Big Brammo News announcement

[Brammofan]

Yeah, the news will be out in 30 minutes.  Until then, sit tight.

[Gavin]

SWEET...I am a bit hyper and I am unable to sit tight, but I shall pace around some and check here every 37 seconds


Gavin

[Brammofan]

I was actually one hour off when I posted that... forgot about daylight savings time.  New ETA: One hour, 15 minutes.

[Brammofan]

Here's the link:
Brammo and Flextronics announce Partnership

Let's talk about what this means... Thoughts?

[protomech]

Here's the link:
Brammo and Flextronics announce Partnership

Let's talk about what this means... Thoughts?

It means websense is blocking wordpress : |

Edit: Interesting. I wonder if this is leading Brammo towards an IP-only designer, like ARM.

[Brammofan]

Here's the link:
Brammo and Flextronics announce Partnership

Let's talk about what this means... Thoughts?

It means websense is blocking wordpress : |

Darn... here's the text of the press release:

BRAMMO SELECTS FLEXTRONICS AS ITS GLOBAL MANUFACTURING PARTNER FOR ELECTRIC MOTORCYLES

Ashland, OR, and Singapore, September 15, 2010–Brammo, Inc. a global leader in the electric motorcycle business and Flextronics (NASDAQ: FLEX), a leading global Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider today announced that Brammo has selected Flextronics as its global manufacturing partner for the production of plug-in electric motorcycles and components. This strategic partnership enables Brammo to rapidly scale its manufacturing production in order to meet growing international demand for its products. This partnership is a continuing expansion of Flextronics’ Automotive segment and augments services to include new clean tech technologies and electronic systems for electric vehicles.

“As Brammo pursues its international growth strategy it is critical to our success that we continue to build our strong reputation for quality, reliability and serviceability,” stated Craig Bramscher, CEO and founder of Brammo, Inc. “Flextronics is focused on providing a high quality end-to-end solutions approach to leading global companies, including automotive, and this is why we have selected them as our strategic manufacturing partner.  We can now scale globally with the demand and the rapid evolution of this growth industry.”

“Brammo offers one of the most innovative, electric two-wheeled vehicle product lines in the marketplace and we are delighted that they have selected Flextronics as their exclusive partner for the manufacture of state-of-the-art electric motorcycles. This strategic partnership allows us to further expand our portfolio for battery powered vehicles and complements our strong expertise in high voltage and energy recuperation applications for the automotive market,” said Herbert Schoeffmann, president of Flextronics Automotive. “We look forward to this very exciting partnership, where we will provide Brammo with our world-class global resources, strong vertical integration capability and supply chain logistics enabling Brammo to achieve its ambitious growth plan.”

About Flextronics

Headquartered in Singapore (Singapore Reg. No. 199002645H), Flextronics is a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider focused on delivering complete design, engineering and manufacturing services to automotive, computing, consumer, industrial, infrastructure, medical and mobile OEMs. Flextronics helps customers design, build, ship, and service electronics products through a network of facilities in 30 countries on four continents. This global presence provides design and engineering solutions that are combined with core electronics manufacturing and logistics services, and vertically integrated with components technologies, to optimize customer operations by lowering costs and reducing time to market. For more information, please visit www.flextronics.com.

About Brammo

Brammo Inc is a leading electric vehicle technology company headquartered in North America. Brammo designs and develops electric vehicles including the award winning Brammo Enertia motorcycle and the recently announced Empulse. Brammo is an OEM supplier of its innovative Brammo Digital Drivetrain™ systems including the Brammo Power™ battery pack and Brammo Power™ vehicle management system. Brammo has vehicle distribution and marketing operations in North America, Europe and Asia.

For more information visit www.brammo.com. and Brammo on Twitter at BrammoSays and on Facebook at Brammo Powercycles. See the Brammo Empulse in action: http://tiny.cc/brammo-empulse.

[Kelly Olsen]

OK, I'm ready to discuss...

What does this mean? Sounds to me like Brammo may may have contracted with Flextronics to build parts or  the entire Brammo line in Singapore. I guess this is good news since they are a huge company and have a lot of experience. But it may also mean shipping more jobs overseas. Or it could mean that the bikes could be built even better and cheaper, which would mean more sales here in the U.S and that could create more jobs.

Or, I could have the whole scenario wrong and nothing that I've written is even close to what this means.

[Brammofan]

Hey Kelly -  What it looks like to me is that bikes to be sold in Asia will be built there.  Sold in Europe? Built there.  Sold in N. America, built there.  Check out the comments on my blog post as Adrian chimed in there.

I worried about the whole "outsourcing" issue, too, but this is more about localization and reducing the cost of acquisitions by scaling them up to a global level.  Instead of buying 1000 brake pads in the USA, 5,000 in Asia, and 5,000 in Europe, they cut a deal with Brembo for 15,000 worldwide and Flex takes care of getting them to their final destination. 

