[RonIL]

Wavelet? You have no idea what you are saying. There are number of problems with what Wavelet writes and his obvious misinformation regarding the Israel market. The post were not written by "Mark" as Auto Electric it's owners and investors have filed a large suit against Zero and have been cooperating with the US Department of Transportation and other agencies actively investigating Zero motorcycles. They are running silent. Zero motorcycle owners in the USA and Europe have died and suffered serious injury and though Auto Electric warned Zero Motorcycles of these defects, Zero Motorcycles refused to act, refused to support the repairs in Israel or issue a recall, forcing Auto Electric to act to protect owners in Israel and all markets. On the allegations of BDS, I worked with Auto Electric on several government sales which Zero Motorcycles refused to support bids on and refused to supply any vehicles to the Israel government. This is backed up by considerable documentation including recorded telephone conversations with senior management who actually spoke of selling motorcycles to Iran.

[RonIL]

The CTO's name is Abraham Ashkenazi so one might doubt there is an anti-Israel conspiracy. More likely the company is just not well integrated or well led and this is one of very many visible effects of that.

one "Jew" does not control the company, a Lebanese national controls the company.

[RonIL]

And then there is the issue of not having enough product to sell to everybody.
Imagine all the fire Zero would be the target of if the American community found they were exporting bikes to (any country, for that matter) while falling behind on their scheduled deliveries for the orders taken domestically.

On the other hand, if they had warehouses full of bikes and refused to sell them to Israel, then it could be considered a potential BDS but that is far from being the case.

We're a small country, with a very small motorcycle market. There are, AFAIK,

[Fran K]

The CTO's name is Abraham Ashkenazi so one might doubt there is an anti-Israel conspiracy. More likely the company is just not well integrated or well led and this is one of very many visible effects of that.

one "Jew" does not control the company, a Lebanese national controls the company.

Could you elaborate here?  Is there a board of directors that controls the company.  Is there a majority stock holder (seems Zero or whatever the entity is not listed and traded on an exchange)

Does a Lebanese national mean that they hold no other citizenships?

[Richard230]

Zero is a privately-held company with a board of directors who have a tight control over the firm. I believe that the investors backing Zero have a majority representation on the board. Personally, I am not buying into RonIL's comments.  I have been closely following Zero's business activities for the past 10 years and have never heard even a peep about the sort of issues that he is describing.   

[Fran K]

I too am skeptical.  On the other hand when I accidentally hit the kill switch on the handlebar on my electric motorcycle it takes quite a while for the power to come back and then the start button must be depressed to get it to work again.  Where ice guys I recall are able to hit the kill switch in order to get the mufflers full of explosive mix and then turn the kill switch back on for a bang.  Maybe Zero bikes will come back to life right away not what I describe.  I have a fuel injected gasoline bike and it will start, at least re start immediately upon turning the key even if it is not done making all the little noises that take a few seconds.  I generally do not use the handlebar kill switch.

Not an expert on corporate governance, what proxies I get to vote get tossed, it is the stock holders that get to vote on the board, at least I think.  The "investors" should not get a vote unless they invest via purchasing stock?

[wavelet]

Wavelet? You have no idea what you are saying. There are number of problems with what Wavelet writes and his obvious misinformation regarding the Israel market. The post were not written by "Mark" as Auto Electric it's owners and investors have filed a large suit against Zero and have been cooperating with the US Department of Transportation and other agencies actively investigating Zero motorcycles. They are running silent. Zero motorcycle owners in the USA and Europe have died and suffered serious injury and though Auto Electric warned Zero Motorcycles of these defects, Zero Motorcycles refused to act, refused to support the repairs in Israel or issue a recall, forcing Auto Electric to act to protect owners in Israel and all markets. On the allegations of BDS, I worked with Auto Electric on several government sales which Zero Motorcycles refused to support bids on and refused to supply any vehicles to the Israel government. This is backed up by considerable documentation including recorded telephone conversations with senior management who actually spoke of selling motorcycles to Iran.

Yes, I made a mistake in estimating the total number of Zeros sold. Turns out it's ~150, which is actually decent for the size of the market.
Otherwise, just look through the posts published by user "Israel"; the early ones are clearly by the importer, in particular this one (and it's Marc, not Mark).

Otherwise "RonIL" :
US safety agencies carrying out investigations, particularly into serious deaths/injuries, don't keep the actual existence of an investigation secret -- this ain't the CIA.
If you have any links to such investigations, please post. For that matter, if you have any links to actual deaths on a Zero that appeared to be caused by bike malfunction in the US or Europe,  post as well.
Refusing to sell to the Israeli government could be for any number of legit reasons, like believing the local importer doesn't have the facilities to service fleet sales, particularly military/police/rescue(*) sales which might have special requirements of keeping a large stock of spares or trained mechanics/technicians ; either publish details of your accusation or STFU.

I don't have a dog in this fight (RonIL accused me in a PM of having ties to Zero as a company), but do not appreciate being called a liar.

(*) The Israeli Firefighting & Rescue Service started using motorcycles ~4 years ago; turns out they let the service reach burning cars or people trapped in cars far faster than their car patrol units, esp. in our crowded urban areas.