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Profit? What a concept for a business. You could be onto something there!
It takes money to make money.
Last time I checked it was not unusual for a new business plan/model to make a profit for 5-10 years.
Can @ML512 post stats on who deletes more posts? 🤣
I'm aware of Honda's market and their manufacturing capacity, they have also been stating for many years their commitment to “zero environmental impact”.
Honda's CR-E was first patented 6 years ago, but it went into hiding until customers started receiving their Stark Vargs. If the CR-E had the Varg's level of performance, similar performance to a 450f, Honda would have been racing it in the All Japan Nationals and pushing the FIM to allow it to race in MXGP, as they have done with other pre-production prototypes.
The Stark Varg shocked the industry, nobody believed it was possible to produce an electric bike that was competitive with a 450f, Honda has some catching up to do.
Stark is currently just a pimple on the MX scene but if it turns into full blown abscess Honda will drain it.
If Honda started showing up at all these high profile races with a competitive E-Bikes what would that be telling their CRF250/450 customer base? Would they move over to Yamahas or KTMs? Maybe there would be a buying frenzy of CRFs or maybe Honda would have unsold CRFs sitting around in warehouses because their MX customer base felt alienated.
I would not be surprised if Honda Corporate had given the Honda E-bike department very specific marching orders as how this E-bike development process was going to happen or not happen. I say it's all about timing for Honda (and the rest of the ICE MX industry).
When the time is right they will build it.
The Shop
Saturday I rode a MX race for the first time in years. I only rode this particular track once about 15 years ago on my 300. I didn't remember much about the track other than it had a concrete starting pad. My Varg is set up for woods riding. When I got to the track it was all deep sand except for the jumps and whoops. I never remembered the track being sandy. The first time I took the bike out in practice (to no ones surprise ) it was way to soft. Back in the pits before the first moto I maxed out of the compression on both the fork and shock (low speed). Even with my "Soft" valving, the clickers made a big difference and was able to survive the moto but at 66 yo I wasn't ready to try any jumps. Lots of deep sand but the Varg ate it up with no shifting or having to stay in the right gear (cheater bike!). There were a couple of fast straights sections and even at 45 hp the Varg covered that ground very quickly. I basically lost my nerve to hold the throttle wide open and backed it off for a bit midway down the straight. I got great starts but I didn't want to do battle with the first turn crowd as I came solo and told my wife I would not get hurt. Between motos I had young feller come up who was parked next to me. He said "Sir, here is my phone and the keys to my truck, can I please ride your Varg up and down the pit road; just once?" I said forget the phone, where is your girlfriend...or mom...or grandmother? I told him I'd let him ride it if he stopped calling me Sir.
I believe in the almighty H though I am very skeptical that "when the time is right, they will build it". They could if only they could commit to this for sure.
We're talking about a tiny market here with dirtbikes, when you look at what they did with in the car world, obviously huge market, the incentives they got for years to develop their EV, and Honda is still getting butchered both on global sales (-30% in the past 5 years) and of course on EV sales (that never took off for lack of serious offer). For all the hurt they're getting in the car world I'm not that sure they would commit so much for electric dirtbikes and beat newcomers, seeing how they're still playing catch up after 10 years in the 4 wheels world.
Still hoping they would release the bike soon enough though, more rides to choose can only be a good thing.
How many miles can you go woods riding on your Varg?
I don't count the miles so much but the hours. I ride technical single track in Arkansas which means creeks, steep hills, rocks and roots. I ride for about three hours and then I'm ready for a break. I usually have around 35-40% battery left. Miles total would be around 20.
The issue with bikes, is that not matter how good the motor is, the battery is always the limiting factor.
And bikes are not big enough to have decent batteries.
TT Zero was 1 lap The Mugen lapped in just shy of 122 Mph with the best pilot you can get on board.
Next nearest was 20mph down from that, in a time that wouldnt have won a race in the 60's .
Most of the entries were Universities , i wouldn't have got on one of those bikes round there for any amount of money.
It doesnt run any more because nobody cares, nobody wants the bikes .
My buddy who rode the TT tested EV bikes , and they were touting 125 mile range.. and that wasnt at a fast speed. He couldnt get it from his house to where he rode the twisties, and home again without it going flat.
Ford just announced in the UK , that the uptake of EV's is now so bad , that the only way for the company to meet the Government targets for percentage of EV's sold , is to stop making petrol and diesel cars . And they aint gonna be doing that without taking the entire Auto industry with them.
Its a fad, that has no business future, based on a political agenda. You cant make people buy things, and you cant make people accept them either.
Hertz lost £230m on their EV rental fleet because they are worth fuck all second hand.
So who is going buy a used Varg ?
Cos if you cant sell em used, nobody will want them new when they see how much they are losing.
And they are doing 1000 a month ? And halving battery prices. ?
Thanks. I too ride single track but usually go for 40-50 miles on a ride.
EVs are making inroads on battery life, see how the Energica is doing in Moto America's SuperHooligan series. They were competitive, at Circuit of the Americas (long for a motorcycle track) during the record breaking heat wave in Texas, 115F+ all day in the sun when you weren't standing in an ocean of black pavement. That was a straight up fight vs gas bikes.
We do a lot of pure single track 60-70 mile rides in the mountains. Lots of long descents and followed by slow climbs. On a gas bike we coast to preserve fuel and just because it's fun.
Rarely is your bike in the upper RPM range.
I wonder what kind of mileage a Varg would do on these kinda rides, do you actually get power back from the Regenerative braking?
