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What did Van Moof make, exactly? Do you think they were normal bikes? They made expensive e-bikes with theft recovery features. They have features that make it
by Arnt 3y ago
What did Van Moof make, exactly? Do you think they were normal bikes?
They made expensive e-bikes with theft recovery features. They have features that make it possible to trace and locate them, and Van Moof would actually do this. For people who spend €3-4k on an easily stolen object that the police won't care about, that's a unique selling point.
- wiseowise 3y agoWaiting 6 weeks for any kind of repair was also their unique selling point?
- Arnt 3y agoHardly unique, I've heard that from Tesla owners too. From a VC's point of view that doesn't per se speak against the prospect of a successful venture.
- greenpresident 3y agoThat’s a common waiting time at my local bike shops to be honest. The difference is that you can do most stuff on a normal bike yourself with off the shelf parts (supply chain woes permitting).
- Bootvis 3y agoWhat is local for you? In Amsterdam a 6 minute waiting time is more common if you have a regular bike.
- greenpresident 3y agoThere are three within 5 minutes on my bike. But waitlists for appointments are crazy in the summer. My friends don’t cancel but pass them on amongst each other if they don’t need theirs.
- Arnt 3y agoNot OP, but I live in Munich and have heard of both six-week and one-day waiting times this summer. It depends on part availability. One day is common, six weeks not unheard of. A friend waited almost that long when two strange and unusual screws had to be replaced, the wrong ones arrived from the manufacturer, etc. The quick routine procedures failed her, the result was slow. Just from what I hear, it seems that there are more cases of unavailble parts this summer than a few years ago. Maybe the supply chains haven't quite settled after covid, even now. The person who mentioned six weeks didn't specify whether Van Moof has a six-week average or whether it's a 99th percentile.
- Bootvis 3y agoIt was claimed six weeks was common, common is more like 'average' than it is to '99th percentile'. Your example of the missing screws is unfortunate but it also sounds like something that is not 'common'.
- Arnt 3y agoRight. Old and unusual screws, a misunderstanding on the phone, someone on vacation... it was an uncommon congregation of bad luck. Words like "common" have stretchable meanings, though, and particularly on Twitter.
- vr46 3y agoIn Hamburg and London, bike shops absolutely have six week backlogs.
- nerdbert 3y agoThat sounds rough. Normally the guy at my corner does them for me within a few hours if it's something quick. If he's busy or on holiday I'll go to one of the other five or six bike shops within a few minutes' walk of the house. Before moving to the Netherlands I did a lot of repairs myself but I've totally stopped now that it's so quick to have them done for me.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoNote that when they first came out, they were actually pretty affordable; since then, competition and mass production spun up and you can get an e-bike for <€1K now, and they'll be less custom made, more generally available parts too. The brand's USP then became that they look and are pretty unique, which is cool on one hand, but they weren't able to make it financially viable. Probably because they relied on VC money, and spent it on people who knew they had VC money to burn.
- RamblingCTO 3y agoAny recommendations for an ebike < 1k? You also seem to be EU based :)
- reacharavindh 3y agoI have this - Tenways C600 for EUR 1400. My work subsidised it by EUR 500, so it was a EUR 900 e-bike for me. It is almost perfect for my commuting needs. https://www.tenways.com/products/cgo600 https://www.tenways.com/products/cgo600
- RamblingCTO 3y agoThat looks awesome! Thank you
- oblio 3y agoMy problem, especially with electric bikes is: What are the decent, mass market brands??? I'm in Europe, I don't want to buy a Mercedes S Class. Who sells the Volkswagen Golf of electric bikes? I just want decent build quality, decent comfort, decent features, good repairability and easy maintenance. The electric bike market seems immature to me. I want 20-30 big bike brands that I can compare, just like the car brands here, for example: https://www.arenaev.com/ https://www.arenaev.com/
- oezi 3y agoI mean there are the big brands incl. KTM, Decathlon (elops), Fischer, Bergamont, Cube, Haibike, Stevens... But the comparability requires you first to pick a type of bike.
