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Brammo Forum / Re: Brammo Enertia drops price to $7,995!
« on: November 13, 2009, 08:00:51 AM »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.