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[HoodRichOG]

Amazing news actually, needed that today!

[Specter]

Investors from Singapore?
I bet that means they are going to be making the bikes somewhere else now.  People are always complaining that the bikes are so expensive, well if they outsource production of them to China, India, VietNam, Phillippines,  places like that, where labor and materials are cheaper, and move production over to one of those places that'll keep the production costs down, which in turn will help lower the price of the finished product.   Let's be brutally honest.  paying a UNION worker 50 dollars an hour, to do mediocre work, at a mediocre pace, throws a lot of non value added cost into a product.  THIS is what killed America's auto industry and made so much of it move overseas.  Italy is a first world country, and they make the finest auto's in the world, bikes too, but they come at a hefty price!  If you want lower prices, something has gotta give.  Since they (and the customers too) refuse to compromise on quality, that pretty much leaves labor costs.... where can we get cheap labor... oh yeah.....

IF they do decide to move manufacturing somewhere, it'll be a good year before you see ANYthing come out of them.  They'll have to disassemble the existing production line in Italy, box it up, ship it to wherever, hope it don't get lost or stolen on the way over, unpack it, and put it all back together again.  That's a monster task!!

Hopefully their comeback plan includes making their existing clientelle whole again, ie start making parts, getting some repair centers opened back up and fixing all our bikes we got now.  THEN start, or even at the same time, slowly start ramping up making new bikes.  If I remember correctly they got a whole order book full of people wanting the Experia, a lot of LEO,  that's a great start right there.

Can't wait to hear what the final details are going to be.

imagine if they cane out with a, call it a starter bike, no it don't have to be 180 hp, a bit tamer, maybe like a 300 - 400 CC, equivalent, and could price it at 15 to 18 instead of 26k entry level.  That'd be a game changer i bet.

Aaron

[JaimeC]

Just remember Energica's last investors were based in the United States, but manufacturing remained in Italy. Doesn't matter where the money comes from (though I'm sure they'll look to decreased costs as a factor).

[Specter]

and there was a stampede of people just running for the opportunity of a lifetime to snatch it up right?

remember, the last investors did not give two shits about Energica either, they just needed the name, so they could pull off their scam, and essentially left energica to starve to death, which sadly it almost did.

people are wise to that game now, it won't happen again, which is why Energica didn't immediately get snatched up again by another scamming pos.  This time it was bought by someone who actually intends to use it for what it is, to make it's money with ITS output, not some scam on a green new steal portfolio.

The entire motorcycle industry is in a slump now, especially the E side of it, which of course also fed into Energica's past situation.  Any potential investors already know this, and know they'll have to cut costs or somehow re image / re invent some things so that it IS successful this time around, (with their money).  That means serious cost cutting.

Energica is not going to budge on Brand or quality, that's that Italian pride, which is a great thing!  so they are not going to use cheaper / inferior parts!  Doesn't leave a hell of a lot left to cut.  Advertisement?  yah, ill be polite and not go there ... that pretty much leaves manufacturing.   How do we make the bike cheaper?  A big part of that is answered by WHERE.

Lets move it to India, cheap labor, and India does put out quality, IF that is what you tell them you want!  Cheaper resources, and india recently signed on with the tarriff kerfluffle so has a favorable position there, which keeps costs down on that front.  PLUS India has a lot of people who are really keen on motorcycle travel.  Im sure the investors already have some vision for this.  Energica brings the tech, and knowhow, india brings the labor, AND if played smart, introduce something new and affordable, it also brings a potentially HUGE customer base to buy your product. 

Energica introduces the new IndiGoGo.  made right here in India, for our people, by our people!!  Has a nice ring to it.

You could swap out India with Korea or Philippines, where labor rates are cheaper but the potential 'made right here at home' market base won't be as big as india is, but it could still work.

i have a very strong feeling that manufacturing is going to be done elsewhere.  Earlier i mentioned moving their production line,  but now that i think on it more, would it be easier to just build an entirely new assembly line from scratch instead of moving the existing one.  plus leaving the old one as is, gives them a backup, in case they get too busy, or lets say a critical machinery fails, now production is not totally down, plus the r and d needs tooling too right?

a plus side to that would be, they could if even limited amount, restart the manu back in italy and at least start making repair parts again for existing bikes.  run a reduced output, but repairs, keep existing customers happy, put them back on the streets, and starts bringing income back in.

anyways... won't happen for 59 more days until the legal work is completed.   they got a lot of things to get ready for the grand re opening day!!

aaron

[Electric_Adventures]

Personally I’m of the opinion that cheaper manufacturing based on location and manufacturing motorcycles that target lower price brackets of the market can be mutually exclusive.  I see a pretty potential here for them to lean into the large Chinese market and start delivering lower power and range models to the largest EV market in the world.  Unfortunately this route leads to the least optimal outcome for me, I really would like a new model that can rival the current motoE tech Ducati has shown off for lower weight and better handling characteristics, not to mention higher voltages for more efficient charging. 

