Why the Brammo hate from other electrics?

[roma258]

I've followed the electric motorcycle scene with various degrees of interest from the very beginning and something that struck me even back then, and especially now that I have the bike, is the catty attitude towards Brammos from other OEMs and riders. I remember going to the NYC bike show a few year's back and the Zero rep dismissing the Empulse as vaporware and offering to wager it will never see the light of day. Last year I did a demo at a Zero demo, and once again the reps were bad mouthing the Empulse over liquid cooling (of all things). And when Brammo got bought out by Polaris, the glee of some message board chatter was pretty obvious. So what am I missing? Is it the gearbox? Craig Bramscher's personality? Simple intra-brand sniping? I dunno, I find it kind of weird and off-putting.

[Brammofan]

[roma258]

They hate us cause they anus?

[Chocula]

I was fortunate to test ride both the Zero and Brammo at the same dealer.  They were helpful in answering my questions but really let the bikes speak for themselves. 

The transmission argument seems to be the classic Chevy vs Ford, Mac vs PC, etc.  Everyone has their preference, and everyone likes to hear how right they are.

Chocula

[Shinysideup]

Yeah, when I was praising the Empulse on another forum, none of my points were addressed. Instead I got called out as a "fanboy." I don't go there much any more.

I don't have a real answer, but my impression is that the animosity appears to be based on something personal between a group of folks and Craig Bramscher. I avoid gossip and tuned out, once I intuited that it was some personal grievance. But I could be totally wrong in my guess. Often wrong; never in doubt! Or, as I just read on a local moto forum: hey, I ain't no rocket surgeon!

I'd like to test ride the 2015 Zero to see if their improvements brought it up anywhere near close to being the real motorcycle the Empulse is.

I rode the 2012 and loved the silence, the belt, and the lack of need to shift. BUT the acceleration off the line didn't meet my needs and the suspension felt cheap and the brakes were scary. But those are just my preferences and I'm not gonna make any other rider wrong for his or hers.

[benswing]

I think there are two main points of contention.   One is obviously the transmission.  As the only electric vehicle (including cars) with a 6 speed tranny it takes one of the main arguments FOR electric vehicles away, which is the simplicity. 

Second, Brammo has an incredible PR department, but they haven't delivered the improvements that Zero has.  Each year Zeros get better and goes farther, and the Empulse is fundamentally the same as when it first came out.  All this translates to a lot of noise and not much action.  I think some electric motorcycle fans feel deceived that they were expecting this great annual battle between Brammo and Zero, but only Zero shows up and delivered improvements year after year.

Personally I really like the design of the Empulse, but would never own one because of the transmission.  Make it a proper EV with 1 gear and you'll probably see a lot of converts. 

I also want to be clear that I really like Brammo riders.  I have met several of you (I ride a Zero and have also gone for a spin on an Empulse) and have only had great interactions.  I just want to see Brammo, now Polaris, put out an improved product to keep electric motorcycles moving forward toward mass adoption. 

[Richard230]

My only complaint about Brammo is the 18 month delay between accepting orders for the original version of the Empulse and final delivery, which occurred after the introduction of the 2012 model Zeros.  That 18 month wait really pissed me off, as they gave no indication that it would be that long before the bike was on the showroom floor.  Also, I really liked the original version of the Empulse without the transmission and felt that they should have made one version without it and one with it and let the market decide which version was more popular.   

So I pretty much got pushed to Zero when the Empulse introduction was delayed longer than my patience (and my failing Electric Motorsport GPR-S) could handle. I still think the Empulse has the better chassis and handling, but I have learned to deal with the Zero's design limitations, its performance, and their ability to continue to stay in business and improve their product every year.

[roma258]

I think there are two main points of contention.   One is obviously the transmission.  As the only electric vehicle (including cars) with a 6 speed tranny it takes one of the main arguments FOR electric vehicles away, which is the simplicity. 

