Zero CEO Pierre-Martin Bos: We Need More Than Fast Electric Motorcycles
Zero Motorcycles CEO Pierre-Martin Bos has responded directly to BCB's recent article arguing that the electric motorcycle market is heading into a fire sale. And after speaking to him, it turns out Zero isn't planning to run from the premium market. It is trying to build a much bigger market around it.
Zero has spent almost 20 years building expensive, high-performance electric motorcycles. Now it wants to become a proper volume motorcycle manufacturer, with bikes for commuters, off-road riders, new riders and, eventually, the people ready to step up to something bigger.
As Bos put it,
“Our goal is to become relevant as a brand as any other ICE brand today. So that means we want to be a generalist.”
That's a pretty big statement from the boss of one of the world's longest-running electric motorcycle companies. And it gives us a much better idea of where Zero thinks the market is going next.
That means smaller bikes, more accessible models, more attention to commuting and off-road riding, and potentially a missing middle that Zero admits it hasn't quite filled yet.
Bos is relatively new to the job. Zero announced him as CEO on 31 October 2025, replacing Sam Paschel after eight years at the helm. Since taking over, Bos has also spoken publicly about Zero moving beyond its technology start-up mindset and thinking more like a global motorcycle manufacturer.
We put essentially the same proposition to Bos when we spoke, and his answer was consistent with what he has said publicly. The changes he describes are not simply about adding a few models. They are about changing who Zero is trying to be in the motorcycle market.
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Zero Knows It Needs More Riders
Bos told BCB that Zero sold around 2,500 motorcycles worldwide in 2025, with roughly 2,000 of those being high-performance models.
For a company that has been building electric motorcycles for almost two decades, that's still a relatively small number of bikes. And that's the problem Zero is now trying to solve.
The company has built its reputation around powerful, premium electric motorcycles. But that leaves Zero relying heavily on a relatively small number of riders willing to buy an expensive electric bike. Its answer is to widen the range rather than walk away from the bikes at the top of it.
“I think we want to be everywhere where there is a market. But where we can make a difference.”
The first signs of that change are already here. The XE and XB have taken Zero into lightweight electric off-road bikes, while the LS1 brings the company into the scooter and urban commuter market.
And these aren't just cheaper versions of Zero's existing motorcycles. They put the brand in parts of the two-wheeled market where it previously had little or no presence.
Zero now has four distinct model lines: S, DS, X and LS. That is a very different proposition from the Zero range of a few years ago.
The Little Zeros Are Supposed to Create Bigger Zero Riders
There is another reason Zero is pushing into smaller and more accessible motorcycles. It wants those riders to stay with the brand. Bos sees the X Line in particular as a way of bringing a new generation of riders into Zero, rather than simply selling a smaller motorcycle and moving on to the next customer.
“The XB users, we really hope that they will bring us the next step of the next generation of riders.”
The idea is that today's XB rider could eventually become tomorrow's Zero motorcycle customer, with a route into the company's larger road bikes as their needs and riding change.
But there may be a problem with that plan. Zero's current range jumps from the small X Line and LS1 into much more powerful motorcycles. We challenged Bos on that gap, and he acknowledged that there could be something missing between the two.
“Maybe we are missing something in the middle more accessible, let's say. Accessible, I mean, not necessarily just in price but also in power.”
That's a pretty clear admission from a company that wants to become a generalist motorcycle manufacturer. Bos isn't talking simply about making another cheaper Zero. He is talking about a motorcycle that's more accessible in power as well as price, filling the gap between the company's smaller models and its high-performance motorcycles.
A model that sits between those worlds could give riders somewhere to go before making the jump to one of Zero's bigger motorcycles. It could also give Zero access to the much larger group of riders who want more than a lightweight commuter or off-road bike, but don't need 100-plus horsepower either.
Improve the Bikes, Don't Just Reduce the Price
Our recent article, The Electric Motorcycle Fire Sale Is Here, looked at the growing discounts appearing across the premium electric motorcycle market. Bos was keen to explain that Zero sees price reductions differently.
