Victory Motorcycles winding down

[Brammofan]

http://www.victorymotorcycles.media/polaris-industries-to-wind-down-victory-motorcycles-operations-strengthening-its-position-in-the-powersports-industry-106190/

 

[Shinysideup]

Ouch!

Let's hope for an electric Indian!

[Virtually Yours]

  this is terrible news for us...? Parts and qualified technicians already seemed hard to come by for some of us recently. So how does that effect Brammo owners? I need some plastic body parts... Mine are starting to crack in some places...

[frodus]

This sucks.

Parts replacement is a worry, for sure.

Batteries and BMS are going to be hard to troubleshoot. Controller and Charger are simple. Just gut the batteries and BMS/VCU and we're gonna have to do our own.

[protomech]

Wonder if Victory was eaten by the success of the Slingshot. Having both Victory and Indian providing cruiser models was always a little weird. Given Victory's big push at Isle of Man TT and Pikes Peak, I wonder if this was a pet project of someone in Victory (in which case it will no doubt die) or supported by Polaris management, in which case it and the electrics might live on in some form.

[Richard230]

According to an article that I read a few months ago, Polaris made some bad financial decisions last year and they also suffered substantial losses when the RZR Turbo (whatever that is) had to be recalled for a serious safety problem.  So they had to trim their product lines as a result.   

http://brammoforum.com/index.php?topic=3356.0

Perhaps Victory dealers will be cutting the cost of any Empulse parts that the might have in stock, so some good deals should be available should you want to stock up on chassis or electrical parts that you think might fail in the future or be subject to crash damage.

[Consultec]

Great... they should of funded Brammo. Let brammo drive it down to the ground..


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jazz999]

Victory was only 3% of Polaris sales....not good.  This could really be the end of the Brammo bikes

[Roland Stone]

The final nail in the coffin.

Thank you Craig Bramscher.

[Richard230]

Here is another article about Victory closing, this one from the motorcycle press. Dealers typically were selling only 20 units a year. It is amazing that Victory lasted as long as they did: 
http://www.motorcycle.com/manufacturer/victory/polaris-is-closing-victory-motorcycles.html

And here is an article regarding Victory's 10 best models. No wonder their sales were so slow.    However, read the section under the Empulse TT photo.  It looks like Polaris still has plans for electric vehicle technology in the future, as no doubt, do most other vehicle manufacturers (except maybe Royal Enfield.  )
http://www.motorcycle.com/manufacturer/victory/top-10-best-victory-motorcycles-of-all-time.html

[electricflyer]

So, Polaris is killing off Victory: https://www.google.com/amp/www.forbes.com/sites/jasonfogelson/2017/01/11/polaris-industries-kills-off-victory-motorcycles/

This doesn't sound like great news for us, especially with the very Trump-y quote from Reid Wilson at the end of the article. First the company puts us all out with general lack of maintenance support for our bikes (a problem which I still haven't been able to solve, even after multiple calls to corporate complaining of no action on recall and warranty work; thanks again to Hollywood Electric for stepping up to help). They'll support parts for another 10 years. Well, lovely....except that electric vehicles can last for far longer than that, but require specialized parts when wear and tear does occur.

Are there any words from Brammo at this point? Can anyone make a statement, an expectation of what's happening moving forward? Many of us had great hopes that Victory's acquisition of Brammo bikes would grow the business and expand electric adoption. Those hopes have proven misplaced, with Victory proving that they care not at all about electric bikes. Little more than a curiosity to them.

This entire experience shows just how important customer relations are to maintain faith in a product, or even an entire class of product. Tesla does it right. If anyone from Brammo is reading this and cares about the Empulse, figure out a way to reacquire the bike and build back up with strong customer service, like you used to have. Hell, see if you can partner with Tesla. The future electric motorcycles depends on it.

[Richard230]

I am pretty sure that the statement about making parts available for the next 10 years only applies to Victory's IC models.  I really doubt that Victory has any extra Empulse parts available other than what they were able to buy from Brammo during the motorcycle company sale. It seems unlikely that Polaris was able to set up much of a factory parts production line before throwing in the towel. And that goes double for Enertia parts. Anyone that owns an Empulse TT or Enertia would be smart to buy extra parts from wherever they can right now while they are still available and cheap.  In the future they may very well become collector's items and come at a much more dear cost.   

[Brammofan]

Just to let you know, I'm going to combine this thread with the "Victory Winding Down" thread on the Brammo News and Views subforum.

[Shinysideup]

Ultratoad wrote this in another thread:

"... Articles I have read suggest that Polaris has more in mind for the Brammo technology than motorcycles though.  ATV's for farm use and such have been discussed very favorably.  AND, it would not surprise me in the least if you saw a Polaris (Brammo) Indian badged electric bike on the starting grid at Pikes Peak next season.  I think that Polaris and most would agree-- this electric thing is here to stay and just getting started....  I don't believe that Polaris is done with the Brammo tech by any stretch of the imagination--they paid a ton for it....  Hopefully, this will be good for us in the end...."

I don't know what to think: maybe the above is just wishful thinking, or maybe it's spot on.

But it does seem to me that electric propulsion is just getting started and will inevitably grow in the future, especially after the Trump/Exxon era is over . Heck, I just put a deposit down on a Bolt EV from no less a company than General Motors. Whether or not Polaris can weather the coming months (years?) as EV's ramp into popular awareness, I have no idea. But, to me, the probability of their building on Brammo technology in the future seems to be somewhat more than zero.

[Richard230]

I always thought that there was a decent market for an electric jet ski (something Polaris knows about).  Many reservoirs and public fresh water lakes prohibit IC powered craft from using their facilities due to pollution and noise concerns.  But you would think that electric power would be permitted.  Also, the same goes for snowmobiles, which are being prohibited in many areas, again due to pollution. However, the power requirements for those things might put a strain on the technology right now.   

I am pretty sure that Polaris is going to use electric power in a number of their products in the future.  But will it be motorcycles?  I am not so sure, with with sales of electric motorcycles being so low right now. Plus, the 10% tax credit is gone and unlikely to return, what with the Republicans running Congress and likely not showing any love for anything manufactured anywhere on the West Coast.    Even some states are backing off on EV rebates.    Both of these trends will likely do little to improve the public's acceptance of electric vehicles - no matter what the big car companies and government are hoping will happen.