TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Tony Posawatz is moving from four wheels to two.
The former CEO of Fisker Automotive and longtime General Motors executive who worked on vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt and Avalanche and Cadillac Escalade, is now a board adviser for Zapp, a British scooter company founded in 2017. Zapp is in the midst of launching a battery-electric two-wheeler in Paris and plans to expand to the U.S. next year.
The company debuted its i300 carbon-fiber scooter Wednesday at the Management Briefing Seminars here, a step-through bike capable of traveling about 40 miles with two onboard, removable batteries. Zapp says scooters represent a $109 billion market worldwide, and there’s an opportunity to step in and steal market share as traditional companies transition to battery power.
“Everyone’s struggled in how to address the two-wheel market,” Posawatz, a 2011 Automotive News All-Star, said during a media briefing. “We believe this company is poised to create an original product and create a solution for urban mobility that takes the convenience of a step-through scooter and melds it with superbike performance at a great price.”
The i300 will start at $7,495, while a carbon launch edition will cost $8,995. Posawatz said that when incentives are factored in, customers could pay as little as $5,000 to $6,000.
The scooters’ batteries weigh 12 pounds each, are stored in the bottom of the scooter, can plug into any 110/240V outlet and charge from 20 percent to 80 percent in less than an hour.
The company builds the bikes in Thailand through a contract manufacturing partnership with Summit Group.
He said the i300 will be profitable “very quickly, right out of the gate.”
The company will have physical stores similar to Tesla, but it will ship the product directly to customers with branded hybrid vans. While he showed off a prototype here, Posawatz said Zapp planned to attend the Los Angeles Auto Show this year with a production model.