Why don't we make bikes in the UK any more.

[Electrifying Cycles]

No reason why we could not build our own bikes if the conditions were right. Having previously worked in the offshore wind industry it was a very similar story with wind turbines and other major components made mainly in Denmark and Germany. There are however a number of British frame builders out there as well as a few bike builders e.g. Pashley. There is a great book about the British bike building industry (see link at bottom). Manufacturing needs to be looked at and barriers removed. Germany benefits from the Euro as other countries drag down the value of the currency making exports cheaper. At the moment the focus is mainly on high value manufacturing and design in the UK. Personally I think something needs to be done sooner rather than later. I think a British bike would sell, Brompton have done it for folding bikes. The key would be a quality bike which could sell in Germany and the rest of continental Europe.

Made In England: a beautiful book about artisan bicycle builders | Bicycle Business | BikeBiz

 

[Electrifying Cycles]

Fair point maybe regarding Brompton but I am sure a similar point could be made for German made bikes and other European bikes. The devil is in the detail

 

[morphix]

There is a tiny market for £2K plus bikes in the UK.

If the market was as big as in Germany, there would be a greater chance of a UK maker filling it.

Brompton is a bit more than a niche maker, they succeed mostly because there are plenty of customers wanting to pay them £1K for a bike.

I think this hits the nail on the head.. it's a simple case of economics, supply and demand.. the UK could make e-bikes, if the demand was there, or at least at the prices they would need to sell at.. some small conversion builders do very well and make a decent living from it by all accounts, but manufacturing e-bikes from scratch here is a whole different scenario.

The problem the UK and most other developed countries face is the impossibly cheap labour of Asia and their mass production capabilities. The quality of Asian goods is often shoddy due to being churned out in such high volume in sweat shops, compared to what you would get from British manufacturing standards, it doesn't compare.. you get what you pay for, as the saying goes, and it seems the British public wants cheap mass produced goods from China.

But for many businesses starting out or looking to move into bike selling, are they going to make a massive investment in UK-based manufacturing with high labour costs, or just use the existing and cheap manufacturing factories of China. Most will take their design and go to China and say build this, because end of the day they can make more money and don't have to make a big capital investment with all the risk.

I think British manufactured goods are increasingly seen as luxury items for wealthy, discerning buyers who want the very best quality money can buy and they're prepared to pay. There are some items that are still made in Britain, still the very best, and still affordable though, like clothes and hats ;-)

I think China is just increasingly unbeatable though for manufacturing on consumer items.. although their design capabilities do seriously suck, some of the stuff I've seen is shocking..but if you give them a good design, they can build it to a good standard.

 

[billadie]

"The reason our councils need these big rates is to fund their pension schemes which represent a massive hole in their budgets,as shops are going bust they put up the rates to the remainder,the law of diminishing returns!"
Quote from Kudos's original post.

Just on a point of information, it is many years since councils set the business rates, its a central gov't responsibility.
https://www.gov.uk/introduction-to-business-rates/how-your-rates-are-calculated

 

[Kudoscycles]

Morphix,I agree with most of what you say but the big difference is the comment about sweatshops....this has images of workers producing product in bad working conditions and for sure I have been to some awful factories but they have the cash to put into high quality machine tools....my auto wheels are produced in an immaculate factory with a flow line of die casting-xray checking-machining,they have 24 italian cnc machining cabinets(£3mill each),running 22 hours per day,each machining a wheel every 12 mins-the owner is only 26 years old.
The bike frames are mostly produced on cnc robotic welders,eliminating labour only costing $1.50 per hour.
Honda have a factory in Wenzhou that produces a lot of the top end motor bike and auto components,11000 employees,the quality control there and cleanliness is above criticism.

Lets be honest any bike below about £1.3k is either chinese made or mainly chinese parts and some of these bikes are very high quality. Its only above that price level that we start to look towards the German product and thats principally because of the Bosch motor ,the remainder of the bike can often be chinese,if the chinese do finally get their act together on a crank drive motor the price of crank drive e-bikes will plummet. The choice will then be between a chinese hub drive bike at around £1k, a chinese crank drive bike at around £1.2k or a german Bosch crank drive at about £1.7k upwards,that day is closer than most realise.
Dave
Kudoscycles

 

[Kudoscycles]

"The reason our councils need these big rates is to fund their pension schemes which represent a massive hole in their budgets,as shops are going bust they put up the rates to the remainder,the law of diminishing returns!"
Quote from Kudos's original post.

Just on a point of information, it is many years since councils set the business rates, its a central gov't responsibility.
https://www.gov.uk/introduction-to-business-rates/how-your-rates-are-calculated

But,its really a money merry go round, councils collect>given to treasury>returned to council....the following clip was lifted from a Nick Clegg speech in which he proposed that all commercial rates should be collected and held by local councils.

Business rates are charged on most non-domestic premises, including warehouses shops, offices, pubs and factories.