All of that being said, I’d love a small and light bike that can replace my FX that comes with 6kW DCFC built in.

[Specter]

oh hell yeah, i want a 240 hp monster too!!  and of course i know i'll pay dearly for it too, but the few dozen they may sell a year to fanatics won't keep the company going..

higher voltage is not automatically more efficient, that's kind of a catch there.  higher voltage, means more cells, which means, either more weight, more room taken up, BIGGER more cumbersome,  OR each cell is smaller, so while you may preserve overall kw capacity, C rate is increasing, so that means a bit less efficiency.  instead of the bigger cells being able to handle 400 amps,  the medium cells can only push 350 amps before getting too hot, so you have that tradeoff.  The voltage still has to be converted from mains to battery too, and the more you have to 'change' it, the bigger the losses.  if you really start pushing things, now insulation starts changing class too, having to protect things harder, it's harder to shield / control, arcing between terminals, dielectric strengths between parts becomes much more significant now...    there is no free lunch.

Aaron

[Electric_Adventures]

Yes, I’m well aware of the limitations of higher voltage systems.  I happen to have the opinion that 800v systems offer more pros for what I’m looking for vs the cons.

[most]

BTT, I just wonder what the management staff around Cinderella and her seven dwarfs have learned and want to do different this time.

Electric bikes are products for customers that are not so open for new tech compared with passenger cars. Look at Zero - after more than a decade of selling bikes, they are still not making money and need investors again and again.

I guess as the first task they shouldn't  develop new models that might or might not sell better, they should build & sell what they have already developed. And in order to do that, they need to look into their local distribution channels. At least the dealers in Germany were completely unhappy with the intransparent and unreliable behavior of the sales part of Energica (tech & support was always premium). A part might have come from the fact that Energica needed cash upfront to get components - but even before that they could have done MUCH better to support the dealership.

And let's not forget, they have alienated at least half of their suppliers. Rebuilding the supply chain will be the biggest challenge ahead...

[Stonewolf]

Their first instinct shouldn't be new products actually.

• They need to ramp production up as quickly as possible to hit economy of scale.
• They need to take care of their existing order book, these people have been very patient and how they're treated will say a lot about what kind of company the new investors want Energica to be.
• They need to rationalise products that are losing too much money compared to what the company gets out of them (Ego platform).
• They need to actually get bikes out to media to generate interest.
• They need to replace rationalised models with Experia based interim models that deliver on those segments economicly while also increasing scale on Experia platform.
• Only after that does it makes sense to pivot to new products. They're going to need some bombshell new machines but they're best targetting '28 or '29 for those and they need to do all the above to get the company to that point.

[Specter]

with current tech, an 800 volt bike will be about double the voltage of what is available today, well almost 2.5 as far as bikes go.  in order to do that they'd need a bunch more cells, which will cut the capacity of each down, so it'd pretty much be a wash there.  might save a bit of weight on the motor because you can use smaller windings due to needing less current for the hp.  A small gain.  The charging rate will still be the same, it's pretty much the C rate of the battery that is limiting it.  They want to keep it at 1C ish to charge at, pushing harder really shortens the life of their battery.  So even if you can run the motor at half the amps for the same power, due to the C rate limit you can only charge it at half the original rate too, you are still being limited to 1C of the now smaller battery.

A real fix is going to be batteries that can reliably be pushed at harder rates w/o the damage to them.  It's the battery that is the limiter here, not so much the voltage the system is run at.  An active cooling system would be helpful too, more room, more weight, where to put it? oh yah the battery case, so even smaller sized batteries to make room for the cooling equipment in there.

i wonder if they could do something with the inverter?  right now i think it just takes the dc, wiggles it into ac at the given freq and spits it out, what if we raised the voltage too?  convert it AND boost the voltage... yes more parts, expense etc but wonder how that might help?  a bit less efficient, because you are changing the power more but enough to not be worth it?

who knows, maybe this new grok everyone is so afraid of will come up in a few months and say, here you go dummies,  this is the chem, higher voltage, higher power, less weight, now go build it !!

