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UTC quote
Just listed in Dealer News:

Electric scooter purveyor Vectrix Corp. has laid off all but the most essential staff and is beginning the process of preparing for a bankruptcy filing.

Vectrix Corp. is headquartered in Middletown, R.I., had an assembly facility in Wroclaw, Poland, and had an R&D center in New Bedford, Mass. Employees in the U.S. were told of the move when they arrived at work July 13.

Mike Boyle, president and CEO, Vectrix Corp., says he suspects bankruptcy will be filed in the next 30 days if efforts to find financing continue to prove unsuccessful.

"The company has been operating in challenging market conditions for some time as a result of the credit crunch and lack of consumer spending on bigger ticket retail purchases," Boyle wrote in a note to dealers sent out July 15. "The company has made every effort to reduce costs and conserve cash, but market conditions continue to be difficult and the results of sales have been very disappointing."

In April, Dealernews reported that Vectrix Corp. had dismissed about 60 employees to cut costs and said it planned to seek "strategic alternatives, which could include a merger or sale of the business."

"They have been unable to raise the cash needed to maintain the staff," an anonymous source from within the company told Dealernews at the time.

Conceived in 1996 by a group of engineers at Lockheed Martin and a former competitive sailor, Andrew McGowan, Vectrix, together with strategic partner Parker-Hannifin, invested more than $50 million and the better part of 11 years to bring a first product, the VX-1 (MSRP $10,495), to market in 2007. The company completed its IPO on the London Stock Exchange about 19 months ago and this year added the VX-1E ($8,495) and entry-level VX-2 ($5,195) scooters to its lineup.

Vectrix supplied more than 90 dealers in the U.S. and nearly 160 dealers worldwide. "Models and dealers" have been the two issues keeping Vectrix from skyrocketing success, Boyle told Dealernews during an interview in February.

"It's just such a shame, because it was a really good idea and a decent product but lacked the appropriate price point and follow-up development," a source formerly in charge of dealer development told Dealernews following the recent announcement. "It was frustrating for those of us from the motorcycle industry who were involved, and we tried to convince them to change how they were doing things.

"My whole thing was dealer health - if the dealers are healthy everybody wins - and they just didn't understand that."
OP
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UTC quote
Harley not doing so well either...........

H-D Q2 Net Income Plummets 91%Publish date: Jul 16, 2009
Source: Dealernews
Dismal business results during the first half of the year are causing Harley-Davidson to cut motorcycle shipments 25 to 30 percent compared to last year and to reduce its workforce by an additional 1,000 employees.

H-D net income for its second quarter ended June 30 was $19.8 million, down 91.1 percent compared to income of $222.8 million in the second quarter of 2008. Revenue for the recently ended quarter was $1.15 billion, down 26.7 percent compared to $1.57 billion for the same three-month period last year.

H-D officials say key factors affecting earnings were primarily affected by the planned 27.6 percent reduction in motorcycle shipments compared to the year-ago period and by two non-cash charges related to HDFS: a $72.7 million credit loss provision for a one-time reclassification of motorcycle loan receivables; and a one-time $28.4 million charge to write off the total goodwill associated with HDFS.

Worldwide second quarter retail sales of new Harley-Davidson motorcycles were down 30.1 percent compared to the year-ago quarter. Cycle sales were down 35.1 percent in the United States during the comparable periods, and declined 18.2 percent in international markets.

Revenue from Parts and Accessories (P&A), which consists of Genuine Motor Parts and Genuine Motor Accessories, totaled $231.5 million, a decrease of 12.9 percent or $34.2 million versus the year-ago quarter. Revenue from General Merchandise, which includes MotorClothes and apparel, totaled $69.6 million, a decrease of 9.4 percent or $7.2 million from the year-ago quarter.

SIX-MONTH RESULTS

For the first six months of 2009, H-D's net income was $137.1 million, down compared to $410.4 million in the first half of 2008. The company's revenue totaled $2.44 billion, a 15.1 percent decrease from the year-ago period.

Worldwide retail sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles for the recently ended half-year period declined 23.6 percent compared to the first half of 2008. U.S. retail sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles for the comparable periods declined 26.1 percent; international retail sales decreased 17.8 percent.

Six-month P&A revenue totaled $401.2 million, a 10.4 percent decrease from $447.6 million in the first half of 2008. General Merchandise revenue totaled $144.8 million, a 10.0 percent decrease compared to $160.8 million during the same period last year.

