How to Sell an Electric Motocycle (and other stories)

I’ve been trying to remember when my interest in electric motorcycles became an obsession… when it went from “this is a cool idea” to “I’ve GOT to have one of these things!”, and I’ve finally got it. It was a leisurely walk down Newbury Street on the way to a coffee.

This young guy had a weird looking bicycle- I stopped and talked to him. He was a natural salesman- this was an electric bike, and his excitement and enthusiasm was infectious. He rented and sold them in the Back Bay area. He offered, no, told me to take it for a spin around the block, and I did.

From that moment on, I was hooked.

When I was a kid I worked in a camera store, for a guy named Will Garrick. He told me how to sell cameras. He said, it’s like puppies. You want to get rid of a bunch of puppies? You say, here, hold the puppy for a second… “Teddy,” he said, “…nobody gives back a puppy.” Thus, the “Puppy Principle of Sales” was born. The first thing you do is to take the precious, beautiful camera out of the case and hand it to the customer. You don’t even ask.

So, bringing me back to the reason I started building this thing, it really was about getting a chance to feel what it’s like to ride it. Simple as that. Honestly, there was so much that went into actually building the bike, I had kind of lost sight of that until I took my first open-road, full-throttle ride in Maine… “The feeling you get when you can just screw the bike up to speed with an absolutely flat power curve is just remarkable- and something you have to feel for yourself. “ (…from another post.) Once my pulse got back down to normal, I started to remember why I built this bike…

In the meantime, I’ve been looking at all the websites of all the companies building and trying to sell these things… I’ve been reading the enthusiast’s posts, and they all play the same angle. Never pay for gas… performance… Green Energy… like that. That’s not how you sell an electric motorcycle.

You want to sell an electric bike? You want an enthusiast for life? Give them the keys.

We did that with film cameras. In the late ’90s, we did that with $30K digital capture systems… (the first thing you do is to take a picture- after that you can tell them all about the thing.) I’ve seen it many times now, for the short time I’ve had the bike on the road. Two times in particular- one guy was an old Harley dude- very interested in the thing. After talking for a while, I said, aw, hell, just get on the thing and take it for a spin. After he got back he was all wound up- seems he squirted the throttle on it and got his eyes opened. Another guy, after seeing me blast to 60 past him, was practically shouting “I HAVE to build one of these things!”

I had a great lunch with a dear friend who’s been in the photo business for decades now… funny, she wanted to talk more about electric bikes than photography, and is maybe the single most successful sales rep I’ve had the pleasure of working with. I was talking about how the engineers sell the bikes. She said, “…yeah. It’s kind of like going on a date with your resume, isn’t it?”

It’s not that the numbers and the facts and the details aren’t important… but you’ve got to get the love, first. Once you have that, your client will get the numbers to work… I assure you.

My advice to Brammo, Zero, Quantya, Mission, MotoCzysz, Mavizen and anyone else selling these? Put butts in seats. Any way you can.

Events, rallies, road tests (Zero had sort of a less than forthright road test scheme through CraigsList- the only company that has such an offer, but completely off-putting the way it was implemented…) Give reviewers a bike for a week. Go to every known place where motorcyclists congregate and be prepared to let everyone even remotely interested take the things on a road that they can screw it wide open. You’re going to sell ten times the bikes from the back parking lot or a winding road than you do from the showroom floor.

After my lunch with my friend… I got her so excited about the feeling of the electric ride, if I’d had my bike there she would have taken a ride right then and there. Her first ride on a motorcycle…

And funny. She never asked how far it will go on a charge.

The Modular Build

Nothin’ but trouble, I assure you.

It seems to me that one of the biggest advantages of the electric build is the possibility of going with a module- based design. Make motors, controllers, batteries interchangeable. Here’s my first drawing- and I’ve bought a bike. A leetle tiny bike, (1/12 scale model of the Ninja 600, but still… )

It’s a sickness, I tell you, a sickness.

Interchangeable battery cartridges, adaptable to several battery types. With Headway 10ah cylindrical cells, you’re seeing the config with 80ah at 72V.

Interchangeable motor mount based on NEMA C face pattern.

Electrical/electronic component “mini-rack” with vertical shelves for mounting both high voltage and low voltage components including charging systems.

Calculation sources…

Here’s a link to Lennon Rodgers and his motorcycle spreadsheet. Pretty much the last word on vehicle calculations, and pretty accurate according to my real-world testing so far.

Turtle Pond ride continued…

A nice long blast on a bit of curvy, empty road on a Sunday morning…

building a motorcycle… some inspiration.

