Certainly the traditional dealers dont work. They look for sparkplugs and oil to change! With my 2010 it spend quite some time at the dealer and they did not onow what to do. In addition they do not get the traditonal servicing income of a Zero - at least we expect that to me much less than on an IC bike.
Now what to do? Different kind of dealers - like some in Germany being solar / alternative energy companies ? Or Harlan specialised on electrics - maybe pedelec / bicycle dealers can do better than IC?
Agree with Harlan that we need dealers, not stealers. They however need electrical mbike engineers and not the old style.
Yes, our 'traditional' dealer here in Denver seems to be the "oil & sparkplugs" type when it comes to service. I wouldn't say the service people seem 'enthusiastic' about Zero's! And worse for me they're 1 hour+ away.
I talked to a different ICE moto dealer (that's close to me) and it was like he was channeling Wes Siler - he seemed to think that real motorcyclists wouldn't want anything to do with e-motos and he certainly wouldn't consider carrying them.
I talked to several other potential Zero dealers - an electric bicycle/scooter guy and an specialty EV shop owner; both were very positive about Zero - and had been in contact with Zero about becoming a dealer - but had been rebuffed by the requirements Zero demanded (minimum floor/display space, minimum stock, staffing in the service dept, advertising, etc.).