SHIPMENTS

H-D shipped 58,179 Harley-Davidson motorcycles in the second quarter of 2009 compared to 80,326 motorcycles shipped in the year-ago period. Through the first six months of this year, shipments of Harley-Davidson motorcycles were 132,849 units, a 12.7 percent decrease compared to 152,194 units during the first of 2008.

In light of the decline in retail motorcycle sales, H-D has lowered its 2009 shipment expectations to between 212,000 and 228,000 bikes to dealers and distributors worldwide - 25 percent to 30 percent fewer than the 303,479 shipped in 2008.

WORKFORCE REDUCTION

H-D, as a result of the lowered shipment volume, plans to implement a further reduction this year of approximately 700 positions in the hourly production workforce and 300 positions in the non-production, primarily salaried headcount. The company plans to offer a voluntary separation incentive package to eligible salaried employees. These cut come in addition to H-D's plan from earlier this year, which called for a workforce reduction of about 1,400 to 1,500 hourly production positions and about 300 non-production, primarily salaried positions in 2009 and 2010.

"While the underlying fundamentals of the Harley-Davidson brand remain strong and our dealers' retail motorcycle sales declined less than our competitors, it is obviously a very tough environment for us right now, given the continued weak consumer spending in the overall economy for discretionary purchases," says Harley-Davidson, Inc. President and CEO Keith Wandell.

Regarding the lay-offs, Wandell says: "We continue to take these difficult actions to manage through the current challenges and we also continue to take major steps in creating the operational effectiveness that is essential to our long-term future. We are committed to doing what is required to enable Harley-Davidson to operate as a competitive business and employer over the long haul."

Harley-Davidson plans to introduce its 2010 model year motorcycles July 25 at the company's summer dealer meeting in Denver.
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UTC quote
That's sad new about Vectrix!!

... and Harley... eh...
@chad avatar
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Olivia Newton-John
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UTC quote
who would have thought that an $11,000 scooter that only goes 40 miles before it quits working wouldn't sell?

myself, i am amazed this has happened.

Nerd emoticon
@chilln avatar
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UTC quote
chad wrote:
who would have thought that an $11,000 scooter that only goes 40 miles before it quits working wouldn't sell?

myself, i am amazed this has happened.

Nerd emoticon
Razz emoticon You have a point my friend!

I was hoping that they would manage to decrease costs and set a new standard for the technology. Who knows, they may have already got the ball rolling.
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chad wrote:
who would have thought that an $11,000 scooter that only goes 40 miles before it quits working wouldn't sell?
myself, i am amazed this has happened.
Nerd emoticon
+1.
IMO electric scooters are a good idea, but they need adequate range and speed. And their price needs to be competitive with the equivalent gas burning models.
IMO the Vetrix was none of these things...

Get the price down to under $10k, and produce a scooter that can do 75MPH top end, and last for maybe 200 miles before needing a simple standard plug-in recharging, and I'd be very interested... 8)
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UTC quote
Oh noes!

I had high hopes for Vectrix, but it seems they may have jumped into the market before the technology was where it needs to be, combined with bad timing with the economy taking a nose dive right after they began production. It was a fun bike to ride, although the limited range was disappointing.

Hmmm... maybe Tesla will buy them up and improve the power system to make them more practical and useful?
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UTC quote
Yep, Vetrix was a product that wasn't ready.

'careful with statistics on Harley. -91% in profit is still a profit in one of the most miserable times you can think of for what is an obvious non-necessity product in a highly competitive market with lots of new players gunning for it's niche.

(GM would have killed for break even!)
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UTC quote
I wonder what dealers will sell the left over units for. The dealer where I bought my Vespa's had 3 of them.
⬆️    About 3 months elapsed    ⬇️
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UTC quote
Dillinger-63 wrote:
I wonder what dealers will sell the left over units for. The dealer where I bought my Vespa's had 3 of them.
Bringing a dead topic back to life...

We have two scooters left, of the three we bought. Sold a blue one to a local woman and she loves it. Unfortunately we're still siting on these last two. Obviously going to have to take a huge loss on them, they're going elsewhere for less than 1/2 of original retail asking price!

