Brammo Production Gets Underway.....

[Gavin]

Not as good, but not awful: 1) Bikes are made out of country. Not horrid, but I would have loved to be a bit more green and a bit more local...that's a lot of travel for my bike.

Subassemblies will likely be produced all over the world. The stated intention was for final assembly to be done near the point of sale - obviously if US bikes are being assembled in Hungary they're still spinning that up!

oh i agree...was just hoping that the US plant would be first up since Brammo has been making Enertias here already...adding the Plus should have been easy enough...at least for limited build up until larger facilities are in place.

hopefully future USA bikes are made here, Euro bikes are made in Hungary and Asia bikes are made in Hong Kong (or close...heck Taiwan has great facilities for making bikes at a reasonable cost).

Gavin

[Brammofan]

The stated intention was for final assembly to be done near the point of sale - obviously if US bikes are being assembled in Hungary they're still spinning that up!

Yeah, I was thinking about this and it seems like a bit too much to ask to have them start up production in Asia, Europe, and N. America all at the same time. They have to start somewhere.  Plus, Flextronics likely wanted to start in Hungary because it is near their automotive HQ in Stuttgart.  Also, it's likely that Flextronics senior management wanted to be hands on with this project as it is their first full vehicle contract and it's got the added value of increasing their "green cred."

[Gavin]

to clarify....i have no issue with the bike being made in Hungary...i'm sure it will be made perfectly.

i just, incorrectly, assumed Brammo would still be making bikes here in the States just as they have been. i know they likely will be making bikes again here in the States asap. but it was just my assumption that Brammo would continue making a certain number of bikes at their original facility while over seas production got ramped up.

No biggie...i hope they do really really well and get multiple production facilities up and running as quick as they can.

Gavin

[Richard230]

Perhaps their factory in Oregon is just not large enough to produce the necessary number of different Brammo models for world-wide consumption. Maybe they will be building the Empulse there. That would make sense as I assume that Brammo still has a lot of development work left to do on that model, what with its new transmission technology. I assume that Brammo would like to keep the production of the Empulse close to home as they get the pre-production prototypes under way.

[oobflyer]

Eastern Europe seems to be the place - Vectrix moved their manufacturing from Massachusetts to Poland.

[Courcheval]

Most western european car manufacturers get their cars produced in Eastern Europe too. Better than investing in China where you have to display your technology to chinese competitors. For extra european brands, it allows to bypass import taxes (which are already fairly low) and shipping costs to a customer area
with high potential : commuting distances in Europe are lower due to higher population concentration and green concerns is fairly trendy amongst wealthy classes.

Brammo is already being somewhat "copied" by catalan motorcycle makers with its model called Volta EV1 with specs very close to the  Enertia :



Staying away from Europe would have meant loosing the EV motorcycle race down here. Now I wish the price shown in Euros on Brammo website for the Enertia Plus will "loose some weight", since the Euro is not worth 1.2 USD but more like 1.4 and over. There is an unexplanable 20% additional margin that bothers me, especially since electric motorcycles benefit from almost no government helps down here and, as claimed by Brammo CEO, electric motorcycles are "disposable electronic goods" like computers.

[oobflyer]

With one guy doing the manufacturing, and one taking notes... it might take awhile   

[Gavin]

With one guy doing the manufacturing, and one taking notes... it might take awhile   

mmmm, heard that it won't be Sept...it will be end of year....hoping that is incorrect as it contradicts Mr Stewart...but that is what I heard.

Time will tell.

Gavin