BMW to make electric motorcycles

[Richard230]

According to an article by Alan Cathcart on page 22 of the July issue of Motorcyclist magazine, BMW is "committed to electric-drive technology, and anticipates being the first major motorcycle manufacturer to market an e-bike".

Mr. Cathcart interviewed Hendrik von Kuenheim, the president of BMW Motorrad, who had this to say about BMW's EV plans: "Within three years, BMW will become the premier provider of electric vehicles". The company is fully committed to this, and there will be spin-offs for the motorcycle division".

Like I have been saying, Brammo really needs to get some product on the shelves quickly or they are going to be left in the dust. Once the likes of BMW start producing, advertising and selling electric motorcycles it is going to be tough for a small company to keep up with this monster automotive corporation. They already have the dealers, infrastructure, engineers, world-wide distributors and (more importantly) the high-tech reputation to make the electric motorcycle business mainstream.

If I was Brammo, I would get the single-speed Empulse on the market ASAP and establish a reputation and a loyal clientele as soon as possible before the big guys jump in. The economy and the earthquake have taken the wind out of the sails of the Japanese manufacturers and BMW sees an opportunity to grab a much larger share of the motorsport business. No matter which way you cut it, the EV motorcycle business is going to be a small and limited market for many years and as I see it, first come, first served. Reel new customers in with the single-speed and upgrade them later with the 6-speed, is my recommendation.

[Gavin]

I agree...Enertia Plus and single gear Empulse this year would be an important goal to set if I was Brammo.

That said, if BMW wants to be the first of the majors and is planning on 3 years from now, well that makes me feel a bit better about Brammo...I was worried Honda or others would come out in 2012 or 2013....if nobody is coming till 2014 or later, well that helps Brammo...

Still I agree it will be a small market at first...Brammo owning a small market would be good...Brammo trying to share a small market would be tougher....Brammo trying to share and grow a small market into a bigger market while competing with the big boys would be near impossible.

So I would beware.... BMW could move that 2014 date up at any time...or Honda or another major could sneak something EV out...it's not like Honda doesn't have EV experience...they have a scooter, they have a BEAUTIFUL scooter prototype of the Super Cub and they have a cute EV car prototype in the EV-N and the Honda Fit EV is in pre-production.

I wouldn't trust waiting....get some dealership agreements going and get some 2011 models out....***

of course that is easy for me to say  Much harder, and expensive, to do in the real world.


Gavin


****and yes my wanting the Plus and Empulse out this year is partially selfishly motivated...but I also think it is in Brammo's best interest...watching Aptera have a product ready and then changing it at the last minute causing delays and likely the death of the company has made me cautious about repeated changes and delays...at some point you have to sell product and then make changes and improvements later...it's a tough balance...the product has to be good to sell, but waiting on perfect means never getting product out...having a good product that sells trumps a perfect product that never makes it to customers hands....

[Brammofan]

More on BMW, Brammo, Flextronics and a couple guys who happen to be in Munich, than you probably want to know:

Brammo and BMW

[Gavin]

well since I've been advocating for Brammo to work with Harley (more for dealership floorspace than for sharing tech and bike design), I would be silly not to say that Brammo should work with BMW....

either is fine with me   Dealership floorspace is what Brammo needs right now and BMW has a fair amount.

Actually I would LOVE them to work with Honda (tons of bikes and shops in every city, great reputation, etc etc) but I don't see any of the Japanese companies allowing outsiders in....

Gavin

[Richard230]

You really have to be careful when playing around with a company like BMW. Those guys will eat you alive and then just move on to the next meal. BMW is a shark and Brammo is a sardine. Craig had better watch his back when visiting Germany. 

