ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older => Topic started by: lolachampcar on November 26, 2012, 03:58:14 AM
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I'm facing the fact that my 2013 DS will be on the way in a month or so. It's time to part with my 2012 9DS with about 6k miles. Anyone in the West Palm Beach area that is interested is welcome to come take a ride.
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Wow, resale is going to be interesting.
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Probably more economical to buy big DC-DC converter and use it as a UPS for your house. Or off-grid storage for solar panels which you can then use to charge your '13
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Wow, resale is going to be interesting.
To be fair, most people on here probably already have an elmoto of some sort. How are you faring with the local paper, Craigslist, etc.?
I don't necessarily disagree with your statement, though. It might end up being more lucrative to part out the high-tech bits.
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Agreed....
It is in CycleTrader (along with ALL the new Zero ads). I'll post results.
Craigslist is next but I really dread that route.
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Craigslist is next but I really dread that route.
I've sold several vehicles (bikes+cars) on craigslist. I agree it's a pain in the ass, but it seems to work.
People that call and make an appointment; don't show; when you call them they're like: "Oh, yeah, I already found another car but I didn't bother to let you know".
People that show up and say "umm, I only have $100, but if you let me take the car now I'll send you payments".
People that show up, take a test drive, and say "It's perfect, I'll offer you 1/2 of what you're asking" and won't budge from the price.
Arrrgh.
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I agree with all of the comments about Craigslist above. But somehow my son-in-law has the system figured out. He regularly sells stuff, including beat-up motorcycles that he likes to buy, ride around for a year and then sell, on Craigslist and seems to make it work with a minimal number of flakes falling out of the sky. ::)
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I think the other shoe just dropped.....
I went on Ebay to check the lay of the land thinking I would list it for my bottom line reserve number and see what happens. All Zero's dealers are dumping their 1012 demo bikes as "new" on Ebay. I found a 9DS (or maybe S) for a few hundred south of $10K.
If I find a buyer, it will likely be for under $7K. If that is the case, it would be a 50% hit. That is too much no matter how much I want that ($16,000) 2013!
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Good deal if you're buying a 2012 now. Of course, most of us couldn't wait that long *grin*
If all the dealers are dumping their bikes on the market now at $10k, you'll probably have a hard time selling unless you're willing to take a bath. Many of the EV-curious have already bought in at $10-14k after state incentives .. so the dealers will have to take steep cuts to move the bikes.
I don't expect the steep depreciation curve to slow until Zero stops making huge improvements year-over-year .. I thought 2012 was that year .. but I was wrong.
The price gap may be $9k now between a used 2012 and a new 2013 ZF11.4, but I bet the price gap shrinks to $5k or less if you look at a used 2012 vs a used 2013 once the 2014s are released. Take your best guess at the price gap and consider how much riding a new 2013 vs your existing 2012 is worth to you.
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My dealer is still trying to sell a 2011 DS for $4000 off the original list price. And that is in San Francisco, where a bike like that would be perfect for tooling around the city. I didn't see any 2012 bikes on the showroom floor, though.
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I remember the hoops we jumped through to manage a model change. We did not use distribution but still went to great lengths to manage the depletion of current inventory before announcing the new and we HAD competition.
Zero's dealers must really be loving a company that scavenges with new product announcements so early in the sales cycle when there is NO competition. They are making friends; they just do not know it yet. Dealers will not forget when a company does this poor a job managing inventory exposure especially when it is the dealer that is exposed.
I've got a Tesla Model S on the way. Now there is a model for distribution and an example in communication.
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My dealer is still trying to sell a 2011 DS for $4000 off the original list price. And that is in San Francisco, where a bike like that would be perfect for tooling around the city. I didn't see any 2012 bikes on the showroom floor, though.
A brand new 2012 9DS here in Sweden today is 144'000 sek which translates to ~ $21'800..
a 2011 DS is 90'000 sek -> $14'000
My hopes on getting a -13 FX under $15'000 seems a bit optimistic.. =/
(sorry for OT)
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I dropped a note to Richard Walker on the subject. He is well aware of it and appears to be continuing along the path.
It is really hard to manage customer value. The companies that pull it off are the ones that are around for the long haul.
As I told Richard, I'll just drive my 9DS for many a year and extract the original purchase price. By the same token, I will not buy another which means I have gone from a MY13 customer and source for a trade in to a lost customer. I simply can not accept that Zero stands for the value of the bike after 9 months and 6K miles :)
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How much of the lack of interest do you think is attributable to Zero's 2013 announcement vs. general lack of interest in elmotos from the motorcycling public (not that either case helps your situation)?
I guess I knew in the back of my mind that this sort of thing might happen, given the developing-tech nature of this bike. I'm also not sure what Zero could reasonably do for us, as they are still partially surviving on VC and federal grant money. I do wish I had waited a year though, as I have only been able to ride about 1200 miles since I got my DS9 last April due to a job change. My fuel-savings justification is also taking a setback, as it looks like I'll have to make another 400-mile round trip to get a fork replaced.
I suspect I'll do as you are and hang onto it for awhile. It gets me around well enough, and it's still fun.
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Given the development curve these things are more analogous to pieces of tech than vehicles right now. The good news is that at least the product will still work for years. You cannot say the same thing about a high end desktop computer 5 or six years after you bought it. It won't run the latest/greatest software as software gets optimized for faster systems. But, your bikes won't suddenly lose compatibility with the roads! They only look dimmer against their newer siblings, so clearly your best bet is to drop off this site and remove the bookmarks for Zero's website for the next 7 years or so. ;D
Either that or ship your bike to Sweden to sell it.
