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TECHNOLOGY Brammo shifts gears to electric vehicle technology Electric motorcycle maker now focusing on lithium batteries and electric drive trains Comment By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune Posted Jul. 7, 2015 at 12:12 PM Updated Jul 7, 2015 at 4:32 PM By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune Posted Jul. 7, 2015 at 12:12 PM Updated Jul 7, 2015 at 4:32 PM » Social News Brammo Inc. founder Craig Bramscher feels like he's put his favorite child up for adoption. The Enertia and Empulse electric motorcycles he dreamt up and brought to market are now under the care and nurture of Polaris Industries, which has partnered with Brammo since 2011. "We already knew the new parents pretty well, so that was helpful," Bramscher said. "They're a big company and they're going to take it places we couldn't by ourselves, so we're excited to see where it goes." After selling the motorcycle end of the business earlier this year, he's wasted no time replenishing the home front on West Valley View Road, where Brammo is ramping up electric vehicle drive-train and lithium battery production. "It's super exciting, once you get over the heartache of losing your baby," Bramscher said. "Then you realize the (electric motorcycles) are better off under Polaris' oversight; you adjust and go on. They are a great customer and a great company. We're really good at technology and we're going to do a lot more of it for a lot more customers, which is the highest and best use of our capabilities." Rather than signing up as many customers as possible, Bramscher is focused on prime movers with high-volume demand in their sector. "We're not looking for hundreds of customers," Bramscher said. "We're pursuing the leader in certain markets. Polaris, for example, is the best in power sports." Smaller companies and start-ups don't readily fill the model, he said. Manufacturing customers have to produce enough goods to pay for an engineer assigned to their project. "It has to be big enough to make sense for the customer," he said. "We're starting to see how hard it is to work with start-ups, because they don't have the guaranteed volume." Even as the erstwhile electric motorcycle company continues its transition to an electric drive-train and lithium battery designer and manufacturer, its employee count is edging higher. "Right now we're at about 65 (employees), and by the end of the year we'll have 10 or 20 more," Bramscher said. Many of the new hires will be engineers, putting the company in direct competition with high-powered global companies in a battle to reel in help from a relatively small talent pool. "The people who have focused on electric vehicle power trains are a fairly small group," Bramscher said. "We've been talking about it for years, but it's crazy to think how much things have changed in a short period. Tesla has had a big impact on that. Now every car company is working on EVs, and Apple and Google tend to slurp up a lot of engineers. With what we're doing, we're looking for fairly senior engineers with lots of experience. Those are the same people Google and Apple are looking for too. It's definitely a challenge to find people." Robots will aid battery manufacturing sometime in the next year, Bramscher said. "We don't know how much growth to expect on the battery side," he said. "The robots won't be replacing jobs, but will be supplementing our capabilities." Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GregMTBusiness , on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/greg.stiles.31 , and read his blog at www.mailtribune.com/EconomicEdge . By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune Posted Jul. 7, 2015 at 12:12 PM Updated Jul 7, 2015 at 4:32 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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