Brammo Enertia Electric Motorcycle – At Best Buy?

I Wonder How Much the Maintenance Plan Costs…

Here's the Brammo Enertia. But will it be street legal? (Photo: theelectricbliss.wordpress.com)

If I had $12,000 to spare, I’d jump at the chance to buy a Brammo Enertia electric motorcycle. Sure, I’d need quick loans to help pay (will Best Buy finance autos and accept down payments?), but considering that there’s a Best Buy only a couple of miles from my home, I wouldn’t be able to resist.

But Could I Legally Drive it Home?

That’s just one of the questions these days: whether the Brammo Enertia will be street legal. The initial claim made is yes, but I’d check with local police before buying. Yet that won’t stop the consumer electronics giant from selling the vehicles from the Ashland, Oregon startup by May 2010. Best Buy CEO Craig Bramscher sees the Brammo Enertia being sold across the U.S., Europe and China at Best Buy retail locations.

Computers, Vacuums, Motorcycles…

It might sound odd, but that’s the direction in which Best Buy is headed. Since the stores already have garage bays for installing car stereo equipment that Bramscher claims are “underutilized,” it seems like the Brammo Enertia could be a good fit. Plus, when you realize that Brammo is considering features like a built-in Web server and cameras to capture images and video for travel blogs, the Brammo Enertia should perhaps be considered more of a mobile consumer appliance than strictly a motorcycle.

Not Alone in the Electric Two-Wheeler Market

Vectrix and Zero Motorcycles have similar consumer models available, while Mission Motors is taken an even higher-end approach. But the high-visibility approach Brammo is taking by allying itself with Best Buy is something the competition has not done as yet. To give you an idea of how much selling out of Best Buy could help Brammo, consider that about seven million people go to motorcycle distributors in the U.S. each year. A single Best Buy store can see that many people over the same span of time. Bramscher says the chain has already taken $3 million in pre orders for the Brammo Enertia, and that’s only the beginning.

Will the Geek Squad Fix Your Ride?

Apparently they will. Geek Squad types will be trained to make basic Brammo Enertia repairs to brakes, tires and electronics. If you get into a wreck, however, you’ll have to go to a Brammo distribution center for those fixes. Unfortunately, the company is still working on obtaining funding for those. Quick loans, anyone?

What’s Under the Hood?

The Brammo Enertia will have a 45-mile range. Powered by a lithium-ion-phosphate battery that takes around three hours for a complete charge from a standard household outlet, the maximum speed of the Brammo Enertia should be around 53 miles per hour.

[apply_button float="right"]

All things considered, this should be OK for those of us who need to perform light errands or commuting. If you want to do more and travel faster, a 100-mile ranged model that can hit 75 miles per hour will come out later in 2010. You’ll probably need multiple quick loans for that one. But then again, if you’re seriously considering buying a Brammo Enertia, you probably have enough petty cash to cover.

Related Video: