Brammo Owners Forum
Brammo Empulse Discussion => Brammo Empulse => Topic started by: Brammofan on April 03, 2012, 03:19:04 PM
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Craig Bramscher just tweeted:
April showers bring May _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (https://twitter.com/#!/BrammoCraig/status/187264488972632064)
Discuss.
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I'll bite...
April showers bring May V-A-P-O-R-W-A-R...wait, that's too many letters, isn't it?
>:(
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Well he left the perfect space for EMPULSE...
I think we know we will see the Empulse in May...the question is will we get infor in April on the Empulse, with full reveal in May...or if all info comes at one time (May)?
Gavin
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Obvious reference to Empulse... which to me isnt even close to vaporware. Sure its taken a while but we knew last year that it would be another year in the making. I think people started thinking "vaporware" when Brammo went VERY silent about the whole thing... that bugged me a bit too, I will admit. But soon the wait will be over!
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I gotta say... the excitement is palpable.
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The Empulse will be palpable when you can lay hands on it.
And that day approaches with hopefully great speed..
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I voted for next month (May) in the Empulse news poll. I just might be right.
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The space also fits the word "flowers." So... it might be Craig talking about anything at all. Maybe even news about the Empulse RR or something like that, which would be cool, but wouldn't get us any closer to ride one.
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Craig Bramscher just tweeted:
April showers bring May _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (https://twitter.com/#!/BrammoCraig/status/187264488972632064)
Discuss.
Striper? A striper named May, and her friend April, who does a shower show?
Hey, at least it's the right number of letters....
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Craig Bramscher just tweeted:
April showers bring May _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (https://twitter.com/#!/BrammoCraig/status/187264488972632064)
Discuss.
Striper? A striper named May, and her friend April, who does a shower show?
Hey, at least it's the right number of letters....
Lol, you mean a stripper right? ;D
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Stripper is too many letters. May is the girl that paints the pinstripes. She's got a Bob Ross sort of feel to her show.
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Does she have a happy little... I better stop before I say something that gets me banned from the site.
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Well then.. both Empulse and Enertia have 7 letters. Except the new Enertia has the word "Plus" after it. So using reasonable deduction on this... Empulse?!?! Well, "flowers" is a 7 letter word too. That puts a dampener on everything!
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Okay, I've officially ridden through my first April Showers (it rained on the way to the office). How about some Empulse news as a reward, eh?
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April showers apparently bring light hail.
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But what do April trolls bring?
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Already had my April Showers, with a mix of hail and tornadoes, Love Texas weather some days.
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Other 7 letter words...
My positive side (Empulse annoucement) says E-M-P-O-W-E-R
My negative side says NOTHING SETBACK OVERDUE EXPIRED EXTINCT
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A thought.
Showers, flowers, etc are plurals.
Empulse fits. Engage and Encite do not fit.
'Engages' and 'Encites' do fit.
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Well, maybe Craig was really saying that we will only hear anything in May or he was just being an *ss.
Anyway, it's the kind of poor communication that feeds the rivals (both ICErs and people in the elmoto community who thinks Brammo is full of it). They need to hire someone who actually gives a damn about the respectability of the brand among their biggest supporters. Maybe they should hire people in this forum to do that. Gavin is already doing his own campaign much better than anyone in Brammo while he has another job. Imagine what he wouldn't do if he was paid to do it full time???
:o
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Gavin is indeed a great ambassador for Brammo - but I honestly don’t think he would want my job!
Tell me if I am wrong Gavin !!!
We truly understand the frustration that exists and we appreciate everyone’s patience.....Which we know is starting to wear thin. The team at Brammo has been working incredibly hard on the Empulse (and the Enertia Plus) - and by that I mean no weekends off and sleeping bags in the workshop on a few occasions....all that effort is now about to pay off and we are ready and excited to share our story and reveal the fruit of our labors.....more details next week.
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Gavin is indeed a great ambassador for Brammo - but I honestly don’t think he would want my job!
Tell me if I am wrong Gavin !!!
What's the pay? :)
No, seriously, I have an amazing job and life here in Albuquerque... Plus they would have to put me into an induced coma if they want me to fly to Hong Kong...and they might not be able to afford me as the hospital pays me a fair salary...
That said, I am envious of the people at Brammo...doing a job they love and trying to influence the future...
I would love more communication...I would love my Plus now...
But I am giving Brammo some slack...maybe I will get burned by that (like I was with Aptera)...but I don't think so...
At the same time, it's easy for me to be a bit more patient as I have the loaner bike...But I do want more range and the nice improvements Brian has mentioned...
I am a fan, so take my opinion with a large grain of salt...still I hope for the best and also echo others who are asking for more...
More...
Photos...facts...anything of substance please...
Gavin
Edit...
Adrian...can you tell us a bit about what is coming next week? And maybe tell us a bit about why it is taking so long (as compared to Zero)? Thanks
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Brammo is making some of the same mistakes Aptera made.
Aptera had an amazing concept. They did not release product, they did not ask their customers what THEY wanted to buy, Aptera kept tweaking and refining the design until they ran out of funding. Nissan announcing the Leaf finished them.
If Brammo released the Empulse last year, even with a price bump? Say $12k 6.0, $14k 8.0, $16k 10.0. Their competition would have been a $10k 3.9 kWh Zero S that could reach maybe 65-70 mph. Brammo would have absolutely cleaned up. They didn't release, and I think it's pretty clear that they *couldn't* release, or the product they could have released (single speed Empulse) would have been significantly deficient from either a price or performance standpoint.
The official explanation is that the delays were due to the inclusion of IET. I don't believe that - else why was the Enertia+ delayed a year? Simplest explanation is delays organizing manufacturing with Flextronics or getting the battery supplier straightened out. Both of these would also affect the Empulse.
