Yes, I spoke to an assistant to the Vice Chairman in person, filed a "safer products concern," and reviewed the regulations. The Storm-Sondors bike does not conform to US standards and it certainly does not conform to EU standards where the bike is illegal for import!
Chinese products leak into the US on ebay or alibaba and they can be obtained by you (or Storm) directly and cheaply.
According to US standards the bike needs reflectors front, back, wheels; It also needs the inner triangle free from obstruction; hence the big yellow box puts the bike out of compliance; the bikes need to have a manufacturers mark, date of manufacture, and serial number but these elements are likely to be omitted. The CPSC also lists engineering tests which have to be undertaken and these tests are likely to be omitted.
The CPSC has the authority to take safety complaints based on injury and then take action such as demanding recalls.
This is where pre-sales and post-sales diligence and support comes in. When you front-load the majority of your sales why would you want to stick around for the fallout?
Why stick around especially when you are selling a cheap product? Why are ebikes expensive and we covered some of the reasons above.
The bike is a strict liability product, which means that manufacturer needs to carry costly insurance works out to about 4.5% of gross. Is the company going to carry insurance? What happens when someone gets injured and killed? Who is there to sue?
As to the battery; to sell and ship a legal battery in the US, the product needs to undergo a series of destructive tests. I have a non-disclosure agreement with a battery company so all I can tell you is that this process is expensive. I am sure that certification of the battery will be omitted. This is why good US batteries cost $500-$700.
At the high end of the risk curve a battery can catch fire or explode and on the low end of the risk curve (common with Chinese products) is that it can under-perform to specification.
All these question are not going to be answered because addressing them destroys profit margin.
A person wanting to sell an electric wheelchair would have to test the product and then file with the FDA; a person selling a bike does not have to file with the CPSC. Failing to comply to CPSC standards would become a major negligence issue were there an injury or a death. With 6000 cheap bikes and strict liability there will be injury lawsuits. Therefore failing to comply with CPSC standards is "bad business." "Bad business" is not illegal, it is a way to make money unethically.
False advertising is illegal and here the false claims are not just implied they are literal and easily provable. False claims in advertising is also something that occurred, they are not a future hypothetical. If you want to do something constructive file an FTC complaint per the template above.
Getting back to the specifics of this thread, there is an open question of whether Sondo will ever own anything. There's no company, no company address.
In an early part of the interview with Court, Storm talks about two warehouses, east and west coast. The only way he could (normally) warehouse the products would be if he owned them. In fact, all the evidence suggests he will not own them. The factory, in China, will own them until they are shipped to individual buyers. If I order something from China, it eventually gets to a US delivery service. There are duties, in some cases. But the product transits smoothly from China to Utah. Storm needs to address this because he can't really claim stuff on the dock and put it in a warehouse if he doesn't own it. Nor can he distribute it from a container somewhere in LA, unless he received them as a delivery agent.
(Current IGG Page:
Can it be picked up locally in LA?
At this point in time we are not offering local pick up, however we are exploring the possibility of offering it in the future.)
I also question the 30 day warranty (Court YouTube video) if they drop ship the bikes from China, direct to individuals. There are third party warranties, but this would have to be a separate contract. I just assume the contributors are not buying from Storm, so how would Storm warranty the items? It would increase his legal exposure to the products.
Sondo has never really answered how this will work, so I don't know what they are saying to the actual contributors. Maybe some bikes will be sent 'in care of' Sonders, for local delivery. But clearly any normal import bike would be subject to several layers of regulation and so forth. These are the costs they have eliminated, obviously. It is magnified because of the batteries, which will ship separately anyway.
Can they really elude any responsibility for liability? Can they really have no responsibility if there is a recall of a part? What parts did they 'design'? If you design a bike, to some degree, does that create a liability trail?
Sondo has a 'brand', but they don't have a company. They seem to want to create other projects, other ebikes, and sell 'direct'. But 'direct' usually means legal importers of wholesale products for sale at a retail, but discount, price. Does Storm mean that kind of 'direct', or more of the drop-ship "whip and flip' model? Whip up sales, flip 'em onto a container ship, walk away?
