Electric motorcycle brand Zero Motorcycles closed a new financing round last week, in which the company raised $107 million in investments. The money came not only from regular investor Invus and automotive investor Exor of the Agnelli family (including Ferrari, Stellantis, Iveco), but also from other automotive/motorcycle brands. This concerns Hero MotoCorp from India, which transfers 60 million, but also Polaris, the also American owner of Indian Motorcycles, with whom we have been working together for some time.
The investment round has two faces: on the one hand it is good news that outside investors want to put such amounts into the American motorcycle manufacturer, on the other hand it shows that the tech company still cannot stand on its own feet financially, after a series of previous investment rounds, which according to Crunchbase accounted for $322 million.
Share knowledge
In addition to the financial injection from Hero MotorCorp, the Indian motorcycle giant will now also collaborate with Zero on the development of electric models. In fact, 'India' buys a share in the company, which gives it the technical knowledge of the electric pioneers from America. Polaris previously announced such a collaboration with Zero, which means much more than just a financial investment. Polaris CEO Scott Wine previously indicated that this partnership would allow them to skip a lengthy electrification development route, which Harley-Davidson had previously opted for, with varying degrees of success. However, the development of Polaris' products (ATVs, quads, etc.) with a Zero drive is somewhat delayed, otherwise the first vehicles should already be available.
Cypher Store 3+
Op ongeveer hetzelfde moment rolt Zero ook haar Cypher Store uit, een online shop waarin vanaf 19 oktober 2022 “features” beschikbaar komen. Die features zullen in een aantal gevallen gratis updates zijn voor modellen als de DSR/X, SR/S en de SR/F. Daarnaast zijn er, tegen betaling, ook een aantal opvallende upgrades voor de Zero SR te koop, die dan ‘unlocked’ worden. Denk daarbij aan 10% sneller laden (€ 194) of een 10% grotere actieradius (€ 1315), mogelijkheden die nu dus blijkbaar nog softwarematig beperkt worden. Ook is er voor de SR-modellen de mogelijkheid voor een “prestatieboost” voor € 1825, waar dan wel nog kosten bijkomen voor Cypher-features (hardware) die door een dealer worden geïnstalleerd.
Source: https://nieuwsmotor.nl/