The Enertia+ and Empulse will be awesome once they're released. And unlike Aptera, I think we will see both bikes very soon (though much later and significantly more expensive than originally promised).
But Brammo has lost my trust in their ability to commit to any kind of schedule or communicate effectively with their would-be customers. We didn't see info through most of January, February, March, or last week. I hope we hear news next week. I hope we're not hearing the same "info coming soon... next week... keep holding on" refrain through April and May.
My suggestion to Brammo? Get news out to your preorder customers. Drop a tidbit of new information. Give them a concrete date when they WILL hear an update - even if that update is just a new tidbit of information and the next concrete date. Stick to the concrete dates. Give us some glimpse over the monolithic wall of silence - photo of design prototypes, snapshot of Empulse frames being lined up, photo of new motor. Description of how the IET will work. A couple pages from the manual. Temperature range (operation, charging, storage) for new batteries. Battery pack configuration. It costs you NOTHING and it reassures the preorder customers that their bikes are moving along as fast as humanly possible.
Consider Aptera. Frequent product changes not based upon customer input, continuous schedule slips, very little customer contact and concrete information. Ran out of funding and perished.
Consider Tesla. Some product changes as original designs proved unfeasible (two-speed transmission). Shipped product. Pretty good customer engagement (from what I've followed) - including why design changes were made. Significant sales of very expensive two seater. Nearing introduction of second model.
I've cast my vote.. so to speak. I wish Brammo the best of luck - their successes make the EV field stronger. But I got off the "will they or won't they" train a little while back..
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Agreed, protomech.
I've written of this before, but somehow the Stone Wall of Silence School of CRM continues to be in force, and defies any smidgen of common sense. Especially in the wired world of the internet where creating and feeding buzz seems to be the way to go.
Feed us something.
An esoteric and possibly irrelevant discussion of ergonomics or aerodynamics.
Heck, show us a fuzzy picture of a BOLT!
A crumb.
Toss us a crumb.
(HINT: And do this on a regular basis... it's called "stringing us along.")
Otherwise, Brammo leaves us hanging. And people don't much like that posture.
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The team at Brammo has been working incredibly hard on the Empulse (and the Enertia Plus) - and by that I mean no weekends off and sleeping bags in the workshop on a few occasions....all that effort is now about to pay off and we are ready and excited to share our story and reveal the fruit of our labors.....more details next week.
That update was just the kind of thing that I needed to hear.
You know that you're making a herculean effort to get those bikes under our butts, but we don't see anything at all, so unless we get some kind of update from you, we can only speculate wildly about what you are actually doing. That wild speculation is the exact opposite from the positive "buzz" that Shinysideup is talking about.
We're a very enthusiastic bunch over here on the forum, and it doesn't take all that much to keep us enchanted, but it does take something.
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@thespecialone: I'm sorry, but I have no love for the "We're too busy to do our jobs" excuse. Brammo is a company and has people who should be working on the communication side of it.
I work 108 hours per week, including running a newspaper among a dozen of other things, and I still manage to show up on this forum more often than all the people in Brammo together. I see the Brammo's news on the Brammo's website and there is nothing new there in a very long while.
The very few times I see an actual communication from Brammo is to refute some accusations (some harsh and unfounded, I agree) without giving any sort of fact.
The problem is communication pure and simple. If you are in charge of that and you don't have time to do it, it's time to hire someone who can. Even an unpaid intern could do the simple job of keeping a real newsletter without much trouble.
And please, don't take this as an attack against Brammo or against you. I really believe you are the only company trying to put out a product I would be interested in buying and I really want you to succeed, but I am very tired of defending Brammo in many websites when I know that I can't really refute some of the accusations. Your product is not out and your communication with your potential customers is, at its best, lacking. Poor customer service made me give up on Zero forever, but seeing what they are doing now to fix it and seeing protomech and Richard happily riding their bikes while we can't even get one straight answer from anyone from Brammo is beyond frustrating.
Please call the local university and see if they can spare two young PR or journalism students. You will see how that will make things much easier on all of you in Brammo.
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How about some photos of the factory in Oregon? Brammo could show parts of the facility without leaking any secrets. They could throw some sleeping bags against the wall in one of the shots. ;)
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I think Adrian is giving us the information that he can, when he can. Im betting he would have spilled the beans already if he had the choice so i wouldnt assume that he is not doing his job. Besides, it looks like we will get an explaination for the information blackout soon, hopefully along with the whole scoop on the Empulse! Beleive me, you guys are where i was at 2 weeks ago when i was VERY close to just saying to hell with Brammo and almost bought a Zero, but for me it would have been a compromise.
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But Brammo has lost my trust in their ability to commit to any kind of schedule or communicate effectively with their would-be customers. We didn't see info through most of January, February, March, or last week. I hope we hear news next week. I hope we're not hearing the same "info coming soon... next week... keep holding on" refrain through April and May.
Ahem. News heard. Confidence restored.
My suggestion to Brammo? Get news out to your preorder customers. Drop a tidbit of new information. Give them a concrete date when they WILL hear an update - even if that update is just a new tidbit of information and the next concrete date. Stick to the concrete dates. Give us some glimpse over the monolithic wall of silence - photo of design prototypes, snapshot of Empulse frames being lined up, photo of new motor. Description of how the IET will work. A couple pages from the manual. Temperature range (operation, charging, storage) for new batteries. Battery pack configuration. It costs you NOTHING and it reassures the preorder customers that their bikes are moving along as fast as humanly possible.
A slick video with a bunch of new information and prototype shots .. couple glimpses of the production bike .. commitment to a date for specifications to be released and a later date for the final production reveal .. this is what I had lost confidence in Brammo releasing.
Also: April information showers bring May Empulse flowers. And hopefully an end to vaporware charges.