For those interested about range for trail, single track, enduro, if you have not seen them already you should check out Enduro enforcer range videos on YT, there are 3 or 4 of them, very detailed for different kinds of riding. You also have electric cycle rider battery range test which gives some answers.
Another aspect I failed to include is the green angle. If you look at Honda's future goals it is heavily weighted toward zero emissions, sustainability and EVs.
But wait, EVs suck, sales are dropping, Ford can't give them away, there is no charging infrastructure, they don't have decent range, they don't work when it's cold and they are far worse than ICE vehicles for the environment. Today, maybe so but as Honda see it; that will change. Last month Honda dropped over 10 billion into an electric vehicle value chain in Canada. That's on top of the 3.5 billion going into battery module production facility in Ohio, 700 million to prepare Honda plants in the U.S. for production of electric vehicles and the $3.4 billion in its electric motorcycle business by 2030 with a annual sales to 4 million units for that year. That's some serious coin even for Honda. Now where do you think fossil fueled bikes fall into that plan? Answer: They don't. Honda is not going to put that much money into EV's and then have ICE powered dirt bikes as a blemish on an otherwise green company. There is too much marketing valve in Honda's EV program to tolerate a stupid ICE dirt bike. Stark is doing an admirable job of beta testing the waters for Honda to launch a MX E-bike. But in reality Stark is probably moving way to slow for Honda's plans. Honda is already grooming your kids on EV dirt bikes so you might as well keep that CRF450R spotless because it's only future is as a museum piece.
thanks for sharing that. Yea, 22-23 miles won't cut it for me I hate to say. Loved the idea though.
Honda wanted to run their electric in th 250 class when they did the Japan national. What if they consider it a 250class bike and they will have another 450 class bike to compete with the Varg? That is what I was thinking.
Battery prices might be going down because of the increased production and perhaps they are getting a better price, I figured they would take 4 or 5 years to start to come down in price by that much. But that price drop is what I have been saying would happen from the start.
Sure they're finally going big... my point is that it's 10 years later. Will they also let Stark have a 10 years head start and hope they can still catch up later?
Plus Honda motorcycle revenue is about 1/5 of their automotive revenue, and dirt bikes are an even smaller part of this modest contribution (18 million bikes sold, how many of them would be dirtbikes, well under 1%?), the CR electric must be very far down the list of priorities at Honda headquarters.
It's unlikely to be the price of the battery cells, the Molicel P42B's have been advertised at $1 for a while...
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/100-Original-High-Performance-High-Capacity_1600950496260.html
400 cells in a battery pack, total cell cost would be $400, if Stark are dealing direct with Molicel, they should be getting them for less than $1 per cell. That doesn't explain a $3000 drop in battery pack price.
Pit Row
Maybe Anton is only sticking it in halfway now instead of all the way.
I could likely do a 40+ mile ride if it was slow and technical (I recently did a enduro and put on 35 miles before getting into battery range trouble). The MX track I rode on was a power sucking thing yet I used about 15% for every 10 minutes of ride time so 10 minute practice + two 10 minute motos (5 laps each) = 45%~ battery used.
If you ride on trails that allow more speed then you will probably be back to less miles.
More Speed = More Power Used.
Honda has the big advantage of pulling from their auto vehicle technology and adapting it to the motorcycle line up. What technology it takes to make a car or truck a good EV can be adapted to a bike. Today's current algorithms, drivetrains and such are technological overkill for what a motorcycle requires. Plus Honda is phasing in electric 2 wheelers for mass trans applications. They can pull technology from many sources. Honda's space program has been into fuel cells that are lighter than Li-ion with 4-5 times the energy density and have to survive in much harsher conditions than you will find on earth. Does Stark have a space program?
It is also possible that Honda may simply sell off their off road motorcycle division and walk away from that aspect of the industry and use that money for something else. I mean except for a few dirt bike riders; who would care? Plus it gets that nasty off road blemish off Honda's green image.
Or cut the MSRP by $3000!
That would put it below the MSRP of 450 KTM, Husqvarna, GasGas, Yamaha and Kawasaki.
Other than the obvious cost coming down for them, either raw materials, labor or insurance . Perhaps they are also proving to be reliable enough to offer at the lower price? I looked quickly to see if they were making a big deal out of it. And did not see any ads or written announcements, kind of strange to make such a cut and not advertise it.
Often when a tech item's price starts to get lower, there is something new coming. Maybe not from Stark, but who knows.
So I was thinking that maybe they know of another brand coming out with something that will be priced similarly or out perform the Vargs battery at a similar price to what Stark has been selling them for. Like either a new bike, OR an aftermarket performance battery for the Varg. Perhaps a company making a $6k battery that would increase the range of the Varg .
Rules allowing an EMX bike into a race that restricted the battery cost? Or selling them cheaper to help riders who might need a second battery to be able to race the Varg?
I wonder why they are not making a big deal out of the price drop? Like others have said , maybe they are planning a big drop in price for the Varg sometime soon? That would be awesome to see them drop by $3k.It would be very strange to drop the battery price, but not the total bike's price. Unless it was for some reason other than profit or cost of building the battery itself.
or it's just a typo...
I would say cutting the price of the battery would be a good loss leader strategy to increase the usability of the bike, but since it's not quick change that doesn't seem likely.
I could never legitimize the $7K cost on paper but the E-tards all supported it.
My lord.. if any one has concerns or doubts on future Electric bikes and batteries…
solid state batteries will solve all issues.
You should talk to a therapist
Why? I am not the one that would spend $7 on a $2K battery.
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