Personally I really like the design of the Empulse, but would never own one because of the transmission.  Make it a proper EV with 1 gear and you'll probably see a lot of converts.   

You make a lot of good points, but I never understood this idea that an electric motorcycle with a transmission isn't a proper ev. For me, it makes it a much more broad range vehicle, since it can maintain highway speeds without any issues, but also have a proper gear ratio for quick acceleration around town (without needing to hold the clutch in at stops). Sure a powerful enough motor can potentially take care of that, but even the SR has pretty lousy top speed and the rest of the bikes are either experimental or true exotics. It just seems like such an odd thing to get hung up on, but maybe it goes to the heart of the argument of whether the buyer wants a motorcycle that's electric, or an ev that's a motorcycle.

[benswing]

You make a lot of good points, but I never understood this idea that an electric motorcycle with a transmission isn't a proper ev. For me, it makes it a much more broad range vehicle, since it can maintain highway speeds without any issues, but also have a proper gear ratio for quick acceleration around town (without needing to hold the clutch in at stops). Sure a powerful enough motor can potentially take care of that, but even the SR has pretty lousy top speed and the rest of the bikes are either experimental or true exotics.

The Zero SR has a listed top speed of 102mph, and the Brammo Empulse has a listed top speed of 110mph.  Also, I have gone 100mph on my 2012 Zero S.  In terms of maintaining highway speeds, I ride on highways almost all the time.  Also, Zeros have aftermarket software available to get ride of the limiter and go faster.

Just want to be sure we're both talking about the same bikes.  However, I also don't want to hijack this thread from discussing the reasons why people do or don't like Brammos.  I find this particular topic very interesting since it is so much about perceptions. 

[protomech]

I've followed the electric motorcycle scene with various degrees of interest from the very beginning and something that struck me even back then, and especially now that I have the bike, is the catty attitude towards Brammos from other OEMs and riders. I remember going to the NYC bike show a few year's back and the Zero rep dismissing the Empulse as vaporware and offering to wager it will never see the light of day. Last year I did a demo at a Zero demo, and once again the reps were bad mouthing the Empulse over liquid cooling (of all things). And when Brammo got bought out by Polaris, the glee of some message board chatter was pretty obvious. So what am I missing? Is it the gearbox? Craig Bramscher's personality? Simple intra-brand sniping? I dunno, I find it kind of weird and off-putting.

Part of the Zero dealer animosity is due to Brammo's bungling of product delivery.

Here's an abbreviated timeline:

- 2009: Zero struggles with product delivery. Few 2009 bikes were sold.
- Early 2010: Zero announces 2010 bikes, delivers them to dealers shortly after.
- Mid 2010: Brammo announces 100 mph Empulse 6, 8, 10 for "next summer", $10k to $14k. Who would buy a $10k 3.5 kWh 65 mph Zero S now?
- Early 2011: Zero announces 2011 bikes, delivers them to dealers shortly after.
- Mid 2011: Brammo announces Empulse is delayed to "next year", gets a transmission
- Late 2011: Zero announces 2012 bikes with big battery increase, delivers them to dealers shortly after.
- Mid 2012: Brammo reveals production Empulse, big price increases.
- Late 2012: Zero announces 2013 bikes with big power increase, delivers them to dealers shortly after.
- Dec 2012: Brammo delivers the first Empulse R.
- Late 2013: Zero announces 2014 bikes, delivers them to dealers shortly after.
- Late 2014: Zero announces 2015 bikes, delivers them to dealers shortly after.
- Early 2015: Brammo announces Polaris acquisition.

The Empulse is truly a great bike, and I have big respect for Brammo's engineering team and service team. But everything else has been poorly handled IMO.

Customer communication

Next to nothing during the Empulse development, outside of Brian stopping in here from time to time (greatly appreciated). Considering the bike was delayed for effectively 2 years and prices rose between $5k to $7k ..

