Stark Varg SM
- Thread starter Julo EX
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Chaconne
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Probably losing some with wind resistance at that speed. Certainly making enough mic noise. Some road style plastics and a wind cutting front might help. I was thinking they were going to change to more road style aerodynamic positioning with the SM. I guess this is somewhat typical of dual sport bikes.
/off topic
You joke, but you're not far off the point. In most rural areas there is only mono-phase wiring, and it's stretched to maximum possible distance from the trapho. Poor, old wiring and fuse box practices etc. In my cottage it takes significantly longer to boil 1l of water on the stove than in the city.
Also to consider that in the near future you will either be given a ridicules, arbitrary bill for charging, or refused service if they didn't figure out how to skin the tourists just yet.
Do you see anything? I don't. Main components look the same and new items even more premium grade.
I'm not even going to mention the tariffs, or that they are pivoting from direct sale to the customer to the dealer networks which has to put 5-10% on their cost.
In my rough calculation they could shave 2-3000€/$ from Varg MSRP by not including toolbox, stand, phone and quite a few premium 3rd party bits. Just to mention that some person is manually gluing a rim lock reinforcement on every one of those POS red tubes. It would be an Economy-Varg but ride would remain the same.
Either the rich owner is burning his own cash while playing the long game, or the usual EU shenanigans with subsidies .
Erwin P
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I think the savings mentioned are far less. The toolbox will maybe cost them a €100, the stand is needed for the charger, if not for the charger that stand is just a pressed sheet of metal with a rubber top, can't be much more expensive to produce then €15.
Wich premium parts? Suspension? The front fork is pretty much industry standard by now (Beta, Sherco, Yamaha, Rieju etc are running that). The rear is quite premium but if they list it for €700 on their website is will cost them not much more than a regular KYB, maybe a €50 more? That phone is mostly made out of regular phone components and thus i imagine the cheapest way to build a dashboard. With a dedicated screen and buttons it will be way more expensive to do the same (still i hope they do it, hate the phone setup). Brakes? Those are Brembo's and also pretty much industry standard.
Removing the red tubes could be a cost saver though, but maybe €20 per bike.
I think if they can shave €200-€300 off with those kind of changes it's a lott (while not making the ride any less).
Part of their USP is making an over the top premium product. Everyone i speak next to the bike is very impressed with the level of detail and finish. Even those hating E in general have to admit they like what the brand is doing with the ''ride part'' of the bike. So being premium and over the top is actually needed to sell their bikes and may turn into higher profits.
Don't forget there are huge amounts of people spending bigger money of Mountainbikes with carbon frames etc etc. Why shouldn't there be place for premium dirtbikes?
They are making profit so the owner is not eating his own money. Probably being content with less profit though. So far i've only heared about EU loans to pretty good conditions, no real ''free money'' subsidies.
What does their EU price has to do with tarifs? I guess the US price will go up though, but so will everything so i doubt they will loose money there.
I actually think it's the Skandinavian mindset about making a great product and enough profit is enough. And in the long run, that might even turn out to be the more profitable way.
The Vargs have never been intended to be their money makers, market is too small, but they're ideal products to build brand awareness and Stark image as a serious OEM.
Turning some profit selling Vargs is impressive, then road bikes (as in proper road bikes, not niche SM) will come aiming for much larger volume sales and profits.
Turning some profit selling Vargs is impressive, then road bikes (as in proper road bikes, not niche SM) will come aiming for much larger volume sales and profits.
Erwin P
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True, but still they're outselling the roadbikes from Zero big time.
There is a catch though.
Zero pretty much makes "budget bikes" for premium money. And there is a gap that Stark does seem to understand. People are willing to spend premium, but only on premium.
And how much extra does it really cost to produce premium? My guess is: Not that much.
And that's the true evil of profit optimalisation. It can deliver direct profit numbers, but at the cost of a way less product, leading to less satisfied customers. A customer that is going to spend 22.300 is also going to spend 22.800 for a much more premium bike. And 500 in production cost goes a very long way into producing a lott more premium.
In an interview Anton made an estimation of the raw material costs for a Varg MX at around 700 euro. Going for the most premium Aluminium or Steel alloy everywhere instead of cheap made a difference of single digits numbers, so under 10 euro of the production of an entire bike.
There is a catch though.
Zero pretty much makes "budget bikes" for premium money. And there is a gap that Stark does seem to understand. People are willing to spend premium, but only on premium.
And how much extra does it really cost to produce premium? My guess is: Not that much.
And that's the true evil of profit optimalisation. It can deliver direct profit numbers, but at the cost of a way less product, leading to less satisfied customers. A customer that is going to spend 22.300 is also going to spend 22.800 for a much more premium bike. And 500 in production cost goes a very long way into producing a lott more premium.
In an interview Anton made an estimation of the raw material costs for a Varg MX at around 700 euro. Going for the most premium Aluminium or Steel alloy everywhere instead of cheap made a difference of single digits numbers, so under 10 euro of the production of an entire bike.
As you show, raw materials count for very little in the overall cost of a vehicle, materials transformation is much more expensive. It remains true even at the level of individual parts, if you think of batteries, it's not the raw materials in the cells that make that the pack costs thousands of euros.