[05Sultan]

-"and anticipates being the first major motorcycle manufacturer to market an e-bike."
  As soon as I read this I said to myself,'and the quickest way to get there is to buy Brammo...'
Let's face it, Brammo has the Idea,the Creativity,the Engineering Problem Solving, and sufficient business savvy and skill. They're short on money to launch-to-public because existing outlets aren't doing that hot in a soft economy. However, before the outlets and public access to product happens, there is the major,Major hurdle of factory production money for a new product. Cue BMW.........they probably admire the bike lines and all above about Brammo for they are similar in technical quests in motorcycle evolution.
 If the Empulse 12 RR roadwarrior had a BMW emblem on it, would that be a bad thing? Didn't the owner of Brammo build a huge, successful computer biz and then sell it?Sure it was easier then because money was cheap and the odds were with the profit end.
 This is not a new story for a lot of products.

[Gavin]

Oh I wouldn't mind BMW buying Brammo...as long as the bike still came out on schedule...

I like BMW bikes--good looking, tough, well built, last forever--but they currently don't make a model I'm interested in (there is no real commuter BMW)...now if Triumph bought Brammo I would LOVE a Bonneville/T-100 electric please

My question/concern: How much would BMW need to spend to "buy" Brammo? Brammo has put quite a bit of cash out for the last few years with little income coming in. Also how would the Flextronic and Tranny agreements be handled in the switch? And at what additional cost?

My fear is that BMW would look Brammo over, like them a lot, say thanks for coming by and then just say "We can do that in house for half the cost of buying them out."

So...Brammo could have the BMW emblem on it and I would be happy as a clam as long as I had my butt in seat   But if that happened I imagine Brammo would be "ingested" by BMW...Brammo would be no more, but the bikes would live on...

Brammo could "merge" with Harley---likely keeping the Brammo name more easily and keeping Brammo open as an addition to Harley vs swallowed by Harley.

Or Brammo could move forward alone....I don't see Brammo with any other maker at this time.

But what do I know....

Gavin

[Richard230]

I have been buying BMW motorcycles for 25 years (ever since I could afford them). I don't care for their motorcycles that much, but I really like their dealers (compared with Japanese brand dealers). I have been following the BMW business and technology history and what I have seen is, unlike Harley, BMW never buys out another company or pays a royalty. They typically kind of absorb technology that some small manufacturer or inventor develops and then re-engineer it for their motorcycles.

They did this with their goofy front ends, the Telelever and the Durolever (or whatever it is called). My understanding is that both of these technologies were invented by other people and BMW sort of acquired the designs, somehow. I never heard that the inventors were ever paid a fee for their work. It is more likely that BMW will check out Brammo's ideas and if they like them, their engineers will make their own versions and incorporate the technology into their vehicles.

Brammo may be hoping to be bought out, or licensing their technology to, some big motorcycle company, but I don't see BMW being that company. If they are thinking about something like that, Harley, Triumph, the Japanese, or Koreans would be much better bets, in my opinion.

[Deadly Silent Ninja]

I think this is the perfect example of what i was talking about in the other thread. Brammo starts investing more into racing to show the viability of affordable electric motorcycles, slow down their production of new products, start negotiating with bigger companies and things happen. Some possibilities:

1. Brammo and BMW reach an agreement for Brammo to provide parts/designs for BMW's new products. In this case, we have to ask if Brammo will continue to produce consumer-oriented motorcycles.

2. BMW buys out Brammo and uses the technology to produce their own bikes. We will not see our empulses and maybe not even the enertia plus, but we will get some sort of an EV based on the same principles.

3. BMW buys out Brammo to stop Brammo from putting out a high quality product before BMW. Bye, bye empulse.

4. Brammo and BMW reach a distribution agreement as long as Brammo doesn't produce EV that can compete directly with BMW's EVs. In this scenario, I think BMW will produce higher end, more expensive motorcycles and let Brammo keep the cheaper market. I see empulse being the center of the negotiations here.

5. BMW looks at the empulse and replicates the technology. With their size and distribution network, they can put Brammo out of business quickly.

6. Nothing happens. BMW produces their own EV and Brammo keeps working on my empulse until I am old and impaired.

7. BMW's announcement that they will dominate the EV market in 3 years (different from what Gavin said, they want to dominate the market in 3 years, which means they will be putting a product out in 6-18 months), puts some fire in Brammo's butt and they decide to release a supper-duper empulse 12 RR for $5,000.00 in 3 months and we are all happy Brammo's loyal customers. 