Transmission

Compare the big-motor Zero SR to the small-motor/transmission Empulse. Same battery voltage, same motor controller. The Empulse is maybe faster 0 to 30. And it has a slightly higher top speed - Cyclegear lists the tested top speed of the SR at 98.7 mph and the 2013 Empulse at 103 mph.

But once you leave the racetrack, the Zero is faster and easier to use in every way that matters. It's quicker as soon as the Empulse has to shift out of 1st, quicker to 60 mph, quicker and faster through the quarter mile, and fits a much larger battery pack in less weight. The Zero loses the gearbox cost and weight, gearbox maintenance, gearbox oil leaks, drivetrain lurch, and bizarre control complexity: neutral between 2nd and 3rd, six speeds, and a clutch that honestly feels vestigial.

Maybe it was a marketing gamble; some people really like the idea of transmissions, and the Empulse is the bike for them. But many of them find when they swing a leg over both bikes that the transmission isn't needed. Perhaps Brammo is right, and the familiarity of the transmission will be a big win for Victory when they're courting riders used to conventional bikes.

And strip away the marketing. The bikes Brammo built for racing don't use gearboxes.

Product planning

Brammo Parx? Engage / Encite?

Remember when Brammo was selling bikes through Best Buy? Or Harley dealerships? Or the summer "promotion" that's still going on?

***

There are a few people within the EV enthusiast space, whether dealers or staff at other motorcycle companies or one-time customers, who see Brammo's flailing as malicious. I think that's an exceedingly unkind outlook, but I can see why they might think so.

Building motorcycles is hard - even conventional bikes, nevermind developing fundamentally new technology. Brammo should be commended for trying new things, and doing as well as they have .. but at the end of the day, what's important is sticking to a plan and executing on it. The sum of 10 years of development and production is a few hundred bikes.

Zero has certainly stumbled many times, from early 2009 production issues to pre-2012 battery failures to 2012 motor encoder failures. But since 2010 they have consistently iterated and delivered. And in the process their product lineup has gradually transformed from souped-up dirtbikes to well-crafted street bikes that offer enough range and power to win over thousands of riders.

[skuzzle]

Part of the Zero dealer animosity is due to Brammo's bungling of product delivery.

+1.

You can also add talk about taking the company public as another distraction.  Possible 4 wheel projects, etc.

I think the transmission came from marketing requirement of having a 100 MPH top speed.  The gearing needed to break 100 using the early Empulse motor would have given poor performance at low speeds.

I personally don't see how a manual transmission can be a "feature" when it is not really needed.  The maintenance interval, for those who don't have the time or knowledge to work on their bikes, comes twice as often as many ICE bikes.  This assumes you actually have a dealership nearby.

[Shinysideup]

Thanks, Protmech, for your insights, perspective, and your chronology of events.

I shared your frustration at the "Great Wait" and the attendant near-nada-level of communication from Brammo in the early days. I wrote about it on this forum. For some reason, it didn't turn me into a hater.

But for me, where the rubber meets the road, is the bikes themselves. THAT's what I ride.

In my riding (daily commutes and riding around San Francisco all day on the job) the transmission certainly is an important feature, and not a marketing gimmick.

I love how first gear in Sport mode does an excellent job of holding the speed to 20 mph down the steepest of SF's hills.  More importantly: On more than one occasion, the lightening fast takeoff has saved my bacon in traffic. When the illegal left-turner tried to hit me, I just wasn't there.

When I test rode the 2012 Zero, I joked with the very nice salesperson: "When I twist the throttle, I expected to see a message on the dash: 'Please wait. Acceleration program loading...' "  That was the main deal-killer, enough to make me wait all those months to test ride the Empulse upon release.

Aside from racing Ducati's away from the lights, this 1st gear acceleration is a necessary safety issue for me and makes the Empulse a premiere streetfighter in the jungle in which I ride. Sure, there's a 10 lb weight penalty (tranny weight less weight savings from smaller motor) and I get to change a quart of oil every 3000 miles. All worth it, for the way I use the machine. (And I love an excuse to break out my torque wrench!)

