Spot the difference...

[Deleted member 4366]

This thread is like listening to a group of serial killers arguing about which van is the most practical.

It's definitely the Vivaro. I wish I had got one instead of my Transit 350. Got to go now, I'm just off down to the shops to buy some filleting knives because I'm hoping to go fishing when I get the van fixed

 

[eddieo]

Fiat ducatto far nicer then Transit.. but then new transit out 2013, along with a whole raft of e bikes to keep you lot bickering

 

[eddieo]

Intellectual property..........

REDACTED DUE TO BEING TERMINALLY BORING


Hatti

Wiki....the last resort of an exhausted mind

 

[Wisper Bikes]

David

I am puzzled. You are suggesting to me that we go design our own bikes - but this costs megabucks.
I give you an example to illustrate the kind of commitment and volume you'd need if you wanted to become an e bike manufacturer.
The Woosh Zephyr is made by the same company that makes the Sirocco 2. We suggested to the rep some improvements last May and luckily, they agreed to modify the moulds. Their cost: $50,000, our cost: $15 more per bike. The new Zephyr will be with us in December.
To design and engineer a unique bike - must be in the region of £100,000 - £200,000.
A quick look at your balance sheets for the last few years doesn't show any signs of this. Am I missing something here?

The frame tooling and design costs for the 905e were amortized over a period of time. I have never tried to kid anyone that we were anything but a small business, we pay ourselves hardly anything, probably why I still get annoyed when or bike styles are so blatantly copied! I keep telling myself I should be flattered.

We are in the process of designing and developing another completely new bike and the costs are €300,000-€400,000 including design and moulding tools etc. Again we are being supported by our OEM partner. We will still of course be using off the shelf components. Isn't that the way the bike industry works?

For the record, I also do not have any problem with people buying a bike off the shelf making a few changes and branding it, this practice has been about forever and is completely legitimate.

If I am honest, I would have completely ignored this new 905 style homage if it hadn't been bought up on Pedelecs.

Next year the 905Classic will retail at £1,799.00, we have reduced our margins to keep it sub £1,800.00 I guaranty the components used to build a bike make a massive difference.

Regards

David

 

[Wisper Bikes]

Just what is the problem here.everybody knows if you pay a lot more for a bike,you expect better quality components and you should expect better after market support from an established seller,but all this about people trying to copy a wisper is complete crap,it is not like people with similar looking frames try and sell them as a similar name or anything,i think wisper do not like the fact that they are around half the price,and even use the same type of bafang motor,they become all defensive and try and run down the competition,if you look at any premium mountain bike be it scott,giant,marin,cannondale etc you could find a very close looking bike for a third of the price.but it would be much heavier and harder to ride,and also fitted with very cheap components. a good value premium bike will always sell if it is far better specced and easier to ride than a cheap one.

Hi Paul, you make very good points, the bikes though they look similar are very different. I have never said that anyone has exactly copied our bike. The fact is though that there is confusion otherwise this post would never have been started. We have suffered more than most with people copying the style of our 9 series bikes and this is simply another example.

All the best

David

 

[Woosh]

David @Wisper

You seem to have changed your tune somewhat. The Woosh Sirocco 2 is no longer a clone but Woosh is 'copying your style'.
You now also admit that you do not have the means to carry out the level of R and D you would expect Woosh to engage in before competing with Wisper.
The clear distinction between what you said at the beginning of this thread and what you are saying now does not help your credibility.
There is nothing wrong with Wisper being a small business, David, but what is wrong is that you choose to sling mud at one of your competitors.
It could be that people stop trusting what you say from now on.

Woosh do not pre announce products. We don't put Union Jacks on our website in an effort to make customers think that they are British made due to the utmost respect that we have for our Chinese partners.
They are the ones with the expertise, financial and industrial muscles to bring these products to market with clear benefits to thousands of customers.

Hatti

 

[Wisper Bikes]

Hatti,

I have not changed my tune nor the way I feel about your cheap attempts to make money out of our hard work and experience. I was simply trying to take the heat out of the situation, nothing more. You know what I think of you, your company and your business ethics.

I would prefer to leave it there than have a slanging match with you in open forum.

I will therefore not be dragged in to your ill informed and ridiculous comments about Wisper and will not be making any further comment.

You have had your publicity, now move on.

If anyone would like to talk to me personally about any of the points that Hatti has raised, my mobile number is on the bottom of this post and I would be most happy to talk about any point made.

Regards

David

 

[jazper53]

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery. For the layman who really don't give toss who copied who, all we want is a good product at the most competitive price.

 

[flecc]

Woosh do not pre announce products.

Hatti

That's a pity Hatti. Pre-announcement is popular among consumers, car makers have leaked model details up to two or even more years ahead to the motoring press, and consumers eagerly peruse the comprehensive lists of "What's coming" in motoring magazines.

This helps the consumer in two ways, either by avoiding spending on something not as suitable as something coming shortly, or giving them the go ahead to safely buy now since nothing more suited is due to arrive. The latter applied to me last year in buying a new car for a particular set of circumstances, nothing more suitable on the horizon so I confidently ordered a suitable five year old design in it's latest incarnation.

