VOL. 52 ISSUE 28 JULY 14, 2015 P87
cycle—we don't want to do that
with our brands. It's much more
about having fun with an electric
motorcycle. And racing our bike
in the Isle of Man TT Zero class
this year was all part of that.
Is Brammo's founder Craig
Bramscher part of the deal?
He's still in Oregon running
his business there. We have only
acquired the motorcycle part of
Brammo, which is still a pow-
ertrain company in its own right,
but in non-powersports sectors.
So now you're about to
start building Brammo motor-
cycles in Spirit Lake. Will they
still have a gearbox?
The first editions will, but
we're going to take a look at that.
In any case, they will be branded
as Victory. Brammo motorcycles
as a brand has ceased to exist
as far as complete motorcycles
go, though the power train will
still be branded as Brammo.
They'll continue to make the mo-
tor and the battery for us for the
time being.
Weren't the Victory entries
in the Isle of Man TT essen-
tially rebranded Brammos?
No. They were Victory bikes
powered by the Brammo pow-
ertrain, but with Victory engi-
neering. Before we purchased
Brammo, we had already begun
to leverage their expertise as
partners, and to couple that with
what our gang of motorcycle
guys had put together at our
R&D Center in Wyoming, Min-
nesota. Keep in mind we'd been
working all along with Brammo
on various things as a partner
of ours since 2011—you'll see
Brammo's powertrain technology
in other Polaris products besides
motorcycles.
In addition to Brammo
you've acquired Chrysler's
GEM/Global Electric Motor-
cars operation, as well as
Aixam Mega and Goupil in
France, both of which make
small electric commercial
vehicles. Brammo provides
a motorcycle addition to
Polaris' product portfolio,
which puts Harley-Davidson's
LiveWire E-concept in an
interesting context!
That's part of why we invested
in Brammo originally. We didn't
want to be flatfooted in that area;
we intend to lead the sector stra-
tegically. We see the importance
of this application as continuing
to rise, but I think there's a fork
in the road in the way people
look at electric motorcycles.
There'll be some who say, "I just
need electric transportation,
nothing more—it's quick, it's
cheap, it's clean and easy, and
it's what it says about me as a
person in terms of the environ-
ment."
Good luck to them. But then
there's going to be other folks
who say, "I get that whole green-
is-good world, but I want some
performance to it." To have fun
riding an electric bike and going
