TAKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Alpha Now only $10,900 OTD

[FreedomFlyer]

My letter to Stark:
I just wanted to say I feel totally taken for supporting you guys as an early adopter and being one of the first people to place an order years ago to only have you drop the price of the bike by $3000 within months of receiving mine!!!!!!! I literally still owe more on my bike loan than a new bike costs! Totally ridiculous. Oh did I mention you just devalued all of our used bikes by the same amount. Beyond Lame on Stark Futures part. I would like for Stark Future to please send me and other early buyers each a $3000 check to make up for this.

 

[Philip]

Haha! About six month ago Tesla owners around the world were just as upset as you are right now. Elon Musk dropped the prices so much that owners and recent buyers in China stormed Tesla dealerships there in protest!

But... @FreedomFlyer, why are you buying a dirt bike on credit? There is no freedom in that. You should be paying for it in cash, while at the same time saving gold and silver coins, along with ammunition and dry food. That's real freedom! Not the way to become wealthy but at least a declaration of financial independence.

 

[tymck7]

Haha! About six month ago Tesla owners around the world were just as upset as you are right now. Elon Musk dropped the prices so much that owners and recent buyers in China stormed Tesla dealerships there in protest!

But... @FreedomFlyer, why are you buying a dirt bike on credit? There is no freedom in that. You should be paying for it in cash, while at the same time saving gold and silver coins, along with ammunition and dry food. That's real freedom! Not the way to become wealthy but at least a declaration of financial independence.

My letter to Stark:
I just wanted to say I feel totally taken for supporting you guys as an early adopter and being one of the first people to place an order years ago to only have you drop the price of the bike by $3000 within months of receiving mine!!!!!!! I literally still owe more on my bike loan than a new bike costs! Totally ridiculous. Oh did I mention you just devalued all of our used bikes by the same amount. Beyond Lame on Stark Futures part. I would like for Stark Future to please send me and other early buyers each a $3000 check to make up for this.

The bike dropped that $3000 the moment you walked it out of the dealership. Dirt bikes are not an investment, they depreciate. And fast.

 

[happyinmotion]

Batteries are getting cheaper every year. Electric vehicles are getting cheaper every year.

This is a good thing.

 

[Bendejo]

Batteries are getting cheaper every year. Electric vehicles are getting cheaper every year.

This is a good thing.

Agreed

 

[Philip]

Stark dropped the price of their replacement/spare battery alone by almost $3,000. That's awesome.

 

[Aleksandar13]

It is painful to take a hit on a brand new bike, very hard pill to swollow but as mentioned above the market for electric bikes and batteries needs to become more competitive and that ultimately brings the price down for the end user. Think about a laptop costing 2k back in 1995 and now you can get a run of the mill one for 200 pounds and it will probable outperform the 2k one from back in the day.
One thing that would be even more impressive is that stark make the battery swap in less than 5 min

 

[Theo]

My letter to Stark:
I just wanted to say I feel totally taken for supporting you guys as an early adopter and being one of the first people to place an order years ago to only have you drop the price of the bike by $3000 within months of receiving mine!!!!!!! I literally still owe more on my bike loan than a new bike costs! Totally ridiculous. Oh did I mention you just devalued all of our used bikes by the same amount. Beyond Lame on Stark Futures part. I would like for Stark Future to please send me and other early buyers each a $3000 check to make up for this.

On one hand, I respect the fact that you made sacrifices to afford your Varg. Unfortunately, motorsport in general is pretty unfeasible because of the money and time needed and that's why, sadly, so many people love it but they have to get satisfied of being just fans and not riders, drivers or pilots.
Actually this is the main reason for which I like electric dirtbikes: for now, at least, they don't make motocross cheap but at least it's less time consuming because of way less maintenance and, hopefully, a future better availability of tracks in places where gas dirtbikes would be too loud to be allowed.
So I respect the fact that you made an effort and bought the bike and understand what you feel for the depreciation.