@most - that is a very good point you bring up.  Energica, it's past abusive parents, unfortunately burned many bridges in their wake.  From what I understand, a lot of it was built inhouse, the rest, stuff other bikes use, that they put on theirs, ie brakes, shocks, turn signals etc.  Maybe this is another push for them to move manufacturing instead of restarting, because somewhere else, they didn't stiff everyone, and may get the parts they need again.

yah that's going to be rough, you walk away leaving someone holding a million dollar debt, you don't just come up in a new suit and say im back, i need 500 more of these and those, it's going to be a cash deal moving forward.  Do they have the cash to do that?  Lets ope so

@stonewolf,  is the EGO a losing platform?  maybe it was just mismanaged, or wasn't given time to play out?  maybe since it wasn't advertised as you and so many others pointed out, THAT is what helped kill it?   I agree, remp the experia, but keep the ego / ribelle / ss9,  maybe have a dozen of each on hand, and just build - rebuild them to order, so they are available but not keeping millions tied up in slow moving inventories.  it's complicated and hopefully we get it figured out for all of our sakes, becasue WE as customers can also have a very big impact on their success as well.

aaron

[Stonewolf]

@stonewolf,  is the EGO a losing platform?  maybe it was just mismanaged, or wasn't given time to play out?  maybe since it wasn't advertised as you and so many others pointed out, THAT is what helped kill it?   I agree, remp the experia, but keep the ego / ribelle / ss9,  maybe have a dozen of each on hand, and just build - rebuild them to order, so they are available but not keeping millions tied up in slow moving inventories.  it's complicated and hopefully we get it figured out for all of our sakes, becasue WE as customers can also have a very big impact on their success as well.

The Ego platform was designed to be built at a rate of a dozen a year and over time they've refined and redesigned parts of it to improve production efficiency but at the end of the day there's simply a massive difference between how you design something for repeatable fabrication (Ego) and how you design something for mass manufacturing (Experia). Experia is designed to be built economicly in the thousands, Ego platform isn't economic even in the hundreds never mind thousands. That's why I said the approach they need is to replace Ego platform bikes with interim machines based on the Experia platform a) to get them onto a production basis where they can be manufactured at scale economicly and b) to drive scale (and therefore efficiency) for the shared parts of the platform.

I don't have references handy but basicly all of this has come straight from the horses mouth at various points.

[szczur333]

oh hell yeah, i want a 240 hp monster too!!  and of course i know i'll pay dearly for it too, but the few dozen they may sell a year to fanatics won't keep the company going..

higher voltage is not automatically more efficient, that's kind of a catch there.  higher voltage, means more cells, which means, either more weight, more room taken up, BIGGER more cumbersome,  OR each cell is smaller, so while you may preserve overall kw capacity, C rate is increasing, so that means a bit less efficiency.  instead of the bigger cells being able to handle 400 amps,  the medium cells can only push 350 amps before getting too hot, so you have that tradeoff.  The voltage still has to be converted from mains to battery too, and the more you have to 'change' it, the bigger the losses.  if you really start pushing things, now insulation starts changing class too, having to protect things harder, it's harder to shield / control, arcing between terminals, dielectric strengths between parts becomes much more significant now...    there is no free lunch.

Aaron

More cells in series, less in parallel so C rates is the same in both

300V 60Ah - to get 1C you need 60amps
600V 30Ah - to get 1C you need 30amps

so you can have thinner wires, for higher voltage you need better insulation, and inverters/controller/motor will cost more bcoz of voltage range

in our bikes battery range is about 250 to 330V
with 600V system it will be 500-660V - much more range to operate = more expensive parts

[flynnstig82r]

Only time will tell what kind of strategy the Singapore investors will pursue, but I tend to think it will be a “barbell” strategy of premium bikes driving brand recognition so they can sell millions of little 125cc-equivalent scooters and dirt bikes, along with ATVs, snowmobiles, etc. all over the world. Having the fastest, longest range, best handling, and most premium electric bikes in the world could really mean something, it just hasn’t metastasized yet because most people have still never heard of Energica. But put the marketing effort of a large corporate interest behind it and use that recognition to sell millions of lesser machines all over the world, and the 50 to 100MM Euros you had to spend saving the brand is a drop in the bucket. Maybe the goal is to establish the brand and develop smaller powertrains in the hopes of selling out to a company like Suzuki in 5-10 years. Someone with a large and diverse ICE powersports line-up that hasn’t been investing much in electric.

Not saying that’s definitely the play, but it’s how I would be thinking in their shoes. If that’s the play, then you want to keep that premium Italian manufacturing in place for the foreseeable future, even if the labor is expensive. Moving production might save a small amount of cost on what’s essentially a marketing loss-leader, but at the risk of jeopardizing the brand that is at the center of the strategy. The small bikes and non-motorcycle powersports would have to be made in a low-cost country from the start, of course.

[Commodore]

Just got this email.  Anyone else?

https://www.ndrubber.co.th/en/about-us/
https://aipexgroup.com/

[Specter]

not sure what you are asking,  the e mail for the tire promo?  did it come from something official / energica?

aaron