Mission Motors files for bankruptcy

[Brammofan]

Sad news for the electric motorcycle community.
http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/news/mission-motorcycles-bankruptcy/

They were/are a great bunch of people and the bike was a beauty.

[protomech]

The A&R article is talking about Mission Motorcycles, not Mission Motors (which never collected deposits for bikes, though they also closed their doors several months ago).

I would have loved to see Mission Motors succeed, and briefly flirted with the idea of putting down a deposit on way too much bike (power and $$) for me .. writing was on the wall for Mission Motorcycles unfortunately, and sadly Mission Motors as well.

[Ted Dillard]

The story AR sourced is far more informative.  It also amused me that AR has been a huge cheerleader for Mission, yet in that post made it sound like he knew all along this was how it was going to go.   

At any rate, the story of Mission (whichever) is far from over, though the bike story is probably a closed chapter.  Here's my take on it: http://insideevs.com/mission-motorcycles-files-for-bankruptcy/  This "bankruptcy", at the time of the source story, had yet to be filed, and could simply be a ploy by Seeger to call off the hounds unleashed with the countersuit, etc.  Time will tell.  The fact is, no bankruptcy had been filed. Another choice piece of reporting.

As far as who done what, Mission Motorcycles, Mission Motors, all that got combined as Mission Electric if you'll remember.  At this point I wouldn't find it unthinkable that that was done to protect assets from the courts, though it's a stretch, and since Ip is going after Seeger personally, a failed ploy.

[Shinysideup]

Good timeline in your article, Ted. You mention that Mission never headed toward the expensive process of homologation for their bikes. It MUST be expensive if Mission burned through $12.3 million in 4 years and produced but a few bikes. Makes me appreciate what Brammo and Zero have achieved.

[Ted Dillard]

From my very limited understanding of the process, it's simply not something you can apply (for want of a better term) after the vehicle design has been started.  You have to start with the homologation requirements and design from there, and even then it's pretty expensive.  Both Brammo and Zero did that, as did Energica, where Mission, Lightning and a host of others did not.  Without homologation, you can still sell bikes, but they can never be more than "custom" vehicles, essentially built as one-offs, as far as regulatory concerns go.

This has always been one of the reasons Lightning's claim for "fastest production motorcycle" is pretty much BS.  Lightning isn't a homologated bike, nor could that bike ever be.  No homologation, no production. 

[Richard230]

Autoblog has this to say:

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/09/14/mission-motorcycles-powers-down-files-for-bankruptcy/