The company’s CEO Sam Paschel joined last year.
He’s focused on getting Zero to appeal to customers’ heart, not the head.
Zero Motorcycles was started in a Northern California garage in 2006, began selling bikes in 2009, and has grown considerably since then. But it has also endured the financial crisis and an electric vehicle market that hasn’t been especially kind to anyone except Tesla.
Paschel has a point. The electric-vehicle world — two-wheeled, three-wheeled, or four — has pitched itself to consumers as eminently logical. Why wouldn’t you want to escape fossil fuels and do your part to improve the environment?
Motorcycle sales have been declining since the financial crisis, due in many respects to aging enthusiasts and the industry’s inability to attract new, young riders. Milwaukee-based Harley Davidson has been hit hard and recently announced an investment in Alta Motors, a Silicon Valley electric motorbike startup, as well as plans to bring an electric motorcycle to market in 2019.
Paschel has a predictable North Star to guide Zero: Tesla. “We’d like to have the same passion on the two-wheeled side that Tesla has on four,” he said.
But the motorcycles don’t look crazy. Paschel said that from a visual standpoint, they’re no different from traditional bikes. The riding experience, however, is another story.
That might be a negative for some riders, those who like to feel a big Harley V-Twin motor rumbling beneath the seat. But for many newer riders, the combination of flat-out speed, lower maintenance costs, a more virtuous relationship with the climate, and simpler operation are selling points. Recharging a Zero bike’s battery is also a snap: plug into a regular wall outlet overnight and you’re good to go, although faster charging is also available.
Electric motorcycles, unlike most gas-powered bikes, don’t have a clutch or gearshift — they effectively have one gear. This makes learning to ride much easier, and for experienced bikers like Paschel, it offers the chance to simply take to the road without having to deal with the cognitive demands they’ve grown accustomed to.
With bikes that have power and style, there’s also no mistaking your ride for a scooter.
For Paschel, the effort to emulate Tesla has high stakes. There’s competition in the electric motorcycle space, chiefly from Polaris, which acquired Brammo, an electric-cycle startup, in 2015. But there’s also the simple fact that motorcycles aren’t considered by Americans to be an indispensable as cars.