- mattio 3y agoI am not sure why everyone thinks they are expensive. Just the bike is about 2000 euro. There are eBikes costing 4000 euro. My van moof was about 2800 because I bought the 2 packages taking care of theft and repairs. Because of their image I never have to lock the bike besides their amazing kick lock bike, so getting on and off the bike with locking and unlocking it is a matter of seconds. This is not expensive at all. *their image amongst bicycle thief’s makes the bike unattractive. They hunt down stolen bikes if you bought their theft service. If they can’t find it you get a new one.
- mjhagen 3y ago> This is not expensive at all. > If they can’t find it you get a new one. Can't figure out why they weren't profitable.
- Arnt 3y agoSeriously: They bought a lot of expensive machinery to build things, rented and furnished a lot of shops, and hired a lot of people to staff those, and sales didn't grow to to use their production capacity, sales area and staff time. Their prices for that trace-or-replace service were quite a bit higher than what my insurance agency charges me for my theft insurance. That operation may have lost money, but that's not obvious.
- m000 3y agoI think that insisting on operating boutique shops around the world was a very costly option. They could have made it much cheaper for them (and convenient for customers) by affiliating with existing bicycle shops when they went worldwide. I share your worries about the trace-or-replace service. Specifically about the "trace" part of trace-or-replace. Ok, the program is excellent promotion, and did put them on the map. But, tracing stops making economic sense very quickly: Bills rack-up very rapidly when you send a couple of your people in a multi-day hunt in an unknown location.
- 3y ago
- skerit 3y ago> They made expensive e-bikes with theft recovery features My husband's VanMoof bike got stolen in Ghent, they couldn't do shit about it.
- moooo99 3y agoAs far as I know the theft recovery is part of an additional package and not included with a regular purchase. Certainly fun, but I think there are cheaper theft insurance policies out there.
- tinus_hn 3y agoRecovering the bike and thus not promoting theft is also a value.
- michaelt 3y agoMaybe, maybe not. I mean, even if a stolen bike has a working tracker and you're able to trace it to a particular house, do VanMoof's recovery team have the legal authority to bust the door down to reclaim it?
- Arnt 3y agoGenerally not. According to a newspaper that followed one of the trackers for a day, the tracker offered a choice: "Give me the bike now right now or I call the police, who will see my data, believe me and do have the authority, and I'll meet you at the door if you try to move the bike."
- crote 3y agoAn AirTag is $30. So yeah, what did they make?
- Arnt 3y agoYou're implying that about $30 is enough to build something airtag-like into a bike? Can you describe how? I'd be happy to learn just for myself (I'd love to do something like that with my expensive bike) but you get bonus points if the scheme is usable for a business, ie. doesn't rely on Apple's benevolence or ignorance.
- 1231112315123 3y agoNot sure what the point here is, since VanMoof does integrate with Apple FindMy. Manufacturers can purchase AirTag-like chips to integrate with their electronics. Done. Price per unit probably orders of magnitude lower than the AirTag retail price. Of course the whole "locking system" with companion app is a separate thing. But as far as FindMy goes, it should be fairly simple. Would be interesting to learn what kind of royalties Apple charges.
- NegativeLatency 3y agoThere are some nice ways to hide the AirTag in the steerer tube or water bottle mounts that cost a lot less than $30
- vr46 3y agoWell the AirTag arrived about two years after the bikes, and Apple won’t go track the thief down for you and retrieve the bike.
- Ultimatt 3y agoA more unique selling point is having an easily and widely serviced ebike since its complexity and serviceability is worse than a normal push bike for ordinary people. You can get trackers for most other ebike systems.
- WeylandYutani 3y agoNot everyone coming to HN may be aware of this but basically every bicycle producer has an app now. I'll give van Moof credit for inventing some neat things but as we all know just being the first doesn't automatically mean success.