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My computer still has a 3" floppy drive. ::) Unfortunately, floppy discs are kind of hard to come by. ;)
Where I used to work, we took many of our correspondence documents and letters and first put them on 5" very floppy discs and then later we started copying all of our correspondence to 3" discs. Then we started dumping stuff on to an office server, without ever copying the old files. Piles of those old floppy discs are sill in the office somewhere, but there is not a single computer left that can read them. Well, there goes 20 years of information. At least we had a good excuse for not looking for old letters and documents. ;) I think the discs are dumped in the box with our old 1970 HP 9000 programmable calculator.
With computers, it appears that they can become pretty much useless after a while. But I agree that electric motorcycles should have a longer half-life. :)
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I'd counter that even my computers have longer lives these days. I've never had a desktop just totally die; I keep them for 8 years or so until the motherboards are no longer compatible with newer peripherals. As with motorcycles, you rarely *need* the latest and greatest hardware to run most software.
I've bumped the RAM and replaced the hard drives with SSDs in all my machines, and I'm happy with them. I'll likely do something similar (small upgrades) with the Zero. Hopefully they'll offer a service manual ;)
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I'll likely do something similar (small upgrades) with the Zero
What upgrades do you have in mind. Let us know, maybe some has already done this.
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Absolutely, the correct answer in this case is to just hold onto the bike and enjoy what I have. I can do that.
The shame of the situation is what I expressed to Richard. I could have been a MY13 customer and my MY12 would have made for another unit through Zero's distribution channel. More product through the channel, the happier and more committed that channel becomes. Bike dealers are like any other, they go where the money is. On the flip side you can obsolete your bikes leaving the dealers to dump their MY12 inventory and demos on EBay. This has the follow on effect of taking the bottom out of the secondary market which has the effect of making your customers feel like schmucks for buying a $13K bike that is worth $7K in nine months. Net result; dealers and owners not happy. Time to find new of each.
It is my personal belief that Zero is being run by marketing and not overall management oversight. The result will be a myopic focus on sales at the expense of building a loyal customer base. Competition will come (it really is not rocket science to build one of these things once you get the battery sorted) once Zero proves the market and they will pounce on this situation. I once bought an Audi RS6, lost my butt on it and have never considered an Audi since. I LOVED that car but the beating I took will not be something I forget in this lifetime. I LOVE my Zero but.............
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You should have seen the beating that I took on my fist car. It was an 800cc 3-cylinder, two-stroke DKW Junior and it's value dropped by 50% the day it was sold. ::) So I am used to taking financial baths when buying a vehicle and it doesn't bother me any more. ;)
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As a pilot, I can tell you that automotive depreciation pales in comparison with what happens to a new plane the day it is flown off the lot :)
The good news is, about 20 years later (in piston single land at least) the values start to come back. 60 years later and you might actually break even depending on inflation...
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What upgrades do you have in mind. Let us know, maybe some has already done this.
Near term , I need to increase the bike's cargo carrying capacity. That plastic tailpiece looks cool, but is utterly useless when I need to lash something on the back. I also need to do something with the handlebars, as the default riding position makes me tend to slouch and I end up with a sore back if I ride for more than half an hour (maybe though that's a pilot upgrade...)
Farther out (as in when the warranty runs out), Harlan's Sevcon 6 upgrade looks attractive, as does suspension upgrades if the forks don't hold up.
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Sold my Harley and found that I could not recover as much as I wanted. prices seem down in general for second hand vehicles .... anyhow had to go as I did not ride it enough. as usual all the quick rides or a short day tour all on the Zero as lots of fun and easier ...
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I like the Sweden idea, I met a guy from Brazil that would buy used airplanes cheap here and sell them back at his home. When you have big tarrifs the savings on used bikes is great. Maybe we could get the guys at Zero to offer "certified used" for the offshore markets. Also, San Luis Vespa/Zero offers 0% commission selling your bike when you buy a new one from them.
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The airplane analogy is interesting to me as my hobby went from purpose built race cars to aerobatics. Over the past two years I've moved three Extras and my "hobby" has been better than break even! That has been a very pleasant surprise :)
As for choice of bikes, the Zero sits next to a BMW S1000RR. I can push either out of the garage each morning and I am hard pressed to get on the BMW enough to charge the battery (lucky if its once a month).
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Seems like there might be a viable Australian import market : )
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I like the Sweden idea, I met a guy from Brazil that would buy used airplanes cheap here and sell them back at his home. When you have big tarrifs the savings on used bikes is great. Maybe we could get the guys at Zero to offer "certified used" for the offshore markets. Also, San Luis Vespa/Zero offers 0% commission selling your bike when you buy a new one from them.
Thread hijack (sorry), but pretty much every single JetProp, the plane I fly, available in the US used market recently has been bought by Brazilians because of the tariff structure. The plane is registered as a piston but converted by FAA authorization to a turboprop, so for international operations it still carries the piston designation making it much more appealing in high tariff/user fee environments (like most of the world outside the US/Canada).
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The airplane analogy is interesting to me as my hobby went from purpose built race cars to aerobatics. Over the past two years I've moved three Extras and my "hobby" has been better than break even! That has been a very pleasant surprise :)
That is pretty sweet. My partner and I aquired our current plane at the bottom of the used market and it has actually appreciated, which is pretty sweet for an airplane!