Electric bike manufacturer Energica->ke4817 has buffered up its dealership presence in the Golden State after striking a partnership with Hollywood Electrics in Southern California, giving the latter access to sell the brand’s impressive lineup of electric sports bikes.

The move comes in the wake of the company receiving the "safety green light" from both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), clearing the way for the Ego electric superbike to be legally sold in US territory.

It was only fitting that with Energica now legal to be sold in the US, the company would tap Hollywood Electrics, universally considered as the largest electric motorcycle dealership in the world, to help find the Ego bikes a treasure trove of new owners in the US.

This partnership is a match made in electric motorcycle heaven, largely due to the core tenets of both firms to help broaden the reach and influence of electric motorcycles. Production of the Ego superbike is going on as I speak and representatives of the Italian company have claimed that deliveries of the first wave of bikes are on schedule for this month, July 2015.

Energica is also in the process of securing separate dealership arrangements with prospective partners in Portugal and Germany, adding to the existing networks already put in place in other parts of Europe, including Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

Continue reading to read more about Energica's dealership deal with Hollywood Electrics.

Why it matters

You can’t understate how important this deal is for Energica as it seeks to establish a presence in the US. It’s also not a coincidence that the Italian company finalized its partnership with Hollywood Electrics after it received the nod from both the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency. Without the blessing of these two organizations, the company wouldn’t be able to sell its bikes in the US.

It’s really that simple and yet, you can imagine how nerve-wracking it must’ve been for the company waiting for these approvals from the NHTSA and the EPA. Once that hurdle was cleared, the company embarked on the next step towards getting its feet in the US: finding a dealership that would accommodate its lineup of bikes.

See, Energica isn’t big enough yet to establish its own network in a country as big as the US. It doesn’t have the financial might of the Harleys and Hondas of the motorcycle world so it needed to find a dealership to help distribute the bikes to interested customers.

That’s where Hollywood Electrics comes into the picture and to be honest, Energica couldn’t have picked a better dealership to partner with than the company many regard as the biggest electric motorcycle dealership in the world. Granted, there might be some kind of competition within Hollywood Electrics because of the increased variety of options customers can choose from.

But as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think that’s as important for Energica as establishing its presence in the US, or in this case, in California. You know what they say, if you want to learn how to run, you first need to learn how to walk.