On the other hand, IMHO at least, Stark has a very hard job to do: to change people's minds. The Varg gets so much hatred at the track and there is not a logical reason, since it's a fast bike and of course if someone likes riding a 2T or 4T then that person is going to have a lot of fun on the Varg, too, it's just that there is this stupid trend of feeling cool when stating that electric dirtbikes suck and it's extremely hard to fight such trends. Surely lowering the price is a very good way of getting more customers and I don't want Stark to go bankrupt like many other EV companies; remember that if that happens we will also lose the technical support and the spare parts availaility and then our bikes will also be worth way less because of that.

Personally I feel way angrier because of all those people who say a lot of offensive false crap about electric dirtbikes thinking that it makes them cool.

 

[Chaconne]

My letter to Stark:
I just wanted to say I feel totally taken for supporting you guys as an early adopter and being one of the first people to place an order years ago to only have you drop the price of the bike by $3000 within months of receiving mine!!!!!!! I literally still owe more on my bike loan than a new bike costs! Totally ridiculous. Oh did I mention you just devalued all of our used bikes by the same amount. Beyond Lame on Stark Futures part. I would like for Stark Future to please send me and other early buyers each a $3000 check to make up for this.

I understand you are ticked off but if the housing market collapses and your house goes down in value by 20% (like happened in 2008) would you expect the seller to refund the loss you took? Investing in anything always include risk. Plus, you have ridden your bike and even if Stark arbitrarily kept the prices high like the government did in the real estate downturn the market for re-selling still collapses. Supply and demand still holds.

Stark is responding to the double hit of the dirtbike market collapsing (KTM is in huge trouble for example) and the slowing of EV adoption generally in places like the US. Bigger ICE oriented companies like KTM can probably just shrink their lines (like discontinue GasGas and Husky) and stiff their stockholders for a few years as they have in the past and survive. Stark on the other hand --as a startup-- will have to continue to show value and demand to keep interest and a trajectory to profit or the venture dollars will dry up and they will go out of business.

BTW the big four have already pretty much already given up on the dirtbike market in the US anyway. The decline of general off-road motorcyling in the US since the 1980s (largely replaced by 4-wheel OHVs) has mostly left dirtbikes as a brand marketing tool and boutique market rather than full fledged recreational vehicle for the big four at least. I believe Stark's largest single market was the US so that makes longer term growth a problem for them. Hopefully the lower price will attract more European, Asian, and South American customers where the culture for recreational non-track dirtbiking still lives.

 

[Philip]

On the other hand, IMHO at least, Stark has a very hard job to do: to change people's minds. The Varg gets so much hatred at the track and there is not a logical reason, since it's a fast bike and of course if someone likes riding a 2T or 4T then that person is going to have a lot of fun on the Varg, too, it's just that there is this stupid trend of feeling cool when stating that electric dirtbikes suck and it's extremely hard to fight such trends. Surely lowering the price is a very good way of getting more customers and I don't want Stark to go bankrupt like many other EV companies; remember that if that happens we will also lose the technical support and the spare parts availaility and then our bikes will also be worth way less because of that.

The key is to stay profitable and not run out of cash. This is what happened to Alta. I remember how angry @Mark911 got when Alta introduced the MXR for just $12K and simultaneusly dropped the price of his MX from $15K to $10K overnight. Eventually, he was right though. Alta tried to expand too quickly and they didn't have a good plan. Worse than that, they had a bad plan to rely on Harley to "help them".

 

[AgileMike]

I think it's great that Stark is making the bike more affordable for everyone. When you invest in technology (EV, computer, phone) prices tend to drop over time, or stay the same with increased features. I paid full price for my Alp[ha, but now my friends can afford to buy them at reduced prices. I can't wait until they can be purchased used for 6-7k because I think the battery is good for 400ish hours. I will have no problem buying a used bike with 100 hours on it, but I wouldn't pay over 4k for an ICE bike with 100 hours.

