4 ms·

While I think you're right, you could have said the same thing about Tesla cars - but it worked out in that case. The problem with VanMoof was that they priorit

by planb 3y ago

While I think you're right, you could have said the same thing about Tesla cars - but it worked out in that case. The problem with VanMoof was that they prioritized growth over quality - which may be a side effect of taking VC money, but is plain dumb if you're selling physical goods that are expensive to fix. Just talk to anyone with a VanMoof or see the subreddit: Nearly every bike they sold required multiple repairs during the warranty. Here's my personal story (they sure didn't make profit on me): I got my S3 in 2020. It went dead a few weeks later. We didn’t have service hubs close, but I told the support I could do the repairs myself. The sent me a new main unit, that didn’t help so I had to send it in (they wouldn’t ship the battery to me because of some regulatory issues). Took a while but I got a working bike back. A few weeks later the e-shifter broke. Again I fixed that myself and for a few months everything was fine. Then the battery (or main unit) died again in late 2021. I insisted on getting a replacement bike and could convince them to swap my S3 for the second gen one (that with Apple Find-my). On that bike I had to replace the left button and later the e-shifter (again). The rest of 2022 went fine but the eshifter broke again this spring and it got stuck in the 4th gear. As the bike is now out of warranty, I did not contact support and went with just riding it this way until yesterday, when I finally got around to fix the (mechanically defective) eshifter using parts from the old (electronically defective) eshifter that I replaced last year. Now it is running fine again. Wouldn’t get another VanMoof as my next bike though.

londons_explore 3y ago
Part of a premium product is the number of failures to expect. To reduce the number of failures, they need a fleet of thousands of bikes in the field to monitor and redesign any component that might break. But those bikes aren't yet reliable - so they shouldn't be putting their brand name on them. Other manufacturers get this right. It is pretty common I buy something from Aliexpress for really cheap and it is clearly a premium product that has had the logos removed and is being sent out for user testing. They normally come with a card in the box saying "If this breaks, email this gmail address and we'll exchange it for a new one for free". They do that because they really want to know about failures. That lets them redesign the product to make it reliable, which in turn lets them put the premium brand name on it. You simply can't make a product reliable with lab testing alone. The only way is with real users and time.
- Gasp0de 3y ago
  They could have just used off the shelf components (e.g. Shimano) instead of reinventing the wheel.
midoridensha 3y ago
This is why I only buy bikes with mid-to-high-end Shimano components. My bike is my daily transportation many days; putting up with this kind of unreliability is unthinkable.
wjnc 3y ago
I was thinking about Tesla while posting. It's the natural counter argument. That's why I specifically mentioned the target market (in my opinion): bikes. (One of the reponses above is critical of my target market definition. Hey, I'm Netherlands-based. Two wheels is a bike. Whether € 10 or € 10k. I can understand that theft and bike services are more of a US value proposition.) The thing is I think Tesla pulled off a near miss with their repairs, waiting times and general inavailability of spare parts. That was a very big issue for a few years. Tesla got a helping hand (in several European countries at least) in tax breaks for the electric early adopters. With the tax brakes came the premier buyer: lease companies (say NED / BEL). You know what lease companies are good at? Supply chain management on behalve of their customers. If a Tesla was out for repairs for a month, the lease company had to deliver a temporary car. The tax brakes for the consumers kept the demand up, no matter the service record. No tax incentives helping VanMoof. Second is that I think the disruption Tesla caused in the car market at that time was a lot larger than that of VanMoof. As others point out: VanMoof didn't leapfrog (e-)bike market and didn't get a temporaty moat. They were actually a late to pivot to electric. Their earliest models were based on non-electric, affordable and robust (as a buyer at that time: they weren't robust at all). Then by playing the high margin-high marketing angle they just weren't a viable option in the price range where quality starts to matter. All in all: Tesla got a temporary technological head start with some favourable tax headwind giving them just enough runway to manage the supply chain. VanMoof had no technological head start, no tax incentives and crashed and burned on the supply chain.

by planb 3y ago

londons_explore 3y ago

Part of a premium product is the number of failures to expect. To reduce the number of failures, they need a fleet of thousands of bikes in the field to monitor and redesign any component that might break. But those bikes aren't yet reliable - so they shouldn't be putting their brand name on them. Other manufacturers get this right. It is pretty common I buy something from Aliexpress for really cheap and it is clearly a premium product that has had the logos removed and is being sent out for user testing. They normally come with a card in the box saying "If this breaks, email this gmail address and we'll exchange it for a new one for free". They do that because they really want to know about failures. That lets them redesign the product to make it reliable, which in turn lets them put the premium brand name on it. You simply can't make a product reliable with lab testing alone. The only way is with real users and time.

Gasp0de 3y ago
They could have just used off the shelf components (e.g. Shimano) instead of reinventing the wheel.

midoridensha 3y ago

This is why I only buy bikes with mid-to-high-end Shimano components. My bike is my daily transportation many days; putting up with this kind of unreliability is unthinkable.

wjnc 3y ago

I was thinking about Tesla while posting. It's the natural counter argument. That's why I specifically mentioned the target market (in my opinion): bikes. (One of the reponses above is critical of my target market definition. Hey, I'm Netherlands-based. Two wheels is a bike. Whether € 10 or € 10k. I can understand that theft and bike services are more of a US value proposition.) The thing is I think Tesla pulled off a near miss with their repairs, waiting times and general inavailability of spare parts. That was a very big issue for a few years. Tesla got a helping hand (in several European countries at least) in tax breaks for the electric early adopters. With the tax brakes came the premier buyer: lease companies (say NED / BEL). You know what lease companies are good at? Supply chain management on behalve of their customers. If a Tesla was out for repairs for a month, the lease company had to deliver a temporary car. The tax brakes for the consumers kept the demand up, no matter the service record. No tax incentives helping VanMoof. Second is that I think the disruption Tesla caused in the car market at that time was a lot larger than that of VanMoof. As others point out: VanMoof didn't leapfrog (e-)bike market and didn't get a temporaty moat. They were actually a late to pivot to electric. Their earliest models were based on non-electric, affordable and robust (as a buyer at that time: they weren't robust at all). Then by playing the high margin-high marketing angle they just weren't a viable option in the price range where quality starts to matter. All in all: Tesla got a temporary technological head start with some favourable tax headwind giving them just enough runway to manage the supply chain. VanMoof had no technological head start, no tax incentives and crashed and burned on the supply chain.