| Author | Message | ||
     Alchemy |
The dollar to Euro ratio hurts when you buy the engine in Euros but helps when you sell a lot of them in Europe for Euros and then convert the profit to dollars. This means so much to the company I work for that the stock price rises when the dollar weakens. We sell a lot in Europe it seems. | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
"Those who buy the 1125r may be confident they have the best engine Buell can provide." No question about that one. | ||
| Jayvee |
Mifef5000, when BMW went from boxer to the flying brick is what I meant. Then they had to go back to Boxer II, another clean-sheet design, but with certain features demanded by BMW traditionalists. No Rotax in either of these (that I know of.) Nobody has yet explained why Yamahondasaki can make whole new engines pretty regular, for either their DIRT, STREET, SPORT, CRUISER, QUAD, or PERSONAL WATERCRAFT lines (Suzuki even makes cars), but it doesn't make their products prohibitively expensive. They don't seem to be out-sourcing their engine desing/building. Why is Buell unique in this way? How little I know about manufacturing doesn't go far to explain it. I'm not an idiot, but go ahead and assume I am, and explain it to me like you would to a 10-year old, as they say. | ||
| Mikef5000 |
Yamahondasaki are each massive when compared to Buell. If Buell was near that size, they could churn out motors too! I know you mean when compared to HD, but HD is a completely different market for now. Churning out new motors is NOT important to most of the HD customers, and therefor not something HD wants to spend massive amounts of money on. (Message edited by mikef5000 on September 28, 2007) | ||
| S1eric |
Jayvee. I think you answered your own question. Yamahondasaki makes a lot of different products to build capitol dollars. A lot of different products. Buell builds motorcycles. I believe they have to stand alone for the most part when it comes to the bottom line. They have to show the mother company they can make a profit. If you have read any of the articles about the 1125r you will here every writer say that for a small company, Buell has produced an amazing product. Continue doing what you do and do it well. Thanks Buell. S1Eric | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
"Yamahondasaki makes a lot of different products to build capitol dollars." Harley could have funded a liquid cooled motor project with the money they make in t-shirts alone. They'd rather spend millions to develop a slide out seat for a Rocker than a dime for a new motor for Buell. Shipping motor development overseas, cancelling new projects...Why doesn't HD just sell Buell? Question is, who'd buy it? I love the idea of the employees buying it back. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I think Erik should just quit and start his own company..... | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
HAHAHHA...BueII | ||
| Glitch |
We sell a lot in Europe it seems. Since the birth of the XB, the sales in Europe have been way more than here. Jayvee, I know you're not an idiot, I can tell by the intelligent way you get your point across. If I thought you were an idiot, I'd ignore everything you posted. I think though your question has been answered for the most part. There is a tremendous amount that goes into manufacturing a product than many people realize. Unless you've been involved in manufacturing what you see is only on the surface, there's so much more to it than just being able to come up with an idea, learn to build it, and market it. I'd bet there's more to being a "mild-mannered clerk" than I understand that you could teach me I'm sure. | ||
| Jlnance |
Harley could have funded a liquid cooled motor project with the money they make in t-shirts alone. The question though, is why would they want to. IBM used to have the opposite problem. They were so famous for it, it got it's own name. NIH, or Not Invented Here. They would design and build stuff in house, when it was already available off the shelf from other vendors. It did not lead to cost effectiveness or quality. It would be incredibly stupid to spend vast sums of money only to develop an engine as good as what they could have bought from Rotax. Simply being able to say "we built it ourselves," is NOT justification for doing something like that. It would need to be better and cheaper for that to make sense. Given that Rotax is an engine company, they able to spread the expense of gaining experience and building facilities across many different projects. The bar is pretty high if you want to compete with them. You're not going to do it successfully if your customer base consists of Buell. You're going to need to be in the full on engine business. You can't be in every business, so you have to decide if this is a challenge you want to take on, or if you want to focus your efforts elsewhere. | ||
| Glitch |
+1 | ||
| Jlnance |
