Bionx enter receivership
- Thread starter Dewey
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J.R.
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- Piedmont Highlands
J.R.
Well-Known Member
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- USA
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- Piedmont Highlands
Very sad. A premium system, premium price, reletively small sales, not enough capital to survive the ups and downs of the ebike business in North America.
A similar story is Haibike in 2017 doubled units for sale in N.A., and now there's a surplus for sale at rock bottom prices. They have a parent company with deep pockets to survive the gamble. In a way many bikes sold here at bargain prices are being subsidised by European sales. Maybe Bionx can be picked up by one of the big players in the biz.
Dewey
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- Arlington, Virginia
Oh man that's too bad the Nuvinci hub seemed pricey but strong, thanks for the heads-up a friend just bought a Packster with a Nuvinci hub, I was just recommended to get one if motorizing a Workcycles FR8.
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Electric Rider was pushing Bionx pretty hard for the last couple of years.. Went to their website and you cannot actually buy anything right now.. They are either restructuring or having inventory problems..
A lot of good companies have come and gone in the 10 years I've been following ebikes.
A lot of good companies have come and gone in the 10 years I've been following ebikes.
Dewey
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Yep, so is Elby which was founded by Frank Stronach who just pulled the plug on Bionx. Yuba and Public dropped Bionx for 2018, Evo's HB1 model uses their D500 motor but most of their other ebikes use Shimano Steps so I expect they'll just go all Shimano. My local bike shop has an Evo HB1 in their window and just sprang for the Bionx diagnostic software so they'll be pissed.
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Ravi Kempaiah
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- Halifax
My personal gut feeling is that some of these companies got carried away by the technology, high profits (in the beginning!) and totally lost the pulse of the market.
US or Canada is not built around bikes and the sweet spot for an E-bike is around $1.5 K to $2K for large part of the biking population. The market for $5k+ bikes is quite small.
Instead of catering to the market, they focused on being the "premium" and if they don't have deep pockets to withstand of some of the shakeouts, these things are bound to happen.
BionX
NuVinci
Grace..
US or Canada is not built around bikes and the sweet spot for an E-bike is around $1.5 K to $2K for large part of the biking population. The market for $5k+ bikes is quite small.
Instead of catering to the market, they focused on being the "premium" and if they don't have deep pockets to withstand of some of the shakeouts, these things are bound to happen.
BionX
NuVinci
Grace..
Dewey
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Reading about Frank Stronachs departure from Magna taking Bionx with him and giving Magna a minority share might this have been the beginning of the end if they no longer had the resources of the larger company to fall back on? The subsequent history of dabbling in powerboat motors, then creating Elby, then lobbying for and getting a development grant from the Canadian Government in 2017, it seems he did try a few things before the end. I was intrigued to read Justin Lemire-Elmore’s attempt to get Bionx interested in his statorade, if they could solve the heat build up issue with DD motors might Bionx have kept Yuba interested and made a come back in the cargo bike/utility market?
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Have to agree with Ravi on this. Bike culture in the US and how bikes are used here is totally different from Europe. Although a few folks may use them for getting to work for the most part they are seen as toys or used for recreation - and only a very small number of people are going to pay the price of a good used car for a toy. Bringing in expensive bikes with mid-drives, slow top speeds and no throttles may seem brilliant to a small slice of the population but it seems like a good way to not grow the ebike movement. I know there are quite a few who claim that ebike sales in North America are booming, but it sure doesn't seem like it with the number of local bike shops going down - maybe it's just consolidation, we;ll see soon enough.
D
Deleted member 803
Guest
Unfortunately, there will continue to be fallout in the industry especially in North America as too many vendors are chasing too few dollars. As Trek, Giant, and Specialized continue to push eBikes and purchase their own storefronts, the IBD market will continue to retract. There will be a handful of eBike stores in highly dense urban markets that will hang on, but the rest will struggle to add non-bicycle revenues to compensate. We are bummed because we love the D500 motor (for many reasons) and sell a lot bikes with Bionx built-in. My Elby rep tells me its business as usual and that supply should continue for the foreseeable future. Let's hope there are other potential Bionx investors who figure out ways to retire some of their debt and allow Bionx to reduce operating costs and focus on core products.
Dewey
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Anything from ebikes.ca, Justin is just so far out in front of every other N American retailer, testing the motors and making the data publicly available, he supplies everything to build a superior torque pedal assist system that is tuneable on the fly and safe because they manufacture the best torque arms and everything will play nice together.
Dewey
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Yamaha are launching their own line in the US this year so I prefer to wait and see how they go, Bosch are lobbying the EU to slap tariffs on Chinese kits and complete ebikes so more likely we’ll see a de facto European eco-system continue to support >$2k Bosch imports
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Dewey
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A friend is going ahead with her Packster with Nuvinci purchase and I'm seriously considering buying a Workcycles GR8 with Nuvinci and transferring my BBS01 motor over. The technology is good enough I'm sure the patents would be snapped up.
Scooteretti
Active Member
Nuvinci Cycling won't be affected other than a name change / slight rebranding from our latest intel as of yesterday. The automotive division was apparently the division which caused the major $$$ issues for Fallbrook.
With that confirmation, Nuvinci systems will still be available moving forward as well as parts availability for previous generations (albeit a product that rarely has issues).
With that confirmation, Nuvinci systems will still be available moving forward as well as parts availability for previous generations (albeit a product that rarely has issues).
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