Zero Motorcycles Gets Seriou
ZERO MOTORCYCLES GETS SERIOU
Big money, key people set to stun
THE REAL NEWS AT ZERO MOTORCYCLES’ recent new-model introduction wasn't necessarily the very real performance and styling improvements in the 2011 Zero models. In fact, it had little to do with hardware at all. It was that Zero’s investors (the company is still private) put an additional $17 million into the operation on March 17 and committed to another $9 million if the Santa Cruz, California-based outfit hits certain non-disclosed milestones. In addition, Zero recently secured roughly $1.9 million in government grants to fund development of an electric motor designed specifically to power motorcycles, rather than using the cast-off industrial and other non-specific motors that have sufficed to date.
At the same time, as companies will when trying to grow quickly and also maintain their investors’ confidence, Zero is madly staffing up with the most qualified, experienced and credentialed techs and executives it can find. In the last year, Zero has hired Abe Askenazi,
the former director-level head of analysis and testing at Buell, as its new head of engineering, and has retained or used the services of an additional half-dozen or so of Buell’s most-experienced and accomplished engineers and designers. It recruited first Scot Harden, who helped build KTM in the U.S., as VP of Global Marketing, and then Karl Wharton, the man who played a role in shaping Triumph’s individual country operations and created Triumph dealerships around the world, as COO. Zero has also enlisted a foremost battery expert, as well as a top electric motor engineer.
This is a company professionally and capably doing the things required to become the cutting edge of electric motorcycling, and to build a real motorcycle company that sells real products around the world. As is not unusual in such situations, Zero’s founder and visionary, Neal Sasaki, is not in the transition. Whether that’s his choice or that of the company’s investors remains between them, but it’s the rare start-up where
the original entrepreneurial founder finds that his skills and interests match what’s required to take a company to the next level, Steve Jobs and Erik Buell excepted.
As for the 2011 bikes themselves, almost 80 percent of the parts count has been touched: more battery capacity, better-if not perfect-brakes, much improved suspension, better styling, the promise of enhanced ruggedness in wheels and other components. And on the right, very twisty road or tight track or trail, they’re as fun as any motorcycle to ride. Perhaps the biggest improvement is the belt drive fitted to the streetlegal S and DS models. Their annoying chain whir, the last significant noise, is gone, and the bikes are quiet enough to sneak up on a blind Zen monk as he picks flies from the air with chopsticks.
Zero itself, however, is making a little too much clatter to do that to the entire electric bike market. Its challenge, as of today, is loud and clear.
—Steve Anderson