Photoshoot in Maine- teaser

Just a tease of some of the shots I got while up on Small Point… more to come!

morning run on my favorite stretch of road…

Happy Father’s Day!

site: Electric-bikes.com

Seems like these guys have been around for a while… don’t know how I missed them. They have a page that lists some bikes- some of which have morphed into what we’re seeing now- look at the Blade and the Drift… now the ElectricMoto EMAX and the Zero. Interesting… I also like the “LEV” idea- “light electric vehicles”.

email from 2006:

interesting… nice to see I wasn’t completely delusional.

From: “Ted Dillard”
Date: November 26, 2006 11:26:16 AM PST
To: “Nick xxx”
Subject: RE: ok. this is my latest caper.

i know you think im crazy, but at least i’m in earnest.

earnestly crazy.

if nothing else, i think you’d be amused…

here’s the thing. i truly believe we’re at a point that, in 5 years, electric vehicles are going to be sprouting up like, well, hybrid vehicles today. think of how fast hybrids hit…

here’s why. first, you have the tesla project. a balls-to-the-wall sports car built to compete with gas cars. http://www.teslamotors.com

people are buying these things, even at $100k a pop.

you also have the blade, a 250cc sized european (naturally) motocross bike. if you look at the site, it compares very well with a 250cc gas bike. http://www.e-mx.net/ it’s actually pretty cheap, in the $7000 range.
now look at the killacycle. the story is here: http://www.megawattmotorworks.com/display.asp?dismode=article&artid=322

dude, this is a 150mph drag bike that does the 1/2 in 9.5.

this bike uses a new battery made right here in waltham by A123, http://www.a123systems.com/html/home.html

if you take nothing more from this note, take this: buy this company’s stock. Li-ion batts are the solution to battery problems, that is, high weight, low power, but they have had problems. this company has solved those problems, and it looks like they’re going to replace the Prius batteries with batts from these guys.

he also uses a motor built by this guy who squeeks a ton more torque out of a stock EV motor… (confirming my longtime suspicion that what we all want in life is torque, not horsepower…)

ok, that’s fine for an experimental drag bike. but. take that technology and build it into a 250cc sized street bike, and you’ve got a vehicle that, by the math i’ve done, has a 100 mile+ range, can go close to 100mph, and looks and handles great. (edit: OK THAT was a little delusional…)

there are a whole bunch of people out there who want to see this proven out… the battery guys, the motor guys, the EV industry such as it is… so im building one. HA. i picked up a rolling frame yesterday… a 1987 suzuki RM250. i’m putting together the plan now. the actual conversion components are really REALLY basic. people use forklift motors and lead batteries and get bikes that go 40mph and have a 50mi range. think of what you can do if you cut the weight of the batts in half, and double the capacity of the motor!

i have no idea where this is going… but i’m obsessed with it and have been for a while now. have you ever read this great book called bicycle? teresa got it for me a while ago, but it chronicles the history of the development of the bike. the fascinating thing about it is how it is a model for all technological development. the modern bicycle after several fits and starts, could only come into being when a whole array of technologies were in place… tubular steel frames, roller chains, pneumatic tires, etc. once that was all at the same place at the same time, it had reached a tinder point, and the bicycle burst out.

mark my words, we are at that point with electric vehicle development.

thoughts?

td

More, in a response:

<>please look at this:

http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/energy_efficiency.php?js_enabled=1

it’s a breakdown of, first, efficiency issues, and second, sources of
electric energy generation.

if you can find holes in it, please tell me, (seriously). and they’re
talking about a hotrod sports car.

the whole idea of trading one way of burning oil for another is what has
been putting me off on electric vehicles for a really long time. (did you
know my dad brought an electric renault home from work, in like, 1969 or
something?)

BUT, the research i’ve been doing, (and sources are other than someone
selling a 100k electric sports car) all back this site’s conclusions up.

<>

EXACTLY. they need a typical range of around 30 miles… believe me i’ve
seen the graphs. that’s not what they’re going to buy, though. most people
are in denial about the fact that, really, the only reason they really need
a car at all is to commute to the daily grind. they’re totally sandbagged
by the sexy car sales job. really, can you believe that people buy
$50,000 lexuses so they can sit in traffic, whether on the highway or in the
city? talk about delusion. (i want to make a website called
carsarebarbaric.com. everything about a car is barbaric, even down to how
it makes people behave, yet they’re sold as the highest point of civilized
creation.)

most of the EV world is pretty amused by the hybrids… the general feeling
is that hybrids are accepted by consumers because they think they need more
range. not that they need more range. so you get a ridiculously complex
machine with redundant everything that no one can maintain. oh, lets look
at puttin fuel cells into some frikkin vehicle, now that’s the measure of
elegant simplicity, eh?

“Fully Charged” pilot show…

A great show that, in this episode, blows every myth and misconception you see every time someone makes a comment on some EV story somewhere…