What are everyone's thoughts/feeling on a product that no longer has the support of the company that created it or the dealers that sold them?
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UTC quote
Crawlerado wrote:
Dillinger-63 wrote:
I wonder what dealers will sell the left over units for. The dealer where I bought my Vespa's had 3 of them.
Bringing a dead topic back to life...

We have two scooters left, of the three we bought. Sold a blue one to a local woman and she loves it. Unfortunately we're still siting on these last two. Obviously going to have to take a huge loss on them, they're going elsewhere for less than 1/2 of original retail asking price!

What are everyone's thoughts/feeling on a product that no longer has the support of the company that created it or the dealers that sold them?
It would be intriguing to get one, but where would replacement parts come from in the future.
It's sad that the technology wasn't ready.
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UTC quote
Chazzlee wrote:
chad wrote:
who would have thought that an $11,000 scooter that only goes 40 miles before it quits working wouldn't sell?
myself, i am amazed this has happened.
Nerd emoticon
+1.
IMO electric scooters are a good idea, but they need adequate range and speed. And their price needs to be competitive with the equivalent gas burning models.
IMO the Vetrix was none of these things...

Get the price down to under $10k, and produce a scooter that can do 75MPH top end, and last for maybe 200 miles before needing a simple standard plug-in recharging, and I'd be very interested... 8)
this is basically my set of requirement too.

Also that doesn't weigh 650lbs and be massive.

It won't happen for a while.
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UTC quote
A local dealer had two in stock this summer and still has one left on the floor.

Some one said that you need to wait until the technology matures to the point where you can make a scooter that goes 75 MPH and has a 200 mile range. The technology won't be developed and matured unless companies like Vectix develop them. They need to "walk" before they "run" and the knowledge needed to create a mature product is built on the inital knowledge and the experience of doing it.

Vectrix is trying to make an electric commuter vehicle. The number of people who have a commute of less than 40 miles round trip is pretty high and fits well for most 'urban' residents. This simply means you need to plug it in at home and possible the office.

If I understand it correctly, Vecrix's product is pretty close to meeting this standard. The largest hurdle I have heard with the V scoot is that the way the battery power and charging process is managed is problematic. The process chosen was known by the designers was known to be less effective than other processes but thy needed to get the product to market with a reasonable price and the "better" charging process and batteries were not economically or mature enough to be proven technologies.
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Molto Verboso
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UTC quote
ya...Ain't surpeising... have fun replacing those batteries now.
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UTC quote
May not be dead yet. Don't sell inventory too cheap.
Miami Examiner wrote:
Vectrix Corporation announced September 28, 2009 that it entered into an asset purchase agreement to sell most of its assets to New Vectrix LLC ("New Vectrix"), a Delaware limited liability company sponsored by GH Venture Partners LLC. They have also filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Story here: http://www.examiner.com/x-14333-Green-Transportation-Examiner~y2009m9d29-The-Vectrix-is-dead-long-live-the-New-Vectrix
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UTC quote
I'm not at all surprised. It's a shame but new technology like this requires huge financial backing and Vectrix just didn't have the backing or the liquid assets to continue their R&D. A much bigger company with much deeper pockets will eventually produce the first "viable and marketable" electric scooter.

The Vectrix was/is an interesting product as a "concept" scooter but it was not ready for prime time ... in my opinion.
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Molto Verboso
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UTC quote
maybe AMF can buy harley.
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smallstate wrote:
maybe AMF can buy harley.
LOL! And back when they had, that's when the hogs were considered the worst bikes to buy as AFA reliability (and appearance) goes..!!
AMF made real POS Harleys, and the quality didn't come back up until the HD family bought back the company again!!
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UTC quote
Vectrix... Soon to be New Vectrix!
Just so you know... Vectrix may be back, now known as New Vectrix. They are going through bankrupcy but should emerge and be in operation. (not a done deal yet)

Read More Here.

In case you didn't notice the BMW electric scooter prototype shown recently relied heavily on Vectrix sourced products. Might be a good sign.

I was fortunate enough to ride a Vectrix and I have to say it was one cool ride. Heavy and big (Burgman 400 chassis) but the acceleration and regenerative braking were/are terrific.

If the range creeps up just a bit I'd get one for a second scoot.

Anyway, let's cross our fingers and maybe they'll make it to innovate in the 2 wheeled space.

Kent[/url]
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UTC quote
Just a short announcement.

"I HATE C1's"

Thank you

dk`
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