It will be interesting to watch . . .there are presently a handful of start up motorcycle companies . . . I think the timing is perfect.
There is an abundance of skilled personnel, cheap space and cheap money.
Pretty cool and that is about as attractive a touring bike as I've seen in a while. I find it more appealing than, as an example, the current BMW offering in the touring line.
It'll be interesting to watch this over the next year and see how many units the crop of startups have moved at retail.
I saw the Motus in Denver at Fay Myers last Thursday. I was impressed with the enthusiasm of guys that were showing it, I think it was the CEO and Chief Engineer. I will reserve judgment until I see them being produced and get to ride one.
It was my first time at that dealership (not a HD dealer but seemed to sell everything else)... Interesting group of people looking at the bike. Refreshing is a more appropriate term I think.
Jeremy, did you get to ride it? thoughts????
It is an exciting time to be a forward thinking motorcycle dealership.
Right now, the entire company is Lee Conn and Brian Case. If you saw anyone demonstrating a Motus, you saw par or all of the company. Kinda fun to watch.
Lee is much more comfortable in presentation mode than is Brian. Brian is very interesting to talk with. Very technical. I pressed him about a more "sport" oriented version with a shorter wheel base. We discussed chassis design and engine positioning, etc.
He said that if he were going to create a sport bike, he could come at the problem differently and would design the chassis completely differently. He also mentioned that a sport bike could be in the future. First things first.
I haven't gotten to ride it yet. Evidently their insurance only covers employees of the company. Since that's two people, I wasn't included.
I asked the Katech guy if he'd ridden it. He said no. He drives the Motus truck and provides engine management guidance as needed. Really nice kid. Seems knowledgeable for his age.
There is to be a five bike pre-production fleet that will have all the final components. These models will be available for "stress testing". I have volunteered my services.
the engine gets me more excited than the bike. the stripped down "naked" version looks like more of an after thought, which it probibly was, not a production version. SOOOOOOOO much potential. i wouldnt mind being on their design team for the "street" bike.
Who is writing their test protocols and procedures? Are they doing it themselves or contracting it?
My bet. . unless they've leased the appropriate tracks . . "bump", "wet", "crash" and so forth.
Many folks are under the impression that you just get on and ride and have a good time. In fact, the testing and documentation, for a new manufacturer, can easily run a couple of years. One of the reasons, and I'm sure they have this, that folks use very detailed scheduling.
There are so many documents that need to be submitted (perfectly), reviewed, resubmitted, insurances to get, bonds for the documents, and dates to be met that without "freeze" dates and milestones . . if one starts to slip it's easy to add years (and millions) to a project.
I look back at some of the detailed Primavera Buell Schedules and wonder how the heck with did it with 45 people.
It's a LOT of work. Test riding is a business and a critical part of the process. The documentation is huge.
Here's a START to give folks a feel for JUST THE EPA. The meat of the EPA is in major steps.
Interesting stuff.
This by the way . . . in comparison to the other federal and state (something similar gets done in every state you intend to sell in) is a small portion of the entire task. If you decide you want to sell overseas (the majority of Buells were sold overseas) it opens up an entirely new set of US federal agencies to export, customs to get your crating approved and then, of course, the homologation for the target markets.
I'm assuming that they are contracting with Katech and Pratt and Miller to assist them in the process.
I know the data acquisition box is P&M's.
They had several days at Barber a month or so ago for testing. I know the Ohlins folks were there doing testing on the suspension. I don't know if P&M and Katech folks were there, but I've never seen an event where they weren't there.
Looking through Court's links it looks like one hellofa process for EPA so much so they had to flow chart it however it looks to be a well understood process to my untrained eye. I would have much trouble with the terminology but it is interesting none the less.
With just two or two dozen people It looks to be a lot of work besides the actual design and building of the motorcycle.
When I think about owners manuals, training techs to work on the bike, distribution network, promotion, legal stuff and everything else that goes along with the motorcycle business it is mind boggling.
It is easy to see how a company could get wrapped up in everything besides building new innovative motorcycles.
One advantage of the powerplant is that it's fairly familiar architecture.
The transmission from clutch to transmission is completely cassette. 18 bolts gains access to the clutch. Behind that is the cassette transmission.
The GDI will suck to train a tech on, but the rest of the bike is fairly straight forward.
They are very aware (as we discussed it at the Bumpus demonstration) that they have only one shot to get it right. They stumble out of the gate, and they will likely not survive as a company.
-- I for one hope that ANY American Company especially in motorcycles does very, very well indeed.