Polaris acts on Empulse

Polaris made an investment in Brammo back in 2011 and upped their stake again 2012. Now, they've acquired the rest of Craig Bramscher's motorcycle business. I haven't spotted the amount they recently spent; I may not find that out until their next Annual Report. But the first two investments were (IIRC) $11M and $28M.

It begs a few interesting questions:

• What motivated Bramscher to sell out once and for all? Is it significant that Polaris' press release makes no mention of Craig's continued involvement?
• Polaris says it will begin making electric motorcycles in Spirt Lake IA, this year. Does that mean Brammo's existing operations will move from Oregon to the midwest? Will the bikes made in Spirt Lake be Brammo models, or is there an electric Indian in the works? 
• Was Polaris influenced by Harley-Davidson's impressive LiveWire foray into electric motorcycles? If so, should Craig should send a box of chocolates to Milwaukee?
• Is there any significance to the fact that, like Mission, Brammo's evolved from an electric motorcycle company to an electric powertrain company?

Back in the early days of Brammo, Zero, and Mission I visited all those companies and found that they were staffed with the expected engineers and nerds, and that they all had a few serious riders on board. But they didn't have motorcycle designers. Mission solved that problem by outsourcing that role to the iconoclastic genius James Parker.

When it created the LiveWire, Harley went the other way; they had motorcycle design capability in house and brought in powertrain expertise (from Mission).

The fact is, while there are a number of good engineering schools where you can go to learn how to make a decent car from scratch, motorcycle vehicle dynamics are more complex, and there are far fewer places you can go to study motorcycle engineering (as distinct from styling). I was always struck by the lack of serious brand-building, sales channel development, and marketing expertise in those upstart companies, too.

I always walked out thinking, They say "What you don't know won't hurt you", but if you don't know what you don't know, that can be deadly.

So it makes sense that two of those three companies have now shifted their focus to supplying other builders with batteries, motor controllers, and motors; that's what they know.

Polaris' product mix offers a ton of EV potential; far more than Harley-Davidson's does. The basic shape of a quad, snowmobile, or 'Slingshot' lends itself to heavy, flat battery deck carried in the bottom of the chassis. That's way better than trying to swing a great big battery pack from side to side in the turns.

Just the other day, I found myself thinking, I've let it go too long between lunches with Harry 'Brammofan' Mallin. I'll pick his brain and get back to you.