Best Buy Moving Ahead with Plan to Sell Brammo Electric Scooters

By Michael Kanellos

Back in February,we reported that electronics retailer Best Buy would start to sell Brammo's all-electric Enertia scooter from Brammo in May. It made sense. Best Buy already had a few Segways on the floor and it had invested in Brammo.

Although May came and went, the plan to sell the scooters is still on. A few newspapers are reporting that Best Buy (BBY) will start selling the scooters sometime this summer.

Brammo is a startup so we will give them a few months. The idea of selling motorcycles at an electronics store isn't as crazy as it sounds, CEO Craig Bramscher said in Febuary. Many Best Buy stores are built with two garage bays that are "underutilized."

Also, given features like a built-in web server and APIs that Brammo is opening to third-party application developers, "What we're selling is a lot closer to consumer electronics than to transportation," he said. He envisions add-ons like on-board cameras that can download images to travel blogs.

Brammo is among a number of startups seeking to supply electric two-wheelers to the mass market – others include Vectrix and Zero Motorcycles. Others like Mission Motors are making expensive, high-performance models. Motorcycles have a few advantages over cars. They cost less, they can get by on smaller batteries and the crash testing procedures are way easier. On the other hand, the cycle and scooter market is far smaller.

Setting up distribution channels is a key challenge for startups like these, Bramscher said. That's why Best Buy could be a coup.

Comments

[Windsun33:]

Those silly things cost over $12,000 each. You can buy a used Hog for that and have a real motorcycle. If it makes you feel better, run it off of self distilled methanol.

Jul 06 03:16 PM

[Tim Plaehn:]

Electric bikes and scooters are the global wave of the future. Prices need to drop to a smaller premium over gas models, but in many parts of the world, 1st, 2nd and 3rd world, commuting by scooter is common.

In most of the U.S. the freeways of pickups, harleys and 6 passenger cars are not the environment conducive to scooter travel. A large part of America will be stuck with gas-guzzling vehicles because of their commuting situation.

Jul 07 11:25 AM

[jerrydd:]

The Valence battery they use is not that good and way too expensive. Better, less costly LiFePo4 batts are available that could drop the price by $2k or more.

Jul 07 12:40 PM