BAD NEWS


WoodsWeapon

Well-known member
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USA
A few years ago I bought a Motoped, which is basically a mountain bike with an XR50 engine in it. I bought it through a Kickstarter funding campaign, and assumed after their initial funding was met and bikes were delivered, they would keep on building them into the future. Not so, the designer fulfilled his obligations on bike deliveries, sold the company to APT Motovox and was never heard from again.
Maybe this Alta situation is similar, in that who knows what the 3 original company starters paid themselves, and walked away with. Maybe the headaches of partnership, ownership, and long hours were a contributing factor?
This may have been the end game for them all along?
 

Johnny Depp

Well-known member
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Austin TX
A very interesting response to my post from Vitalmx

Highflier
c100_image_1440373636.jpg6231 Highflier https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/users/6231/avatar/c50_image_1440373636.jpg?1440373256 https://www.vitalmx.com/community/Highflier,6231/all 04/01/08 2 42
Posts: 44
Joined: 4/1/2008
Location: TX, USA
1 day ago

It’s highly unlikely anyone will buy Alta, Harley left after they saw how the sausage was made.
Alta has already consumed over $43,000,000 and wasn’t profitable after 8 years.....
After 8 years and $43mil, investors weren’t buying the pitch anymore.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/brd-motorcycles

Another fun fact about the past, Alta had an average monthly burn rate of over $1,680,000....per public records.

They were losing over $55,000 per day
 
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Rix

Self proclaimed macho man extraordinaire
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Fallon NV
A very interesting response to my post from Vitalmx

Highflier
View attachment 14706231 Highflier https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/users/6231/avatar/c50_image_1440373636.jpg?1440373256 https://www.vitalmx.com/community/Highflier,6231/all 04/01/08 2 42
Posts: 44
Joined: 4/1/2008
Location: TX, USA
1 day ago

It’s highly unlikely anyone will buy Alta, Harley left after they saw how the sausage was made.
Alta has already consumed over $43,000,000 and wasn’t profitable after 8 years.....
After 8 years and $43mil, investors weren’t buying the pitch anymore.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/brd-motorcycles

Another fun fact about the past, Alta had an average monthly burn rate of over $1,680,000....per public records.

They were losing over $55,000 per day
Ironically it takes money to make money. Probably the profit loss was near the end and its possible Alta would have hit the turning point within the year. To really do this right, Alta needs quite a bit more than 43,000,000 to get in the game, probably closer to a 100,000,000 would be needed to be sustainable and profitable. Man, if I only one that last mega millions lottery, we wouldn't be having this discussion and Alta would be going full speed ahead.
 

bluefxstc

Well-known member
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887
Location
Boise, ID, United States
I think that if Alta could have articulated a path to profitability, investors, including Harley, would have been lining up to give them money. They have a great product, but you cant sell something that cost $33,692 for $13,000 and expect to stay in business. I understand product development costs, but in the end they were selling bikes so they shouldn't have been burning through $1,680,000 per month. That is not sustainable. Certainly their location is part of the problem, but given their burn rate it was only a small part of the problem. Still hopeful someone will but Alta, but not optimistic. I just don't know what Alta has, that another MC couldn't develop for them self fairly easy.
 

revoltlution

Keep yer cool, don't get hurt, and never give up!
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Location
St Johns, Portland, OR 97203
Best case, someone like KTM buys and supports Alta. Next best case, all Alta design goes open source on the internet. Worst case, all Alta designs are lost or locked away.

Considering this awesome community, I'm only fearing the worst case scenario. Seems unlikely.
 

Philip

Administrator
Staff member
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Lake Havasu City, AZ
This situation has been reminding to me 2008 and the Viper. Chrysler went bankrupt one more time, and Viper was for sale. Nobody bought it. The owners were all worried, and some dedicated and wealthy ones were going to buy production tools, but they never did.

Eventually, the whole company was given to Fiat in exchange for a promise to transfer some technology and build some small fuel efficient cars, which as it turned out, nobody wanted except for Obama.

Anyway... I happen to know one of the key Viper guys at FCA. I picked his brain last week, told him about Alta, said you can still buy new bikes at dealers at reduced prices.

His first advice was to go buy one. He said money is not important. The older we get, the less it matters.

I was kind of leaning towards this myself. I want a second Alta. It is nice to be able to bring two fully charged bikes to the track at once. Also nice to always have at least one bike fully operational, no matter what is happening with the other.

I hoped he would also tell something else that is useful, like perhaps something that the owners could do to secure the parts availability, or similar. But he didn't have any advice about that.

So... I am buying a second Alta Redshift MXR! Brand new. Hopefully this Thursday or Friday.
 

Philip

Administrator
Staff member
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Location
Lake Havasu City, AZ
And I am still looking to buy a used MXR for cheap. A parts bike to keep the other two running, LOL!

Without any sale incentives from Alta Motors, all dealers are willing to get rid of Altas at cost -- their invoice prices. This makes the MXR cost about $12,200-12,400 out the door with all taxes paid and with a fast charger.

If you are in the Midwest, call Jeff at Action Extreme Sports in Ohio. He has one more MXR left at a great price, and one slightly used EXR coming back as a trade-in soon.
 

Wheelsick

Well-known member
Likes
136
Location
Colorado North
This situation has been reminding to me 2008 and the Viper. Chrysler went bankrupt one more time, and Viper was for sale. Nobody bought it. The owners were all worried, and some dedicated and wealthy ones were going to buy production tools, but they never did.

Eventually, the whole company was given to Fiat in exchange for a promise to transfer some technology and build some small fuel efficient cars, which as it turned out, nobody wanted except for Obama.

