Electric motorcycle manufacturer Zero Motorcycles is going through yet another management shift after CEO Gene Banman recently announced retirement. An article on gigaom.com reports that Banman will still sit on the board of directors but will no longer be running the show. COO Karl Wharton, who spent over a decade in the motorcycle industry (mostly at triumph), will take over daily operations as Zero looks for a new CEO.
Banman joined the company as COO in 2007 and became the CEO 60 days later. He “raised tens of millions in funding, built a strong exectutive team and positioned Zero as (a) worldwide leader in the electric motorcycle industry,” Zero said in a recent press release.
This news comes just weeks after Zero announced it received a $26 million investment and that their founder, Neal Saiki, was leaving. Saiki, along with his wife Lisa, started the company in 2006 inside their Scotts Valley, CA garage. Zero claims Saiki was leaving due to a recent birth in the family, but an article on asphaltandrubber.com claims Saiki’s exit was not necessarily voluntary. They reported that various sources close to the company verified that Saiki was part of a “larger management shake-up” that left members of the upper tier of leadership unemployed.
Zero motorcycles designs electric street and dirt bikes that are powered by lithium-ion batteries. Retail price is around $10,000 and Zero is currently producing 30 to 40 bikes per week; although they are hoping to increase capacity up to 70 a week, according to Gigaom.
“It’s definitely a different company now,” Zero VP Scot Harden told Gigaom in a recent interview. Apparently investors were looking for a way to “make over the company for over a year now”, and want to create a management team with “true, honest-to-god motorcycle experience.”
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