Creating the Alta successor: requesting your feedback

[hightechnature]

I think there would have been a business for electric motorcycles provided you could have salvaged the $50M development and branding effort that Alta did and sell the new bike at a premium directly via on-line into a niche market. Going against the big boys is too tough because their development costs are already spent and they are only making modest improvement spread over many bikes. This explains why some mx bike model only have a sticker change between years. Most dirt bike sales are to people with a relatively low disposable income which makes the market for premium electric motorcycles a relatively small percentage of the market. I think this was Alta's biggest challenge. Keep in mind that the high volume Tesla battery pack costs ~$300/kwh. The Alta never had scale to get to those pries. Which means that likely basic 5.8R pack costs something like $2400 each plus controls, labor and packaging.

Features: LED lighting, drop the rear foot brake, enable a third button to manually engage the regeneration to max in order to capture all the energy on steep descents.

I think the Alta is well engineered and being electric certainly offer many advantages for control, maintenance, traction, simplicity, handling, uniqueness.

 

[NameWithheld]

Lots of good ideas here. Many of them were discussed and not chosen for implementation to keep things simple(er).

Can’t argue against the statement that making motorcycles is no way to make a living, but it’s a hell of a way to make a life.

Not going to get into the “what if’s” of the business decisions, but there’s 100 things we could have done better. Failure was not destined; we put some effort into making it happen.

 

[Tuner]

Lots of good ideas here. Many of them were discussed and not chosen for implementation to keep things simple(er).

Can’t argue against the statement that making motorcycles is no way to make a living, but it’s a hell of a way to make a life.

Not going to get into the “what if’s” of the business decisions, but there’s 100 things we could have done better. Failure was not destined; we put some effort into making it happen.

 

[Tuner]

I think there would have been a business for electric motorcycles provided you could have salvaged the $50M development and branding effort that Alta did and sell the new bike at a premium directly via on-line into a niche market. Going against the big boys is too tough because their development costs are already spent and they are only making modest improvement spread over many bikes. This explains why some mx bike model only have a sticker change between years. Most dirt bike sales are to people with a relatively low disposable income which makes the market for premium electric motorcycles a relatively small percentage of the market. I think this was Alta's biggest challenge. Keep in mind that the high volume Tesla battery pack costs ~$300/kwh. The Alta never had scale to get to those pries. Which means that likely basic 5.8R pack costs something like $2400 each plus controls, labor and packaging.

Features: LED lighting, drop the rear foot brake, enable a third button to manually engage the regeneration to max in order to capture all the energy on steep descents.

I think the Alta is well engineered and being electric certainly offer many advantages for control, maintenance, traction, simplicity, handling, uniqueness.

Considerably low regarding your battery cost estimate of "something like $2400 each plus controls, labor and packaging."

 

[hightechnature]

In appreciation of your last reply, I'll lay out more thoughts that may be of interest regarding a plan to start and make an electric Alta follow-on a profitable venture.

I appreciate and like your statement that the motorcycle industry is a "hell of a way to make a life". I also admire anyone with a can do attitude and someone who is willing to get up and try again-like yours. Further, It also sounds like you have inside knowledge of the Alta program -which is another positive factor.

Do I believe there is a way to for a start up to win against the big boys -Yes. Look at Tesla. Microsoft, Dell and other small companies that eventually dominate their space.
Do I think all Motorcycle's will someday be electric? Yes. I also think that time will come more quickly than people expect.
Do I think there is room to innovate? Yes -always.
Was the Alta the best in class electric bike? -also yes

However, I think the real challenge is that the amount of investment capital needed to penetrate the market is high. I would also predict that most investors will think another Alta successor is a risky payback and one that would require a long development time-to-money -further increasing the cost of capital. There are other efforts that have failed and they had good products too. That's why I would think that you would not want attack the market broadly with a big footprint. You may be able to get around the high investment cost challenge by reducing the capital needed to start the business -but the odds of failure increase with decreasing capitalization (~50% of business fail in the first 5 years). That was the thinking behind advocating a product niche focus -some small markets that come to mind could be the best hill climb bike, or best free-style (you would not need such a big battery for those markets and the performance could be made superior). The key is to get in an deliver a winning product and don't take on the gorillia in their exact market.

I want the best for you and the team you build to take on the challenges. Winners do what losers won't. The most important thing is to enjoy the ride and keep moving forward. Also know that every rider of an Alta, every Tesla driver and everyone who ever once had the glimmer to dream big, all want you to succeed.

 

[hightechnature]

Tuner, Thanks for clarifying the battery cost estimate. I try to keep track of EV battery costs and only speculated on the Alta battery cost. Would you expect the difference to be volume related? The IP66 rating and ruggedization of the system is also expensive.

 

[Tuner]

Tuner, Thanks for clarifying the battery cost estimate. I try to keep track of EV battery costs and only speculated on the Alta battery cost. Would you expect the difference to be volume related? The IP66 rating and ruggedization of the system is also expensive.

I sent you a PM.