Once I had a psycho limo driver cut in front of me and slam on his brakes to make me hit him. The dual Brembo's up front saved my assets, by about 6". I'm pretty sure I would have been an ornament on his bumper on the Zero. I likes me some world class brakes! These are more than empty marketing farkles, in my everyday 23K  miles of experience.

These differences are crucial to me and my view was privately shared by a Zero dealer's representative at a National Plug In Day event here in the Bay Area a couple of years ago. To paraphrase: "I keep begging them to upgrade the suspension, brakes and tires." It sounds like Zero is listening and acting and I'm in agreement with you on the kudos for continuous improvements. But then, from my needs perspective, they had a longer way to go to make a bike that works for me. I just hope Polaris is on board with a robust improvement program.

As to the RR not having a tranny: Brian addressed that question during a public talk at the Scuderia shop in San Francisco. The RR is a RACING bike and, like the unobtanium Lightning and Mission Motors machines, uses high voltage and a big motor. He explained that it's easy to boost performance with this approach, but that for a CONSUMER product, the costs of the high voltage ancillary equipment are prohibitive. Lower voltage, smaller motor, and a transmission penciled out to be a very workable solution. Does the Empulse NEED all 6 gears? Of course not, but, again, the costs of using a custom-designed tranny vs. using a robust model off the shelf dictated the choice. There are other advantages of using 6 gears:

a) It's easy to choose the right gear for best efficiency on the highway for any given speed.
b) It's easy to pick one gear for the current driving environment (stop-n-go, streets, boulevards, highways).
c) The steps in downshifting while using aggressive regen are safer for the rider and the motor than hitting bigger jumps.

So I welcome the plenty of room for advancement in both brands and look forward to test riding what's out there in the future. And just maybe Polaris will communicate effectively!

Finally, I echo your appreciation of the relationship between riders of the two brands on this forum. Heck, I even traded bikes with Richard 230 for a twisties ride, and he turned out to not have horns at all! We even shared the commonality of both owning R1200R's. The world certainly doesn't need more religious wars!

[kingcharles]

My thoughts about the Empulse delay is that Brammo wanted to launch a bullet proof bike. And dealing with a gearbox and the added complexity took longer than expected. But even today I believe that the Empulse is a more complete bike. To me it is better though through. It has only fallen behind in battery capacity to Zero.

Zero launched a completely new model each year until they started refining their 2013 models. That approach means big advancements each year but less reliability. And Zero still lacks two deal breakers for me:
- Decent on-board charging
- Battery heaters
And sustaining a high speed may still cause thermal cutbacks??

Two different approaches to go to market. And in my opinion no reason to dislike one brand or the other.

PS: Just wanted to add another advantage to to having a gearbox:
Better acceleration when carrying a passenger
And I like the fact that it produces a clear sound so pedestrians and bicyclists hear me coming.

[Shinysideup]

And I like the fact that it produces a clear sound so pedestrians and bicyclists hear me coming.

Quit your whining!

Since, as a rule, women hear higher frequencies better than men, and since, as a rule, younger women hear better than older women, it stands to reason that if you are a heterosexual male on the prowl, you're way better off on an Empulse than a Harley. Just sayin'...

(Of course at my age, that makes no difference whatsoever: Sure, their heads swivel at the gear whine, and then they see the gray beard. Game over. Got to get me one of those dark-tinted visors!)

[roma258]

Great commentary and in some way supports my initial intuition that the split is between an electric vehicle that happens to be a motorcycle and a motorcycle that happens to be electric. It would've been interesting to see if Brammo could've caught up on the electric powertrain (had they kept developing the bike) the way that Zero has seemingly caught up on the chassis components. Hopefully Polaris picks up where Brammo left off, and doesn't veer too far into cruiser schlock territory.

I will say, on equal pricing, choosing between an Empulse R and Zero SR would've been a really, really hard choice. Ofcourse I could never afford the MSRP on either, so it's a moot point