I’m trying to understand why Cake has not more aggressively pursued obtaining a California EV incentive for its & line of bikes. Hell even defunct ALTA Motors gets an incentive. For me that’s akin to dead people being able to write off income taxes! Here is a link to the article published by electrek.
My view is once a company goes through all of the hassles to get homologation in a country (EU and USA) that’s what puts them over others who are just ‘off road only’ vehicles, aka Sur Ron, Super73, Monday Motorbike, ONYX. But to me, an actual owner of a Cake Kalk& I have an expectation that more needs to be accomplished to place the vehicle into the same category as other fully homologated two wheel EVs. For me it’s not about how many awards are won, but how the bike is designed and put together. Cake has that in spades for me. It’s more about ‘being adult’ in an emerging adolescent market of EV brands. Teens like to lay on their beds and admire the trophies on their dresser or share them on social media. Pro athletes know that you’re only as good as your last game.
Once Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki (as well as others) enter the market Cake’s initial lightweight/design advantage will shrink exponentially. Sure, banking on ‘lightweight, zero enviro impact’ is welcome and needed, but when companies seriously focus on those same aspects, only the cream remains.
One of the links in the article leads you to the matrix of electric motorcycles which qualify for the incentives in CA. Holy shit man the smallest incentive is for ALTA (remember, the dead person) for $650.15! The majority of EV bikes get a 1200.00 reward amount or to put it personally an 8.57% credit for my 14k &! The best I can hope for right now is to submit IRS form 8936 “Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit (Including qualified two wheeled plug in Electric Vehicles)” With the key word here being QUALIFIED. IF a Cake Kalk& is considered ‘qualified’ then perhaps I will get some sort of financial credit. Heck Cake didn’t make me aware that this may be a possibility. Perhaps they have applied and not yet heard back. Either way communicating is key.
I’ve stated in another article that I want Cake to stick around and not go the way of the dodo bird or Alta Motors. For an actual USA owner these sort of incentives mean much more to me than Cake building an EV only racetrack in Sweden. For me that’s akin to a Specialized Turbo Levo eMTB track built by a winning racer in Bakersfield, CA. Sure we can all hope that more places are built for these types of two wheelers, but until then sales have to support the effort.
So PLEASE Cake pay attention and focus on what may actually make a difference in having humans part with their after tax disposable income dollars. It’s a remarkable product and loads of fun. You just need to be around for a long time and for me that means focusing on aspects important to actual owners, those of us who have actually purchased a Cake. Awards may be impressive to investors, but the day to day details of a product voiced by owners helps to promote future sales.
Ensuring the bike has all of the necessary emission stickers for CA registration, especially since these are not sold through a dealer network, but up to the buyer to register the bike. Aggressively pursuing awards/rebates/tax credits to offer to the buyer like the other homologated EV bikes. Of course I’m referring to California because it’s where I reside, but a nationwide approach is key if you’re selling nationwide; which you are!
Nothing replaces word of mouth which is the most valuable marketing asset.
2 Comments
I agree!! A street legal, electric motorcycle (aka CakeKalk), should definitely be seeing incentives, especially from CA!! I think this would be a HUGE selling point for Cake.
Yup preaching to the choir Carisa!
Comments are closed.