Dust Moto

[Erwin P]

That's indeed true.

But so close to production i think that ship has sailed.

Edit: But hey even with things going pretty bad at team HD the sums om money they can play with are enormous compared to what a startup can dream of.
Might be just the injection they need and just bring the numbers Livewire needs. Now place some landmines and loitering drones to off each and every HD manager that thinks about setting foot in the direction of this company.

 

[F451]

The old HD kiss of death for Dust, bummer.

 

[Beagle]

What's more likely:

buying Dust will save Livewire from bankruptcy
or
being bought by Livewire will end Dust

?

Hold on, Livewire sales are on fire, +176% in Q1 26 compared to Q1 25. That's right, they've sold 91 motorcycles in the first 3 months this year, which is a terrific improvement from 33 sales last year. Imagine that, selling as much as 1 motorcycle every day, oh the glory.

Wishing the best for Dust guys, just not convinced it's going with Livewire, hopefully they prove me wrong.

 

[Redwolf]

RIP Dust Moto

 

[Johnny Depp]

B2B News | LiveWire has made its first-ever acquisition, snapping up the assets of Dust Moto to push deeper into the electric off-road segment. LiveWire says the deal accelerates its ambitions beyond the tarmac, building on a journey it traces back to its STACYC kids’ balance bike brand a decade ago.
With Dust Moto now folded in, LiveWire is moving the startup’s electric dirt bike platform toward production, backed by its own engineering resources, manufacturing scale, and global sales and service network. More at THE PACK: https://thepack.news/newsflash-livewire-group-acquires.../

 

[Chaconne]

I don't think any American company will be able to make a go with Electric Motorcycles of any kind. It is not an accident that Stark is actually making a go of it and Alta with many years head start ended up dead.

The US does not have a motorcycle culture. Motorcycles are not considered part of transportation they are considered recreational vehicles and are not part of the general American transportation fabric. They are either outlaw, fad, toy, or sub-culture. And even Harley was never really a mainstream product or real transportation. Stark is steeped in the European tradition of motorcycle culture and Europeans have good use cases, distance models, and a motorcycle culture to grow Electric Motorcycles.

Most of us here in the US who are into motorcycles besides Harley are used to Asian and European purpose built products. Also the uptake of American E-cars has mostly stalled out if not died in many cases across the country. The American producers just didn't make anything but over priced E-Yuppie vehicles that were more like a fad-badge than transportation. Given that, my guess is that Dust Moto will like end up Alta more like Dust Bin Moto.

 

[VINSANITY]

Here we go again, remember what happened with Alta, any company that gets it evolved with Harley is dead within 6 months

 

[fsfs]

I don't think any American company will be able to make a go with Electric Motorcycles of any kind. It is not an accident that Stark is actually making a go of it and Alta with many years head start ended up dead.

The US does not have a motorcycle culture. Motorcycles are not considered part of transportation they are considered recreational vehicles and are not part of the general American transportation fabric. They are either outlaw, fad, toy, or sub-culture. And even Harley was never really a mainstream product or real transportation. Stark is steeped in the European tradition of motorcycle culture and Europeans have good use cases, distance models, and a motorcycle culture to grow Electric Motorcycles.

Most of us here in the US who are into motorcycles besides Harley are used to Asian and European purpose built products. Also the uptake of American E-cars has mostly stalled out if not died in many cases across the country. The American producers just didn't make anything but over priced E-Yuppie vehicles that were more like a fad-badge than transportation. Given that, my guess is that Dust Moto will like end up Alta more like Dust Bin Moto.

I don't think the problem with Alta was the USA, it was HD.

I think the Varg could have been done in the USA, but probably not Silicon Valley as it is too expensive.

 

[Erwin P]

I think the problem was American corporate culture.
It's a lott about here and now. While building new motorcycle brands is a lott about long term. Stark has Swedish leadership culture wich is a lott more long term.

HD is swinging around their strategies more often than anyone else and it's pretty much line goes down for years.

Zero has that problem to lesser extent, but them as well had some really shortsided design decisions in their bikes.

 

[fsfs]

I think the problem was American corporate culture.
It's a lott about here and now. While building new motorcycle brands is a lott about long term. Stark has Swedish leadership culture wich is a lott more long term.

You are making a lot of assumptions.

 

[Erwin P]

I am indeed. But it's a sad pattern we see.
In the past years in all kind of branches we've seen American investment companies taking over businesses, stripping them for parts and letting them die.

Also we had a hype of American'ism here in Europe. Part of that was companies adapting to very short distance planning and a focus on shares value above actual profit. With it came safety regulations that had nothing to do with safety but more with sue ability. Caused quite the uproar in workforces here.
Luckely a side effect of the clash between gouvernments is that companies stop trying to be American.

 

[fsfs]

I am indeed. But it's a sad pattern we see.
In the past years in all kind of branches we've seen American investment companies taking over businesses, stripping them for parts and letting them die.

Also we had a hype of American'ism here in Europe. Part of that was companies adapting to very short distance planning and a focus on shares value above actual profit. With it came safety regulations that had nothing to do with safety but more with sue ability. Caused quite the uproar in workforces here.
Luckely a side effect of the clash between gouvernments is that companies stop trying to be American.

It is indeed a pattern, but there are exceptions to it.

There are also patterns in Europe that are bad for development of new things. In general, the germans are too risk averse and there are too many rules. For example, you cannot have an electric bike that has both pedals and a twist throttle. Ask me how I know

 

[Chaconne]

I don't think the problem with Alta was the USA, it was HD.

I think the Varg could have been done in the USA, but probably not Silicon Valley as it is too expensive.

I think it could have been done but likely wouldn't succeed. Typically we don't measure success in America by products it is measured in sizable profit margins how much it makes the shareholders. Even within the things that do have a culture for -- like cars -- we walk away from it if the profit margins and growth aren't there.

On top of that we have tremendous resources what is the heartbeat of production for less resource blessed places we can just simply walk away from. The motorcycle is the epitome of this, we never needed it for transportation we had the means, energy, and culture to skip right by that everyone has a car was the goal. If you look at Europe, Asia, South America, or Africa it is not like that.

I don't mean this in a bad way, it is why we are constantly innovating and our economy is always growing and it is how we are somewhat different from other modern economies that often plateau and are less innovative. Being first, getting the innovation, winning the high margin initial market that is what we are good at. Efficiency and capitalism work well in the US and dovetail, our productive culture is largely about getting more and more from less and less.

Of course there are always exceptions, but I think in the case of motorcycles size of the market, profit margin, and culture all conspire against an American badge.