8. Same as 7, but Brammo keeps the 2012 production date. The first few hundreds bikes are delivered by the end of 2012. By then, BMW announces their ebike with a competitive price (let's say $10 K as BMW doesn't really sell anything affordable) and overruns Brammo with sheer production and distribution might by selling some 5,000 bikes by the end of 2012.

None of these scenarios with the exception of Brammo releasing the Empulse and the Plus as soon as they have a reliable product in hands looks good for us buyers. For Brammo, many scenarios look better on the business end than actually producing and selling the Empulse. So, can anyone knock on their door and ask them what the plans are?

[Richard230]

From what I have seen in the way BMW has operated in the past, possibilities no. 5 and 6 are the most likely. I really don' t see them buying out Brammo. They like to go their own way - sometimes using other people's concepts.

[Richard230]

I was at the bookstore today thumbing through the motorcycle magazines that I don't already subscribe to and I came across a magazine specializing in BMW motorcycles. It contained another article interviewing a BMW bigwig about their future motorcycle marketing plans. At the end of the article, he was asked about their plans to produce an electric motorcycle. The response was the BMW currently has several 4-wheel EVs in development and planned to spinoff that technology for two-wheel EVs. Naturally, being German, the boss said that their product would be better than anything else on the market and then he went on to give specifics about their performance goals.

He also mentioned that current battery designs were too heavy and needed improvement before they would be happy making their electric motorcycle. The comment was that current Li batteries would weigh around 80 kg and he felt that was too much for a motorcycle. He believed that battery improvements would be forthcoming in the near future. My thought was that their IC motors typically weigh more than 80 kg, so what's the big deal?

BMW believes that an electric motorcycle should have a 60 to 80 km range and a top speed of around 120 kph. That caught my eye. It would appear that they are focused on the European market, where you may not have to travel very far, but you need to really move along should you decide to tackle the Autobahn when riding between towns. My feeling is that if their motorcycle or scooter product were to be aimed at the US market, they could (or should) drop the top speed and increase the projected range, at least to compare with Brammo's proposed Empulse. To me this is starting to look like more of a "green" product that would appeal to Euro sensibilities and be sold alongside their automobiles, rather than something that they would expect to see embraced by their US motorcycle customers.

If I was Brammo, I wouldn't be too concerned about BMW's plans at this stage in the game. It sounds like BMW's electric motorcycle or scooter will not exceed the projected performance of the Empulse. But they do have a much better dealer and distribution for marketing the vehicle and do have a great high-tech reputation - plus they have a large advertizing budget. If I was Brammo, I would get the Empulse out on the market ASAP and suck up the customers that are looking for a high performance electric motorcycle before BMW can get it in gear (so to speak).

[protomech]

120 kph = 74 mph = 9-10 kw sustained.

60-80 km range = 120 wh/mile @ 74 mph = 4.5-6.0 kwh battery. Battery needs to be able to sustain 1.5 - 2C discharge, which should be no problem. Sounds like it'd be competition for a re-geared Enertia Plus.

Most of the autobahn is speed-limited. I wouldn't think the speed-limited areas are significantly different from US highway traffic.

[skuzzle]

I think Brammo will be the next Aptera if BMW announces the release date of an EV motorcycle before the Empulse is out.  The clock is running.  The Empulse is not cheap.  Not many people will want to buy if there is a risk that the company will not last as long as the bike.
That said, I think the dirt bikes might be a bigger market.  One of the biggest issues with motorcross tracks is the noise.

[protomech]

Brammo definitely has a small window of time to establish a presence. They have the first mover advantage, and they have and are gaining experience productizing and supporting electric bikes. The big OEMs have the disadvantage of inertia and conservatism; I also suspect they are waiting for battery technology to improve to widen the potential market.

Once they do move, however, it will be in a big way.