Anyway... I happen to know one of the key Viper guys at FCA. I picked his brain last week, told him about Alta, said you can still buy new bikes at dealers at reduced prices.

His first advice was to go buy one. He said money is not important. The older we get, the less it matters.

I was kind of leaning towards this myself. I want a second Alta. It is nice to be able to bring two fully charged bikes to the track at once. Also nice to always have at least one bike fully operational, no matter what is happening to the other.

I hoped he would also tell something else that is useful, like perhaps something that the owners could do to secure the parts availability, or similar. But he didn't have any advice about that.

So... I am buying a second Alta Redshift MXR! Brand new. Hopefully this Thursday or Friday.
Wow. Seriously buying another ?
 

Motophyllic

Well-known member
Likes
334
Location
NY
Does anyone see what happened to us here? Alta raised 21 million dollars a little over a year ago. Then they got a bunch of money from Harley Davidson. All of a sudden, they shut their doors to “preserve capital.” I hate to say it, but I think I know where that capital went. Sound fishy to anyone else?
 

WoodsWeapon

Well-known member
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240
Location
USA
Does anyone see what happened to us here? Alta raised 21 million dollars a little over a year ago. Then they got a bunch of money from Harley Davidson. All of a sudden, they shut their doors to “preserve capital.” I hate to say it, but I think I know where that capital went. Sound fishy to anyone else?
They did not get any money from Harley Davidson.
 

Silent But Dirty

Alta North
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391
Location
Canada
Does anyone see what happened to us here? Alta raised 21 million dollars a little over a year ago. Then they got a bunch of money from Harley Davidson. All of a sudden, they shut their doors to “preserve capital.” I hate to say it, but I think I know where that capital went. Sound fishy to anyone else?
Harley pulled out a few months ago, and I assume they took most of their capital with them.
 

leeo45

Geezer in denial
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576
Location
Lake Hartwell, SC
A very interesting response to my post from Vitalmx

Highflier
View attachment 14706231 Highflier https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/users/6231/avatar/c50_image_1440373636.jpg?1440373256 https://www.vitalmx.com/community/Highflier,6231/all 04/01/08 2 42
Posts: 44
Joined: 4/1/2008
Location: TX, USA
1 day ago

It’s highly unlikely anyone will buy Alta, Harley left after they saw how the sausage was made.
Alta has already consumed over $43,000,000 and wasn’t profitable after 8 years.....
After 8 years and $43mil, investors weren’t buying the pitch anymore.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/brd-motorcycles

Another fun fact about the past, Alta had an average monthly burn rate of over $1,680,000....per public records.

They were losing over $55,000 per day

Nothing in the following comments changes the current situation at ALTA, but it seems that the rumor and speculation mill is getting even more out of control in less informed places than it is here at AOF, so I thought I would try to throw a little water from the peanut gallery on those less than helpful fires. Also, this will be good, boring, bedtime reading for most people. :)

Unless someone has actual balance sheet visibility for Faster, Faster, Inc, it appears that the quoted "monthly burn rate" in the linked post is an exceedingly simplistic calculation of spending the entire $27M funding from June 2017 between that date and the shut down date. It therefore assumes, among other things, the same net cash and debt position on October 2018 as June 2017; and likely just assumed everything was zero. It could be in the ball park, but there is no real reason to believe it is. There is no balance sheet or cash flow info in the provided link (and you should not expect it for a privately held company). Plus, the only filings listed on EDGAR (SEC) are for their securities offerings and as would be typical, the company declined to provide financial results or asset info in those filings.

Perhaps spending money to run and grow a business is considered "losing" money in some layman's terms, but that is not the case in correct financial terminology nor in the context of actually running a business. (much less a start-up) And although $43.8M is a HUGE sum of money for most of us, it is unfortunately not a lot of money for a start-up enterprise of any size or scope, especially where manufacturing and new-ish technology are involved.

I have been watching the publicly available financial info on ALTA since before the shutdown and I have not seen anything on their P&L. So, unless somebody has insider visibility, we don't know if they were ever "profitable" and more specifically we don't know if they were making positive margins at the bike or unit sold level. I suspect they were not making money yet since they had been in production less than two years, but we don't know. I think we do know they were continuing to spend on marketing, promotions, race teams, new model development, etc. so there is good reason to believe that they felt they had secured funding from HD and after that fell through that they could find alternate investors. We may never know the reason(s) HD and/or ALTA terminated that agreement nor the terms.

I think it is also reasonable to assume that once the HD agreement ended that the ALTA leadership began to harshly control expenditures pending additional capital, and that is a primary reason there is so little parts inventory for us to pick up.

Peanut gallery...... out.....
 

privateer703

AOF Addict
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687
Location
Altoona, PA
All I know is if the owners really just wanted a payday then they wouldn't have spent extra money financing race teams. They did that to build the brand. You don't give a sh^$ about the brand if all you want is a fat check. Anyone here remember Skully?? Now THAT was a cash grab. Still had a good idea that would have sold in the market.
 

Bionicman

E powertrain proponent
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385
Location
WA
they lowered the msrp of bikes several K to reduce inventory as the writing was on the wall........ o2
 

TCMB371

The Silent Assassin
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Temecula, CA
All I know is if the owners really just wanted a payday then they wouldn't have spent extra money financing race teams. They did that to build the brand. You don't give a sh^$ about the brand if all you want is a fat check. Anyone here remember Skully?? Now THAT was a cash grab. Still had a good idea that would have sold in the market.

Owners want a payday? What are you talking about? I think i speak for most owners out there when i say I just want the brand to continue and thrive. My payday is the enjoyment i get riding this fantastic motorcycle. I want to see this technology succeed in motocross.
 

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