Print

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

[dkw12002]

Noisy and stinky is just fine if you add FAST to the description. A person can't have too many bikes. One for every purpose and mood.  When I feel green, quiet, and one with nature, I jump on my Zero. When I feel like a hooligan and want to wake my neighbors, I jump on my Triumph Street Triple r. It's all good.

[firepower]

I received email from zero saying they still plan to come to Australian market , but it takes time to set-up.
Looks Like I wait to purchase the 2013 model. But my excitement of buying has worn off, due to zero temporarily exiting Australian market.
Glad to see they doing all the right things and never miss an opportunity to market their bikes.
You Americans should be thankful you can buy them so easily.

[trikester]

Now that you put it that way - I guess I won't gripe anymore, about having to drive into West Hollywood

Trikester

[manlytom]

Ok. Good discussion on dealer networks or alternatives. 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?

Certainly the next step to crack to get this moving forward. Agree with Harlan that we need dealers, not stealers. They however need electrical mbike engineers and not the old style.

So Aussies in the forum - how can we pull this of in this oil and coal country of ours?

[ColoPaul]

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.).

[Richard230]

My local dealer is a very long-time (the shop has been around for over 40 years under various ownerships) Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki and now Zero (for the past three years) dealer. The shop is owned by a woman and the sales manager, business manager and sales manager are all women.  They are all very enthusiastic about Zeros and electric motorcycles in general.  Of course, with their major market being San Francisco, you would expect that EV's would be a good philosophical and business fit. 

The shop service department staff seems to accept working on the Zeros just fine, but they appear to do a lot more crash repair than motorcycle maintenance. As near as I can tell the majority of motorcycle owners in San Francisco don't do much maintenance, they just ride their bikes around town until they crash them. Then they fix them up enough to run and go out to crash again.  I imagine the shop is looking forward to fixing a crashed Zero.   

[Electric Terry]

As near as I can tell the majority of motorcycle owners in San Francisco don't do much maintenance, they just ride their bikes around town until they crash them. Then they fix them up enough to run and go out to crash again.  I imagine the shop is looking forward to fixing a crashed Zero.   

This is the funniest thing I have read all day! Thanks Richard!

[dkw12002]

I wouldn't worry too much about dealers not making money from Zero repairs. Just wait until you have to have some work done that isn't covered under warranty. If anything, it will cost more cause the dealer may need to send the bike back to Zero or try some things before it's fixed...all at their regular service rate. I can see expensive and lengthy repairs ahead unless you can diagnose and fix it yourself. I can also see this forum changing gears in a couple years and turning more into a trouble-shooting forum for Zero owners to try and fix their own glitches.