From Zero to sixty: How an electric motorcycle startup is winning over police departments

Richard Ashcraft grew up strapped to the back of his dad’s off-road motorcycle, sometimes literally lashed to his father in case he nodded off. A 20-year veteran of the Clovis Police Department in California’s Central Valley, Cpl. Ashcraft got his motorcycle license before his driver’s license. He knows how to ride. But even he was confused by the simplicity and quiet of Zero’s electric motorcycle when he started using it on patrol. “The Zero doesn’t make a sound and if you forget it’s on, which I have done before, you could grab the throttle and right away you’d take off down the street,” Ashcraft says with a laugh. “They take a little getting used to.” Once he became accustomed to the cycles–the Clovis PD uses Zero’s DSP model–Ashcraft fell in love with them. The dual-sport models can handle on- and off-road terrain and use a 100-percent-electric powertrain that is whisper quiet, cool to the touch, exhaust free, and virtually maintenance free–no gears, clutch, transmission, or fluids, so no oil changes. They allow officers to accomplish things they can’t do on big, rumbling gas cruisers. [Photo: courtesy of Zero Motorcyles] “It makes it easy to jump up on curbs or […]

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