Finished parts bought from premium suppliers also have a fixed cost. Just the front brake caliper for SM is probably about 300€. Add in KYB forks, shock, Brembo radial master cylinder, 17" wheels, Pirelli Diablo IV, 400 21700 cells (at least 1000 € even if they get great discount for volume) Stark is already racking up a significant bill in the thousands before building or assembling anything in house.
And this is just about parts and building the bike, then obviously you have to bear all costs related to running a factory and a company.
Finished parts bought from premium suppliers also have a fixed cost. Just the front brake caliper for SM is probably about 300€. Add in KYB forks, shock, Brembo radial master cylinder, 17" wheels, Pirelli Diablo IV, 400 21700 cells (at least 1000 € even if they get great discount for volume) Stark is already racking up a significant bill in the thousands before building or assembling anything in house.
And this is just about parts and building the bike, then obviously you have to bear all costs related to running a factory and a company.
Gotta say at these dimensions and weight, this charger should be really easy to integrate onboard a 150-180 kg street bike.They weren't kidding when they said they were developing a charger small enough to fit in a backpack, great surprise is it's as powerful as the stand charger!
Stark Future on Instagram: "3.3kW power in a laptop sized charger, light enough to carry in your backpack 🎒⚡️ Plug it in at home from any wall outlet, or use an adapter to charge from any public car charger. Power anywhere, carry anywhere. Compati
813 likes, 45 comments - stark__future on October 14, 2025: "3.3kW power in a laptop sized charger, light enough to carry in your backpack 🎒⚡️ Plug it in at home from any wall outlet, or use an adapter to charge from any public car charger. Power anywhere, carry anywhere. Compatible with the...www.instagram.com
2 kg, 25*15*6 cm, great job
Erwin P
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That caliper is nothing near 300 euro for Stark. If you order 1 or 2 it will be. If you order in multitudes of 100's or even 1000's prices tend to drop hugely.
Sure those are expensive buts you point out. But i don't think there is a way for them to cheap out on it in a big way at this point. Moving on to anything inferior than the MX baseline they set will hurt them big time. Also the Dirtbike space as a whole is getting pretty high end, undercutting that will cost you sales.
Yes I guess my point is that they don't have much room to lower cost and price besides going for less premium parts in wheels, brakes, suspensions, tires, but that is clearly not in their interest for Vargs.
Building Vargs in Europe with premium components at similar price to comparable European ICE bikes (KTM, Ducati) is already a great success. And Triumphs made in Thailand are not that much cheaper.
Some of their future street bikes could come equipped with less high end parts (or may come in two versions, like standard and factory?) than the Vargs that are intended as halo bikes for competition at the highest level.
The great economy in scale, labor cost and parts will be manufacturing some cheaper commuter bikes in India with Eicher (but this doesn't make sense to go there for their current bikes).
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Erwin P
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Also labour costs are highly overestimated on bikes like these. There is just very little labour done compared to the costs of the materials. I highly doubt there is a serious gap in labour cost between Spain and India per bike like this.
I guess at the very inefficiënt way of handbuidling the entire thing with 1 person (who does is all day every day) it will be done in well under an hour. In Spain that might cost you something like €50. How much cheaper do you want it to be done on a premium bike at this pricepoint...
If we are talking low end cheap components bikes the labour costs are a much higher part of the percentage a bike costs to build.
Getting people to actually build mass production things is the diffeculty in Europe. People just don't like to work in factory's.
I do work in a factory and although our Dutch wages (incluiding all the overhead costs of an employee) are the highest in the sector we still manage to be the cheapest per unit in the sector worldwide. Turns out labour costs per person are just a small part of running a production facility.
I guess at the very inefficiënt way of handbuidling the entire thing with 1 person (who does is all day every day) it will be done in well under an hour. In Spain that might cost you something like €50. How much cheaper do you want it to be done on a premium bike at this pricepoint...
If we are talking low end cheap components bikes the labour costs are a much higher part of the percentage a bike costs to build.
Getting people to actually build mass production things is the diffeculty in Europe. People just don't like to work in factory's.
I do work in a factory and although our Dutch wages (incluiding all the overhead costs of an employee) are the highest in the sector we still manage to be the cheapest per unit in the sector worldwide. Turns out labour costs per person are just a small part of running a production facility.
Chaconne
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It is hard to see from the visuals. Sourcing can often cover cost reductions and quality tradeoffs. But I think you are right something does not add up.
Chaconne
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The Triumphs made in Thailand have much higher margins for Triumph. It is the Nike trick, say a $200.00 running shoe made in the US costs Nike $50.00 to make in the US or Mexico, and they can outsource it to China or Vietnam and have the same shoe made for $5.00 and still charge $200.00. Outsourcing isn't really about end product pricing it is largely about margins.
Erwin P
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Also they've made a lot more bikes now. Scale could fix the gap of the more expensive bits.
Chaconne
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Agreed. I still think they could improve their margins by outsourcing more but that would probably imperil some of the Euro advantages they are likely afforded. Europe is a strong advantage for Stark --motorcycle culture plus wealth & advocacy. But they will need more to grow.
The trick for Stark will be not sitting on the European market until it is too late like KTM did. KTM could have done a lot more in India with Bajaj and really ramped up the their lower cost road offerings. They were just spoiled by selling $12,000++ boutique recreational vehicles --it is nice while it lasts I suppose.
