Fazua closed down by Porsche.

[Rás Cnoic]

See below. Not totally unexpected but still a massive shock. I thought Porsche were supposed to built them up with industry muscle. Instead they've killed them.

I can't tell from article if this stems from Porsche's own difficulties or Fazua's. Looks like a combination of Porsche, like the rest of German car industry facing Chinese EV headwinds and with their statement about "e bike drive trains", a reaction to Avinox & TQ success with nowhere for Fazua to develop to- and of course their well publicised difficulties.

Porsche shuts down e-bike motor brand Fazua as car brand’s e-bike subsidiary closed and 500 jobs cut | electric bike reviews, buying advice and news - ebiketips

Porsche has revealed that it is shutting down its e-bike subsidiary Porsche eBike Performance GmbH, a move that will also see e-bike motor brand Fazua closed.The German sports car brand launched its e-bike subsidiary in 2022, the same year it acquired Fazua, in a bid to develop and market...

road.cc

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Some quotes from the past

Troll or not troll, it seems I was right.

I could continue with the quotes.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

More info from bike radar:

"...Porsche eBike Performance will be discontinued following the planned sale of Porsche’s stake in Bugatti Rimac and the Rimac Group. Porsche will also discontinue its Cellforce Group battery and Cetitec software companies, and 500 employees will be affected by “planned job reductions”."

"Dr. Michael Leiters, chairman of the executive board of Porsche, said: “We must refocus on our core business. This is the indispensable foundation for a successful strategic realignment. This forces us to make painful cuts – including our subsidiaries.”

Porsche says its electric bike activities will be discontinued due to “fundamentally changed market conditions for ebike drive systems”.

Porsche hasn’t specified what these “changed market conditions” are. But we know the European electric bicycle market has slowed in recent years.

Last year, trade publication Bike EU said ebike sales saw a “further cooling down” in 2024.
Across Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, the UK, Spain and Switzerland, the total number of electric bikes sold in 2023 dropped from roughly 4.2 million to 4 million. This drop came despite large-scale discounting and marketing efforts by brands and distributors, according to Bike EU.

Year-over-year sales in 2024 fell by -9.65% in the UK, -15.76% in France and -19.09% in Spain.

The ebike market has also seen disruption from the latest Avinox M2 and M2S motors, which have been adopted by many brandsincluding YT Industries, which now specs the M2S alongside Fazua motors"

 

[DaveMatthews]

Tough to see competitors fall away...

 

[Rás Cnoic]

Tough to see competitors fall away...

It's also different to a single bike brand shuttering. How many bike companies and their customers today are scrambling to find out what it means going forward both on warranty and parts (Porsche said they would continue with both and I think it's like 10 years legally they have to produce spares ) and on active models for sale right now? I'm guessing they'll have to withdraw bikes from sale or those models will be sold off then the new runs switching to other systems. Unless the bike manufacturers can get guarantees of viability from Porsche or something. What a mess. 500 jobs lost across the three companies Porsche has killed. Time and again when a larger company buys a smaller one it seems far too easy to dump them with no care for what the original owners built up. Kona escaped that fate by skin of teeth when original owners were able to buy it back after new owners put it into administration. YT has just gone through the same process. Very volatile industry at the moment and there will be more disruption to follow I'd say. Avinox et all are not going away.

 

[stompandgo]

Fazua made their own bed when they did not support their dealers well during their teething period. Their failure rate was high, and it was a chore to get replacement parts. TQ has had their share of failures, but they are very quick to provide replacement parts with very little resistance.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

Fazua made their own bed when they did not support their dealers well during their teething period. Their failure rate was high, and it was a chore to get replacement parts. TQ has had their share of failures, but they are very quick to provide replacement parts with very little resistance.

True, particularly in North America. Smaller European brands can struggle there. Orbea nearly wrecked their US reputation with bike shops, because of their US agent who was terrible. There was a fascinating account on YT by a US bike shop owner who stocked Orbea and abandoned them eventually because of that agent/rep relationship. With Fazua I'd hoped a powerful backer like Porsche would help with all that. Not to be.

 

[stompandgo]

TQ supports their European dealers directly through a webshop. In the US, they have a dedicated support team at QBP. Fazua never did that.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

TQ supports their European dealers directly through a webshop. In the US, they have a dedicated support team at QBP. Fazua never did that.

They bit off more than they can chew.

 

[stompandgo]

They bit off more than they can chew.

Because they're Porsche.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

Because they're Porsche.

No I meant as a tiny new company before Porsche bought them, they grew too fast too soon. But back then during covid in that bike boom it was pre-TQ, pre Bosch SX and the light weight options were very limited. I was surprised when Trek started using Fazua for example, but it was Trek trying to catch up with Spesh, having not done the in-house R&D themselves. I liked the innovation of the Fazua Drive 50, it was an exciting concept but Fazua I suspect raced to fufill orders without the back up a wiser, older and bigger company would have had, leading to faults and massive warranty problems. Was discussing this with friend who's a bike mechanic yesterday and he was saying one issue was as motor system maker for other brands they were at the mercy of bike brands installing the system and some were more careful then others, as a lot of fazua bikes he had dealt with in UK had bad wiring harnesses, shoddy work. This coupled to the constant battery and drive unit removal exposed connections to faults if they weren't installed accurately in first place. A delicate system prone to faults. But as he said they are not the only ones - he had to take out a Bosch motor the other day and the badly installed wiring had caused a wire to be pinched causing it to sheer, just from normal riding. He said it was a mess in there.