I been away a few days at the London Bike Show and a couple of things have struck me. One from a thread here which noted:
"The two Bearprint Company owners Phil and Steve were very approachable and helpful both via email and by phone during my purchase of the Ebike. They confirmed that the Bearprint is virtually identical to the FreeGo Ebike and indeed the front connection box even has FreeGo name stamped on it. I believe that the Juicybike Ebike is also manufactured in the same factory in China. I very nearly purchased a Juicybike and would have done accept that the 2011 Sport model was not available at the time with the larger capacity battery. Bob at Juicybikes was a great help and very impartial in his advice to me. In the end I preferred the design of the New City Bearprint and the extras it had despite being more expensive. If money was no object I probably would have bought a Wisper but alas I could not afford it. I still think the Juicybike offers best value for money."
So here we have three different brandings of what may seem to be essentially the same bike. And someone else in the forum has previously, I seem to remember, commented that the Lifecycle was also similar - so it may be the case that there are at least apparently 4 variants of essentially the same bike with four different labels - how to confuse the poor consumer..... Bit like SEAT and FIAT....
But then at the show I looked closely at the EBCO Eagle for the first time - and then I read on a recent thread that there was a Sachs Electric Bike which to me at least superficially looks identical and is called an Eagle but was priced £150 less than the price EBCO were asking at the London Bike Show.....
There was also the Spencer Ivy at the show which is at least superficially similar to a member of the Kalkhoff range, but priced a bit above 50Cycles offering, as far as I can tell.
Looking further at the Eagle Electric bike on the web, it seems it might be a JD product from Taiwan, the TranzX PST, which may be branded by EBCO and by Sachs in the UK, and presumably by other 'importers'.
So what I had thought was a product designed and specified by EBCO turns out at least apparently to be one which is designed elsewhere and simply imported by them. I may be maligning them in saying this, of course they may have been instrumental and led the design project. I simply do not know. Quite possibly I have gained the wrong impression from their materials, but there is at least to me a real lack of clarity which might confuse the buyer. It has confused me
Perhaps the time has come to distinguish between on the one hand:
* companies in the UK which appear to be primarily importers with rebanding, which may include some or all of those mentioned in this post, where others in the UK offer very similar products with different labels but from the same factory of family of factories (we all know IP is porous in China), and
*those like Wisper, Ultramotor, Batribike and ourselves (to name three) where we have put specific input into the product, where there is genuine co-owned or fully owned IP , and genuine exclusivity in at least the UK market...
Let me be clear, I am not criticising any of the firms mentioned here or suggesting any impropriety or wrongdoing, and if that comes across I retract, withdraw and apologise. If there is any criticism at all it is perhaps of the ultimate manufacturers who seem to have a confused distribution model or confusion over IP….. Just to repeat, this is not about CLONING per se, but about confusing, probably completely unintentionally, the buyer. The buyer should I suggest know with whom they might be dealing and how close the "manufacturer" is to the actual R&D and manufacture....
Perhaps BEBA could question its members and categorise them accordingly? We appear close to the parallel import situation so common in the Pharma industry.
"The two Bearprint Company owners Phil and Steve were very approachable and helpful both via email and by phone during my purchase of the Ebike. They confirmed that the Bearprint is virtually identical to the FreeGo Ebike and indeed the front connection box even has FreeGo name stamped on it. I believe that the Juicybike Ebike is also manufactured in the same factory in China. I very nearly purchased a Juicybike and would have done accept that the 2011 Sport model was not available at the time with the larger capacity battery. Bob at Juicybikes was a great help and very impartial in his advice to me. In the end I preferred the design of the New City Bearprint and the extras it had despite being more expensive. If money was no object I probably would have bought a Wisper but alas I could not afford it. I still think the Juicybike offers best value for money."
So here we have three different brandings of what may seem to be essentially the same bike. And someone else in the forum has previously, I seem to remember, commented that the Lifecycle was also similar - so it may be the case that there are at least apparently 4 variants of essentially the same bike with four different labels - how to confuse the poor consumer..... Bit like SEAT and FIAT....
But then at the show I looked closely at the EBCO Eagle for the first time - and then I read on a recent thread that there was a Sachs Electric Bike which to me at least superficially looks identical and is called an Eagle but was priced £150 less than the price EBCO were asking at the London Bike Show.....
There was also the Spencer Ivy at the show which is at least superficially similar to a member of the Kalkhoff range, but priced a bit above 50Cycles offering, as far as I can tell.
Looking further at the Eagle Electric bike on the web, it seems it might be a JD product from Taiwan, the TranzX PST, which may be branded by EBCO and by Sachs in the UK, and presumably by other 'importers'.
So what I had thought was a product designed and specified by EBCO turns out at least apparently to be one which is designed elsewhere and simply imported by them. I may be maligning them in saying this, of course they may have been instrumental and led the design project. I simply do not know. Quite possibly I have gained the wrong impression from their materials, but there is at least to me a real lack of clarity which might confuse the buyer. It has confused me
Perhaps the time has come to distinguish between on the one hand:
* companies in the UK which appear to be primarily importers with rebanding, which may include some or all of those mentioned in this post, where others in the UK offer very similar products with different labels but from the same factory of family of factories (we all know IP is porous in China), and
*those like Wisper, Ultramotor, Batribike and ourselves (to name three) where we have put specific input into the product, where there is genuine co-owned or fully owned IP , and genuine exclusivity in at least the UK market...
Let me be clear, I am not criticising any of the firms mentioned here or suggesting any impropriety or wrongdoing, and if that comes across I retract, withdraw and apologise. If there is any criticism at all it is perhaps of the ultimate manufacturers who seem to have a confused distribution model or confusion over IP….. Just to repeat, this is not about CLONING per se, but about confusing, probably completely unintentionally, the buyer. The buyer should I suggest know with whom they might be dealing and how close the "manufacturer" is to the actual R&D and manufacture....
Perhaps BEBA could question its members and categorise them accordingly? We appear close to the parallel import situation so common in the Pharma industry.
