Zero partners with Polaris Industries

[Richard230]

It looks like Zero will be providing the power trains and battery packs for Polaris off-road products, while Polaris provides the chassis design, manufacturing, marketing, retail dealers and distribution network for a new line of battery-powered commercial and recreational vehicles, perhaps including snowmobiles and watercraft.  Here is a link to the news:  https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/custom/polaris

[PaulHMartinez]

This should be good news, right?
Anybody believe that maybe now a person might take their Victory (Polaris) Empulse to a Zero Dealer/Service for repair now?  Wouldn't they be sharing technology/software, parts, etc?
 Would like to know what people here think.
Tired of the B9 system fault always present now.

[Calkins]

It would be more like taking your Zero to a Polaris dealer and getting parts and service.  The Brammo and Victory are probably not going to have much help.

[HadesOmega]

It seems like a slap in the face to Brammo to me.  They bought the Brammo assets and the shelved it.  So  now they are going to ditch Brammo for Zero?  I do know they are already using the Brammo tech to help power their Polaris off road vehicles because they are using the Brammo VCUs in their side by sides.  It seems like Brammo would have been better off staying Brammo.  If they had competed with Zero instead of partnering with them the Brammo tech would have gone somewhere.   

So what is going to happen to their Indian electric bike they are supposedly going to release in the future?

[Calkins]

Did the Brammo tech make it into Polaris' GEM electric golf cars/carts?

[Calkins]

The kid's version of the Indian eFTR just came out this week...

https://www.indianmotorcycle.com/en-us/eftr-jr/

[HadesOmega]

Did the Brammo tech make it into Polaris' GEM electric golf cars/carts?

I believe they did.  When I was searching for empulse stuff it mentioned Brammo VCU for other offroad vehicles.  As far as the tech that went into the Empulse it looks like they flushed it down the toilet unfortuntely

[Richard230]

My thought is that Polaris just doesn't want to develop a line of electric vehicles using the Brammo technology for some reason. It could be that they had a falling out with Brammo?  Maybe they laid off all of their EV-power techs and want to use Zero as a technology developer instead of having an in-house department? Or maybe it was just  easier to sell the partnership to their board for some financial reason? Whatever is the reason for the partnership, it will be interesting to hear the story when it comes out someday. Perhaps it is time for Ted to update his electric motorcycle history book. 

At least Zero didn't try partnering with Harley-Davidson like Alta did. 

[Richard230]

This would seem to be the answer why Polaris needed to partner with Zero in order to develop a line of EVs: It was mentioned in a post on the Electric Motorcycle Forum that Cycle World published an article a while ago discussing that Polaris SOLD all of their Brammo holdings to Cummins a couple of years ago.  So now they would have to either start up an entirely new electrical power technology from scratch, or partner with a company that has already developed an established product and has the engineers that can assist Polaris to develop their future products. No doubt their board decided that was the safe way to go after their experience with their Brammo acquisition.

[HadesOmega]

I suppose it is interesting that Polaris is Partnering up up with Zero.  I bet Brian Wismann will be working with them because he worked with Victory, Brammo, and Zero now.  What will we get out of this Polaris makes side by sides, quads, the slingshot.  So we'll see all these vehicles become electrified, apparently they couldn't use the Brammo tech to do it unfortunately.  Then what does Zero get out of it?  Maybe they'll have better offroad stuff now because Zero is not known for awesome off road machines.  I can't really see Zero using any of the Brammo stuff, compared to what they have right now it's a bit stale.  Maybe the battery? 

Polaris is a larger company than Zero so I guess Zero would have access to more of their resources.  Zero is getting pretty big but much smaller than Polaris. 

I would love to have an electric quad =)

I hope they didn't sell all their Brammo stuff because they need to provide parts for at least 10 years.  What a black mark in this companies history Brammo was, I think they should have stuck in the game because electric bikes are just now starting to take off.

[Richard230]

I think what Zero really gets out of this partnership is financial stability, greater cred in the industry and possible access to Polaris's dealers and distribution network, along with perhaps improved supplier access and maybe lower prices if they can piggyback on some of Polaris's component purchases.   

[Richard230]

Here is more spin regarding this new partnership by the two new partners. Polaris has more to say about their company than does Zero. Brammo even deserved a mention in Polaris's comments: https://electricmotorcycles.news/polaris-announces-partnership-with-zero-motorcycles/