 

[Woosh]

flecc,

Products in the pipeline are communicated to us by the manufacturers on the basis of strict confidence.
If we 'leak' their details, we'll be helping their competitors. I don't want to chance that!
Sometimes I post on this forum new ideas that we would like to pursue (such as using 350W BPM motors and Bofeili mid drive, recelling batteries with premade bricks) - we are clearly asking for members' advice and this does not imply any time-frame.
We then pass on the market intelligence to our Chinese partners to help influence their product development.
Woosh is a young company with an old-fashioned attitude, 'walk before you can run' - we will carry on learning as we have been in the past from other manufacturers and importers and will introduce better products as we gain in experience.
I must say a word of thanks to all the members of the forum who have given me their time to help us avoid mistakes as much as see the way forwards.

Hatti

 

[flecc]

Yes, I think many companies have found the forum a very useful sounding board to help them progress ideas.

As for manufacturers maintaining secrecy on plans, I think that probably just indicates the immaturity of the e-biking market. The long and soundly established motor industry have the confidence to do things differently, and no doubt one day the e-bike market will reach the same level of skills in their marketing relationships.

 

[neptune]

The ebike market in the UK is in in its infancy. There is room for a wide variety of models of different prices and quality. It may be that in the long term, the most expensive product is the cheapest in the long run. But that kind of bargain is only available to a few. Some of us have to be happy with what we can afford. There is nothing wrong with that, it was ever thus. Some will drive a Rolls Royce, some a ten year old banger, and some will have to walk or go on the bus. That is Capitalism. Deal with it.

 

[Woosh]

Agreed, Neptune.

The UK Ebike industry is still very young. The Guardian recently published sales figures of 20,000 (which we thought was on the low side but presumably accurate), which is indeed small fry when compared with our counterparts in Europe (and notably Germany and Holland). The figures are just too small for the big guys.

So how to grow the business in the UK?
Most e-bikes companies are very under-capitalized and the small market size does not help with making them efficient. The following approach may solve the problem of market size.

1. Simplify the products and standardize the components
2. Maximize the 'value - cost' gap
3. Develop a cooperative distribution system

1 and 2 depend on our Chinese partners, Number 3 is Woosh's own approach.

Hatti

 

[flecc]

The ebike market in the UK is in in its infancy. There is room for a wide variety of models of different prices and quality. It may be that in the long term, the most expensive product is the cheapest in the long run. But that kind of bargain is only available to a few. Some of us have to be happy with what we can afford. There is nothing wrong with that, it was ever thus. Some will drive a Rolls Royce, some a ten year old banger, and some will have to walk or go on the bus. That is Capitalism. Deal with it.

And of course there is the law of diminishing returns that applies to all consumer products. This is aided and abetted by the costs of importation across the world and the imposition of VAT.

 

[Old_Dave]

1. Simplify the products and standardize the components
2. Maximize the 'value - cost' gap
3. Develop a cooperative distribution system

Number 2 seems to be chosen by several sellers with delusions of grandeur who set their selling price at what they think a % of their perceived market will stand,(and good luck to them if they can pull enough wool to get away with it) rather than price for volume.

There are several shining examples of some now very rich peeps (one or two with a knighthood) who gained their success by pricing for volume sales.

 

[the_killjoy]

The industry needs to standardise on a single, or at least a minimum number of battery configurations rather than tying a buyer down to an OEM supplier. I mean even the mobile phone makers have at least managed to agree on a charging socket.

Much as I love my Wisper its non interchangeable battery is a nuisance as it means it cannot be swapped between different bikes.

 

[RoadieRoger]

The Ebike Market here is very much like the Scooter market in the UK . It is too small for Manufacturers to bother with when compared to the Continent , particularly Italy and Spain . The only ones that try with the smaller machines are the Chinese . The equivalent Continental ones are expensive over here because they say the market is small , yet one theory might be that the market is small because the prices are too high .
London once again is a special case and takes nearly 50% of Scooters and it would be interesting to see whether the same is true with Ebikes .

 

[Caph]

I had nothing to do with the old Knight Rider Blew it, we designed the frame in 2004, I have never bought into a factory in China.

I was in the our draftsman's office for three days developing the 905e frame as it was called then, it was complicated and hard work and in all took a couple of years to perfect. The Knight Rider I believe was Mark Rao's tribute to our design!

All the best

David

Ok now I'm confused. I've seen a photo of the bike that another UK Ebike manufacturer walked away from at the turn of the century and it looks exactly like your "Wisper" bike. The point is, this was before you bought it???

Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong advocate of ebiking and I think reliable cross-UK supported brands like yourself are a key part of the success of ebiking, but the design that we think of as "Wisper" existed way before you decided to buy that bike. You may have tweaked it since then but, to be honest, I can't see the difference between the original Chinese incarnation and your latest incarnation (components aside).

 

[Blew it]

Well spotted, I'm confident my memory of events is correct. The truth of the matter is, the Wisper 905e was in fact a copy of the original "Knight rider", albeit with a Hydro-formed top-tube to replace the welded gusset head-stock of the original.

It appears one of the benefits of being a Managing Director is the entitlement to re-write history.

Mark Rao was an employee of the newly formed Wisper Bikes, but shortly after his leaving the company it was discovered 250 Wisper 905e frames went missing, these subsequently being marketed by Mark Rao under his own brand name.

I also distinctly remember the first Wisper 905e machines being offered for sale through Wispers Ebay shop. At that time I became interested in the 905's...a breath of fresh air when compared to some of the stodgey stuff available at that time. As it turned out, I waited until the 905 evolved into the 905se in 2008 before purchasing....and I wasn't dissapointed the first time I rode it.

 

[eddieo]

All a bit academic this chicken and egg stuff..Fact being Wisper have developed into a leading e bike company. The 905 and 705 great bikes with great support. And they have improved no end....on my 4th and they just keep getting better