 

[Philip]

If you would like to follow Mark @XEMX1 and his custom dirt bikes and kits with 8-second swappable batteries, please follow this thread: XEMX Custom Electric Dirtbikes & Kits

@AgileMike @Chaconne

 

[Dirt-E]

I bought my EXR back in July of 2018 after waiting a while to get an Alta with a kickstand. I think it was the end of that September that Alta threw in the towel and I was sitting on a $14K paperweight, so $3K doesn't sound so bad

That being said, I've gotten several good years out of my bike and I was happy to pay the money for it, even if it had died on me right out of the gates. Matter of fact, it was out of service for a couple of years because of a bad battery module. If it wasn't for the helpful people in this forum, I never would've gotten it fixed again.

I mean, sure. If I could buy something for less that would make me happy as a consumer. But it's supply and demand.

 

[BBQKIDD]

I think the fact is that they dropped the price because the bikes are not selling like they projected they would. Believe me, if that demand was there, they would actually be raising the price because all of the things that go into building one of these keep getting more expensive (ie the currencies do not buy as much as they used to because they are being diluted to a great extent). I am sure Stark are as unhappy about this as you are.

 

[B. FRANK]

alta dropped their prices about three grand before they went belly up, I hope this isn't the case with stark but with the whole not allowed to race thing could put them in dire straits(not the band).

 

[jswr450]

I get why people might be upset, but I'm more concerned about the longevity of the brand than a price cut. I hope it allows them to sell tons of bikes and keep going.

For $14K you got a bike that's faster than a factory mx bike with top shelf suspension, brakes, and components. Pretty good value, really.

 

[UKLee]

I get why people might be upset, but I'm more concerned about the longevity of the brand than a price cut. I hope it allows them to sell tons of bikes and keep going.

For $14K you got a bike that's faster than a factory mx bike with top shelf suspension, brakes, and components. Pretty good value, really.

I agree....when the bike is running it is an impressive bit of kit BUT Still getting way to many issues with them and yes at first stark were quite quick to try and put issues right but as time as gone on we are getting fobbed off and if you make an enquiry between friday afternoon and monday morning you get this daft SAM thing which is usually no use at all so the weekends riding you planned is wasted.
We are seeing stark replacing the complete power train to fix problems even when replaced with the one with the thicker plastic cover or the gen 2 with steel cover these are still failing. Seems to me they are sending us there old stock in the hope it lasts until the warranty is up but if it fails after that it is going to cost us £3100 for a replacement power train which could go the same way
The stark was supposed to cut running costs compared to 4 stroke engine rebuilds but £3100 would go a long way in pistons, valves etc.

 

[fsfs]

I agree....when the bike is running it is an impressive bit of kit BUT Still getting way to many issues with them and yes at first stark were quite quick to try and put issues right but as time as gone on we are getting fobbed off and if you make an enquiry between friday afternoon and monday morning you get this daft SAM thing which is usually no use at all so the weekends riding you planned is wasted.
We are seeing stark replacing the complete power train to fix problems even when replaced with the one with the thicker plastic cover or the gen 2 with steel cover these are still failing. Seems to me they are sending us there old stock in the hope it lasts until the warranty is up but if it fails after that it is going to cost us £3100 for a replacement power train which could go the same way
The stark was supposed to cut running costs compared to 4 stroke engine rebuilds but £3100 would go a long way in pistons, valves etc.

You really should have taken my advice and not bought a stark.

 

[UKLee]

You really should have taken my advice and not bought a stark.

From memory that was more to do with lack of hot swap battery.
Seems some on here do not like me telling it as it is, Are we only allowed to say good things about the stark? Believe me this is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[fsfs]

I have made it clear that I am not employed by Stark Future nor am I a fan of the company. I am not defending the bike. It is not a secret that it is not a reliable machine and that it has water ingress problems.

It is just that you are a constant complainer -- even before you received your bike. You don't seem like the kind of guy that likes the "bleeding edge", yet that is exactly where you went.

Edit: typos