Great bikes just not cost effective to justify. If battery costs have a significant decline I would have one as a commuter.

@ Jim Bowman
Whether or not they are "cost effective" depends on two things: 1. What are you comparing 'em to? 2. How far out into the future are we talking?
After factoring in fuel-consumption and maintenance costs you may very well be looking at totally different numbers (and you may even have to eat your own words).

@Jim Bowman
At 1 cent per mile of fuel/electricity cost, you can drive 300 miles in a Zero motorcycle with the 3 dollars you would spend on a gallon of gasoline to travel the average 25mpg on a random ICE vehicle.
In other words, you save 12x as much money on fuel by riding a Zero motorcycle as opposed to driving a Toyota Camry.
Driving 20k miles a year on a 25mpg car you spend about $2800 on gasoline per year. You would only spend $240 driving the same distance on a Zero motorcycle per year; saving you over $2500 a year in fuel costs.
Within 5 years you have already saved 12500 dollars.

I see high performance on the tag, but where are the performance specs?

I find my $11.9k Zero FX to be far more cost effective than my $12k Ninja ZX6R, which I have to pour money into just to fuel up and maintain. I sold my Ninja because of that.

@Milton They are definitely getting closer to being a practical purchase. The base Zero S is only $13,300 which essentially puts it within range of most Japanese sport bikes. They offer a 5 year 100k mile factory warranty, I don't know that many people with 100k on a motorcycle but if I logged that many miles at the ~35 MPG my bike gets it would cost me almost $10k in gasoline vs under under $1,000 in electricity.
Electric motorcycles don't get the $7,500 federal tax credit but they do get a federal tax credit for 10% of the cost.
If you buy a loaded SR and never drive it it would be expensive but depending on your driving habits there is essentially already a case to be made for affordability.

Comparing mileage to a car is not a good comparison, since one is a car. You'd want to make that car comparison against a Tesla to be valid.
That said, price is definitely an issue. I can buy a pretty good bike for well under $8k (New Kawasaki Ninja 650 would be $7500 for example. If you really wanted to save money and fuel, you can buy the Ninja 300 for a little over $5k).
So, so get a Zero with comparable range and performance will cost another $10k premium. Given that many new bikes get up to 50mpg (I have a Buell that was $8k new that gets 50mpg, for example), you are looking at 125,000 miles to make up the cost of gasoline (assuming $4/gallon... and that you pay nothing for electricity).
I've looked hard at these, and I'd really like one, but the costs need to come down a few grand before I can justify the purchase. It's getting close, though!

Brammo dropped their price and now Zero needs to follow suit. How about it Zero. I want one so bad but can't justify the price no matter the cost of electricity compared to gas. Nebraska doesn't even have a dealer as far as I know. I need to be able to test ride one to see how it compares to my Buell Ulysses.

as been previously stated you can not compare this bike to a car. I have owned many bikes and I don't like to drive them in the rain and can't fit my family on one. this would only be a fair weather commuter.
that's around 260 days a year on a five day work week. Take out days that it is not warm enough to ride or to wet (those of us who can afford one will not likely drive it in the rain or snow, likely will own a car or two for bad weather). not to be to conservative place the number of commuting days to at best 3/4 of the time leaves 195 days(at best). My commute is 16 mile round trip, that is 195*16=3120 miles, 3120/50mpg=62.4gallons, 62.4*$4gallon=$246.60 a year for gas to commute to work if I was diligent and used it as much as possible/feasible. even if I double the amount of miles I would drive a bike that is still only ~$500 a year I would spend on gas. take out the price of electricity and the difference between a Vulcan 900, $7,500, and the Zero at $11,500 = $4,000/$500(double my commute days possible) a year in savings(no electrical costs worked into the equations), it would take me 8 years to make it comparable, I don't keep vehicles that long
here is hoping that the prices come down

And in steps the Australia tax. The cheapest Zero S is $20k. For that price I can get pretty much my pick of brand new Jap bike (eg: Ninja zx10R) I'd jump at the chance to buy one of these bikes for $13k. I'm holding out for some price drops due to tech improvements or maybe get a second hand one in time.