[thespecialone]

Harry is correct.
We will build for each continent locally. This is essential for Brammo to be competitive and to build a sustainable business - ie one that isn't shipping bikes all over the world on any given day.
Ashland will remain our headquarters and our commitment is as strong as it ever was.
Flex Automotive offers; local manufacturing, design, testing, prototype building, product validation, customer approval, material purchasing - leveraging their global volumes and vertical integration, service, product life cycle planning… they bring a mountain of added value to what we do. Sadly (irony) racing isn't one of their capabilities so the Brammo racing team will remain in Brian’s extremely capable hands.

[Kelly Olsen]

Makes sense. If you think this will help Brammo achieve World Dominance then I'm all for it.

The more bikes sold, the lower the price of the bikes, the lower the price of the bikes, the more bikes sold. More money for R&D, advertising (which means more bikes sold). Anything to help Brammo make and sell more bikes is a very good thing.

Maybe this could even facilitate my fantasy of a 100 Mile Range Fanless Enertia!!!

[protomech]

And as pricing falls and demand goes up 10x, they don't have to suddenly grow in size 10x and become dominated by the concerns of a manufacturing company (see Tesla and its struggles with NUMMI etc). Brammo at its core will be an R&D workshop and developer.

Going back to ARM as an example. ARM has 1700 employees and licenses their designs to thousands of licensees. Around 5 billion ARM microprocessors make their way into products each year. ARM has 8% of the market cap of Intel, who sold around 250 million (much larger and more expensive) microprocessors in 2009.

So giving away part of the pie to Flextronics will keep Brammo from becoming the next Honda, but it'll let them focus on making the best damn pie they can, and Flextronics can take care of mass pie production and testing. I wonder if Best Buy is still on tap to handle distribution and support.

[Kelly Olsen]

On twitter Craig said:

"Okay I hate to be a tease. (not really) but I told you September was going to be huge. Can we get another announcement in? Stay tuned!"

This was after the first announcement about Flextronics. Anybody heard anything else? Or are they going to hold this for another day?

[Brammofan]

I'm guessing that they're waiting for tomorrow. 

[Squid]

Only large companies get the full benefit of patent and copyright protection.  Sorry to be cynical, but that's the way it plays out.  So on the one hand, the announcement is a positive one for Brammo.  It keeps their product from being reverse engineered and then pushed out of the marketplace by a company willing and able to quickly fill demand with a knock-off product while Brammo's manufacturing spools up to capacity.  Brammo can now meet demand right out of the gate.  Who wouldn't want that?

But I have to say that, from a consumer's standpoint, the announcement does give me pause.  My experiences with boutique manufacturers have always been positive.  Whether it's guitar amps, leather goods, furniture makers, or whatever, there's merit in the close supervision of a manufacturing process.  I liked the thought of my Empulse being assembled in Oregon by a handful of people, all of whom are close (at least by physical proximity) to the same people who designed and engineered it.  I like that sense of ownership and oversight.  I'm wary of large and rapid expansion.  It always brings teething pains.  I'm doubly concerned that Brammo seems to be delegating assembly to a behemoth logistics company.  It makes me hesitate.

Just my two cents.  Thanks for reading.

[Gavin]

Here's the link:
Brammo and Flextronics announce Partnership

Let's talk about what this means... Thoughts?

Was out of town yesterday...so couldn't easily post...

Thoughts?

First thought was: Dang it, I wanted info on the 2011 Enertia and or finalized Empulse images.

Second thought was: well this will be great for people out side the US wanting a Brammo powercycle.

Third thought was: Mmmm, will this speed up or delay bikes getting into peoples hands. Speed up makes sense, but so does slow down...when suddenly you are trying to make a bike that sells in many different countries, well each country has certain rules and specs...if Brammo wants one bike to sell in all countries, well that will slow down production as they will be making many small changes to both the Enertia and the Empulse. Time will tell which way this change affects the release dates of the 2011 Enertia and the 2011 Empulse.

Fourth thought: Brammo is known for (every article about the Enertia mentions this) superior parts and fit and finish. Will the parts be the same parts? Better? Worse? Will fit and finish be the same, better, worse. Coming from the scooter world I can tell you that small changes can make a HUGE difference. I am hoping that any changes in parts or specs will be hopefully improvements.

Fifth thought: Where will the USA bikes be built?

Sixth thought: dang it, I still want info on the 2011 Enertia. Specs? Delivery date? Brammo I am quite serious that if spec'd right and coming soon enough, I will cancel my LEAF pre order...And I'm an early deposit holder, so I could get a LEAF in January. Offer me a nice Enertia (or Empulse with bar mods so I can sit much more upright) by spring and you can advertise that the Bike is so nice people are canceling electric car reservations.


After a day, I think this is overall a good thing...helps internationally (and Europe will be a huge market for this...along with any island nation--new zealand, hawaii, japan etc--and any small country with limited roads and good sized cities---Holland will love it)...but has potential downfalls (like all business ventures)...Brammo needs to, and I assume they will, keep close tabs on this...any decrease in quality will...well, be a bad thing.

Hoping for some more news soon.

Gavin