Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BigPoppa]

I wouldn't say people got impatient, rather like Zero with the SR/F and H-D with the Livewire, Lightning indicated bikes would be delivered much earlier than they have been. It seems to me people put their deposits down with the good faith that the manufacturer would deliver on their indicated (I'm hesitant to use the word promised) delivery dates but when they failed, folks started looking for reasons why. Although not the most informative, at least Zero, H-D, and even Energica with the new 21kw battery bikes provided reasons for the delays and revised delivery estimates. That's something that seems to be missing from Lightning. A lot of initial press when the Strikes were announced but not a lot of follow-up information to explain the delays and set new delivery estimates.

As much as I would love to see Strikes on the road, with the performance advertised and at the price points advertised, from the outside looking in it doesn't give me much hope that they'll produce anything other than a small number of specialty builds. That's the other thing that bothers me about Lightning. They seem to use the term "Production" very loosely in their marketing materials when from all appearances they're much closer to a Curtiss Motorcycles or any other number of boutique companies instead of a true high volume manufacturer that most folks thing of when using the term "Production".

[Crissa]

The South African case didn't seem to indicate any missed deadlines, but pure impatience on the part of the dealer who seemed to want preferential treatment.

Lightning is way behind on their production promises, but so far they do seem to be trying to keep them.  I wonder how they're keeping the lights on?

-Crissa

[ultrarnr]

It's going to be a lot tougher to keep the lights on when you think about all the rework that is going to be done on these bikes and what that will do to Lightnings profit margin on these bikes. Losing money on each bike is not a good business model. I had one of the first Zero's on order, after a lot of multi-month delays I canceled my order. Zero survived that. Lightning will survive a few customers canceling their orders because of delays. But they may not survive a bad reputation that results from shipping bikes that are not at the specs promised. I for one can not imagine riding an electric motorcycle with no state of charge indicator. But the worst part of it is that it isn't just potential customers that may be scared away but potential dealers. I talked with a friend at my Zero/Energica dealer this past weekend. They wanted to be a dealer for Lightning as well but Richard ignored emails and phone calls from them. They are one of only two motorcycle dealers that sell both Zero and Energica in the country (AF1 Racing is the other) and on the east coast close to I-40 and I-85, perfect location. If Richard thinks he can just sell direct he should remember that Zero tried that and it didn't work very well. Some of us aren't willing to fly cross country to take a Strike for a test ride. I guess time will tell.

[Richard230]

I had pre-ordered a Brammo Empulse, along with about 1000 other people when the bike was first announced in 2010. But then they decided to delay selling the bike for a year or so while they developed it to accommodate a 6-speed transmission. When I heard that news, I and a lot of other people, gave up and bought Zeros, or just plain gave up on electric motorcycles, I believe.  I still have photos of the prototype direct-drive Empulse being displayed at Scudera West in San Fransisco.  Attached is a photo of that bike taken at the shop. Brammo Brian, who now works for Zero, was one of the people discussing the Empulse that day.

[princec]

The decision to add gearing to electric vehicles is ... mystifying.

Cas

[NEW2elec]

Well I've seen this video come up on YT but never watched it.  It's based on the LS218 and was uploaded in 2016.  Of course feel free to watch the whole thing but the 3:30 mark shows pretty clearly that they were using the same (or almost same) battery cells from the Strike to make their older 20kWh battery for the LS218.

Maybe that's why they used them in the Strike, they still had some around the shop.

[mistasam]

^ Yep, that's my thinking too.  I hope owners are given an ETA for battery upgrades soon though.  The lack of communication is what bugs people the most.

And man that Empulse concept looked so much better than what they actually sold!

[Richard230]

^ Yep, that's my thinking too.  I hope owners are given an ETA for battery upgrades soon though.  The lack of communication is what bugs people the most.

And man that Empulse concept looked so much better than what they actually sold!

Since you liked that, as did I, here are some more photos that I took in February 2010. Here is a picture of the rear end.

[Richard230]

And one of the left side and what looks like some soft luggage.

[Richard230]

And finally, a photo of the motor housing and the battery.

[wavelet]

The South African case didn't seem to indicate any missed deadlines, but pure impatience on the part of the dealer who seemed to want preferential treatment.

Not quite.
Granted, the only source of info on that case is the dealer's long post on Facebook; AFAICS there's been no Lightning public reaction, nor have any of the various writers/bloggers who've mentioned the case contacted either Lightning or the dealer for further details (if they did, they didn't write about it).

The one-sidedness granted, the dealer most certainly complains about:
A missed deadline to deliver the bike, further violations of their contract, then additional violations of agreements to resolve their issue, and eventually, a refusal to either refund the full payment for an LS-218 @ US$40K or deliver it.
He also complained about physical threats by Hatfied that required police intervention (which I would think crazy, except that there's a public YouTube video of Hatfield cursing and threatening Brandon Miller as well).

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10219987769068102&id=1339250492

Lightning is way behind on their production promises, but so far they do seem to be trying to keep them. 

This story doesn't give that impression.
Frankly, neither does the fact that after multiple revisions of the Lightning web pages, the relative specs of the 3 models still make no sense content-wise.

I wonder how they're keeping the lights on?

Excellent question, I've also been wondering, and have yet to find recent investment reports. Investment arms of public corporations would have to publicize investment.
Previous reported investments were too little too far in the past to go into series production.

While there may be legal requirement for private VCs or angel investors to publicize anything, in practice there's every reason for them to do so given Lightning isn't in stealth mode. Ditto for Lightning itself.

So, either they're selling enough to cover expenses (unlikely), or doing consulting work.

[MVetter]

Well I've seen this video come up on YT but never watched it.  It's based on the LS218 and was uploaded in 2016.  Of course feel free to watch the whole thing but the 3:30 mark shows pretty clearly that they were using the same (or almost same) battery cells from the Strike to make their older 20kWh battery for the LS218.

Maybe that's why they used them in the Strike, they still had some around the shop.

Great find! I had seen that video before and I remember that scene, but it just clicked that literally that's what's going into these bikes without any sort of protective case. This is proof. Undeniably similar cell housings.