He accepts that lowering the price can bring more customers through the door.
“If we lower the price a little bit, we will have more customers coming to us.”
But Zero doesn't want to get into a race to the bottom. Bos says the company has to think about what happens to the value of a motorcycle after it has been sold, particularly for existing owners. Constantly slashing prices might shift a few extra bikes today, but it can also hurt residual values and leave customers who paid full price wondering what happened to the value of their motorcycle.
His preferred approach is to add something to the motorcycle rather than simply make it cheaper.
“I prefer to add some value, like the CCS charging and also being able to be retrofitted, rather than to say, ‘Okay, let's go for the lowest price.’”
That CCS system has been announced for Zero's larger motorcycles, although it hasn't been released yet.
The thinking is straightforward. If Zero can make its motorcycles more useful and better equipped over their lifetime, there is more reason for a rider to buy one without relying entirely on a huge discount. Improve the bikes, don't just reduce the price.
Zero Thinks It Forgot to Have a Bit of Fun
There is another part of this change that has little to do with specifications. Zero wants to become more fun.
That might sound like a strange thing to say about a company that has been building motorcycles with enormous instant torque for years, but Bos believes Zero has sometimes been too focused on the technology.
“We maybe forgot some time to be more fun.”
He was talking particularly about the company's move into dirt bikes, where the appeal isn't simply getting from A to B. Motorcycles aren't just transport, and Zero knows that. Bos talked about commuting as an important source of volume, but also described motorcycles as a way of getting excitement and having fun.
“We still need to bring passion at all levels because that's something we shouldn't forget.”
The X Line is therefore not just another attempt to make an electric motorcycle cheaper. It puts Zero into a completely different kind of riding. And that means Zero has to understand a completely different kind of customer.
Bos says the company needs to adapt to those riders because they have different needs and a different view of what a motorcycle is for. That might be one of the biggest challenges facing Zero right now.
The company isn't walking away from its big motorcycles. In fact, Bos says full-size motorcycle sales increased 28 percent in 2025. Instead, Zero is trying to build a range broad enough that the big bikes aren't carrying the entire company on their backs.
The premium motorcycles remain important. The smaller bikes bring in riders who would never have considered a $20,000-plus electric motorcycle. The LS1 gives Zero a way into urban commuting. The X Line opens the door to a very different kind of riding.
And somewhere between all of that, Zero thinks there may still be another motorcycle it needs to build.
The company has spent years proving that an electric motorcycle can be fast. Now it wants to prove it can sell a lot more of them.
The BCB Take
What Pierre-Martin Bos is saying here doesn't mean Zero has suddenly found the answer to selling electric motorcycles. But it does show that Zero is starting to confront the problem in terms that make sense to riders.
The electric motorcycle market needs more than another £20,000-plus machine with more power than most people will ever use. It needs motorcycles that people actually want to ride, at prices and power levels that make sense for a much wider group of riders. Zero appears to understand that.
The smaller bikes are important, but they're only part of the answer. The bigger admission is that Zero may have left too much space between its lightweight machines and its big performance bikes. A motorcycle in that middle ground could be far more important to the company's future than another headline-grabbing flagship.
And that raises an obvious question about the Lompico Concept. Zero has already shown a 40-hp concept sitting much closer to this middle ground, and Bos now says the company may be missing exactly that kind of motorcycle. Could the Lompico be moving towards production, or is Zero already working on something else to fill the gap?
That means building bikes that are accessible without becoming bland, adding value rather than simply cutting prices, and remembering that motorcycles are supposed to be fun. It also means convincing riders who have never considered an electric motorcycle that there is something here for them. That's a very different job from building a faster battery-powered motorcycle.
Bos has only been in the job since October 2025, so it is too early to know how much of this ambition will translate into motorcycles on the road. What is becoming clearer, though, is where Zero wants to go.
Zero isn't walking away from the premium electric motorcycle. It is trying to build a motorcycle company around it.
Ride safe, folks.
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