Nobody has yet explained why Yamahondasaki can make whole new engines pretty regular, for either their DIRT, STREET, SPORT, CRUISER, QUAD, or PERSONAL WATERCRAFT lines (Suzuki even makes cars), but it doesn't make their products prohibitively expensive. It's because the people that are designing the engines for the dirt bikes are the same ones designing the engines for the street bikes, and they are the same ones designing the engines for the cruisers etc. This means that instead of tacking $100 to the price of the dirt bike to cover the salaries of engine design people, you get to tack on $30 to the price of the dirt/street/cruiser bikes. Thats simplistic obviously. If you're going to design 10 engines, it's going to take more people than it takes to design 1. But it isn't going to take 10 times as many, and thats the point. The same with the factory. All those engines are probably made in the same factory. Again, if you're going to build 10 times as many engines, you need a bigger factory, but thats a lot cheaper than building 10 factories. | ||
| Glitch |
Thanks Jim, you explain things well. I give you +1 again! | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
Doesn't Harley build about 6-10 different motors at 2 different plants? This isn't like HD is starting from scratch. They already have the Evo, they couldn't have made a varient of that (according to some, it was already in the works a ways back)? Not every motor Rotax makes is totally different. I'm sure they share a bit. Special projects is what HD engineers and techs get paid to do at the PDC (Product Development Center) nobody is paid extra, engineering and design are what they're paid to do. Making new stuff is why the PDC was made. "It would be incredibly stupid to spend vast sums of money only to develop an engine as good as what they could have bought from Rotax" No, it's dumb not to use a billion dollar r&d center to try to work on new thoughts and engineering(its whole purpose for being). If people refused to develop because of fear that their product isn't good enough, nothing would ever get invented. | ||
| Lost_in_ohio |
Come on guys.......It is tough enough figuring out what else you can chrome..... Give them a break | ||
| Jayvee |
Buell selling (out) to H-D was supposed to provide access to resources, presumably for development. We got the Blast! Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about Aermacchi. There is a precedent. Dirt bikes, and sweet street singles...hmmm. Why not a Buell Rotax-powered single, with a dirt track racer version? Street single homologation, with a dirt/trail version, side-car commuter version (a la MZ.) Something like: http://www.rotax.net/Flattrack.htm | ||
| Jon |
Not going to read all the previous posts, but from what I've read, what a bunch of ingrates to be telling Harley to grow some cahones. Who do you think took the leash off of Buell for the 1125r? That bike is more than enough already. Let the bike make it's splash, let Buell gain from that, etc, then later bring out the dirt bikes. It'll happen, just not now. I think a dirt bike release now would detract from the new bike. Why muddy the water? Erik and Co., Thanks for the great bikes and the new 1125R (which I won't buy because I already have a Buell which suits me fine). | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Harley has used Rotax before.... So why wouldn't they use them again? | ||
| Court |
>>>I believe there was some unhappy posts about it from Court and/or other Buell people. My posts were not "unhappy", they were fact. Under the general "Respect the Individual" doctrine, I'd like to see the proper match up of people and credit due. . . it MAY happen. If you are really into the whole currency and exchange thing, here are several books that arrived here this week. Frankly, although I studied Econ, I'm not that up on it. However, my wife bets billions, actually about $2.5B, daily betting on currency flucuations. . . it'sd very scary business and all the bar room theories quickly fall apart . . .  | ||
| Buellshyter |
Ole Alan....he's busy painting everyone else as a moron and himself as Einstein's cousin. | ||
| 46champ |
Could it be their shelving the 450 because the FIM, probably under the prodding of some of the motorcycle manufactures, wants to race 350's instead. What better way to sell more bikes than obsolete the ones already sold. Buell is the last manufacture to build a 450, and if they did so it might be just in time to have no place to race. | ||
| Glitch |
Buell is the last manufacture to build a 450, and if they did so it might be just in time to have no place to race. History repeating itself, oh, the irony! | ||
| Anonymous |
No more RW-750s for us. You nailed one significant reason why it didn't happen. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Hmmm they sell some Buells in europe, there is a dealership in Moscow, I can muddle through with the language;) my house is on the market... I will let you know how currency exchange rates & motorcycle sales go first hand. | ||
| Steveshakeshaft |
No more RW-750s for us. And that's a darn shame too...... | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
I'm curious to see what else gets the ax from HD. The XR1200? or maybe the "Spyder" type trike thing? | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
Maybe this opens the door for the Buell ATV. They'd sell that faster than a dirt bike. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I've got two 4 wheelers I would love to trade for 2 dirt bikes. Bombardier 330 Outlander Bombardier 175 Rally I have never felt comfortable riding them hard. They just sit in the garage with the battery tender plugged in. They have ROTAX inside  | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
I bought a Can Am Renegade with the Rotax 800 about 2-3 months ago. Closeout from last season. I'd love to see a 4 wheel Buell sitting next to a 30k Fat Boy in a HD dealership. | ||
| Buellerandy |
stock with a winch  |