They are calculated and collected by local authorities, and at present are put into a central pool before being redistributed to all councils in the form of a grant.

Dave
Kudoscycles

 

[John Fleet]

Dave

sorry mate, but you're way off the mark re Councils and rates. National non-domestic rates - which is what you refer to are an intrinsic part of national taxation. The level is set by central government not Councils. Councils simply collect the rates on behalf of central government in the same way as you collect VAT on behalf of central government. The pot of rates money is redistributed in part back to local authorities by central government and there is no link to pension schemes at all. Local authorities have no power to increase rates, quite the contrary they can only reduce them on a discretionary basis using their powers to allow hardship rate relief. So to assert that they put up rents as shops close is simply baloney I'm afraid.

And of course rates are supposed to be linked to the market rental for a property. Because they are only reassessed every five years, it's a fairly crude link but at the moment, depending on the size of the property you have the rates bill will be around 40 - 50 per cent of the notional market rental. There is currently a small business rate relief scheme in operation which can mean that some High Street shops pay no rates at all (those with an RV of £6000 or under).

Thankfully in the hot bed of engineering excellence which is the North East, there are plenty of companies who are investing in the UK and long may it continue.

John

 

[John Fleet]

But,its really a money merry go round, councils collect>given to treasury>returned to council....the following clip was lifted from a Nick Clegg speech in which he proposed that all commercial rates should be collected and held by local councils.

Business rates are charged on most non-domestic premises, including warehouses shops, offices, pubs and factories.

They are calculated and collected by local authorities, and at present are put into a central pool before being redistributed to all councils in the form of a grant.

Dave
Kudoscycles

no, wrong again - they are calculated by the VOA not local Councils.....

 

[morphix]

Morphix,I agree with most of what you say but the big difference is the comment about sweatshops....this has images of workers producing product in bad working conditions and for sure I have been to some awful factories but they have the cash to put into high quality machine tools....my auto wheels are produced in an immaculate factory with a flow line of die casting-xray checking-machining,they have 24 italian cnc machining cabinets(£3mill each),running 22 hours per day,each machining a wheel every 12 mins-the owner is only 26 years old.
The bike frames are mostly produced on cnc robotic welders,eliminating labour only costing $1.50 per hour.
Honda have a factory in Wenzhou that produces a lot of the top end motor bike and auto components,11000 employees,the quality control there and cleanliness is above criticism.

Lets be honest any bike below about £1.3k is either chinese made or mainly chinese parts and some of these bikes are very high quality. Its only above that price level that we start to look towards the German product and thats principally because of the Bosch motor ,the remainder of the bike can often be chinese,if the chinese do finally get their act together on a crank drive motor the price of crank drive e-bikes will plummet. The choice will then be between a chinese hub drive bike at around £1k, a chinese crank drive bike at around £1.2k or a german Bosch crank drive at about £1.7k upwards,that day is closer than most realise.
Dave
Kudoscycles

Ya that's a fair comment Kudos, its unfair to suggest all Chinese factories are run the same on slave labour with poor quality control.. I think maybe the mega cheap consumer item manufacturers... the 99p bag of 100 clothing pegs...or the 50p AA battery holders and £5 mini-cameras etc you can buy on eBay must be ... but properly run factories manufacturing goods for Western companies are different.

 

[Kudoscycles]

Dave

sorry mate, but you're way off the mark re Councils and rates. National non-domestic rates - which is what you refer to are an intrinsic part of national taxation. The level is set by central government not Councils. Councils simply collect the rates on behalf of central government in the same way as you collect VAT on behalf of central government. The pot of rates money is redistributed in part back to local authorities by central government and there is no link to pension schemes at all. Local authorities have no power to increase rates, quite the contrary they can only reduce them on a discretionary basis using their powers to allow hardship rate relief. So to assert that they put up rents as shops close is simply baloney I'm afraid.

And of course rates are supposed to be linked to the market rental for a property. Because they are only reassessed every five years, it's a fairly crude link but at the moment, depending on the size of the property you have the rates bill will be around 40 - 50 per cent of the notional market rental. There is currently a small business rate relief scheme in operation which can mean that some High Street shops pay no rates at all (those with an RV of £6000 or under).

Thankfully in the hot bed of engineering excellence which is the North East, there are plenty of companies who are investing in the UK and long may it continue.

John

Thanks,I am on the receiving end of the local councils pushing hard to collect the rates,I am sure you agree that relative to Germany our commercial rates are excessive. Its a particular personal moan because its an overhead that I cannot negotiate.
You will agree that a lot of that revenue is used to finance their pension schemes,which have been particularly badly managed in the past (Icelandic Banks!)
An RV of £6000 must be a tiny business?
The South East is suffering a lot from the small enginering companies closing,our part of the UK has looked towards the city of London and construction which are both suffering at the moment,glad to hear that the North East is doing well.
Dave
Kudoscycles

 

[Kudoscycles]

no, wrong again - they are calculated by the VOA not local Councils.....

The last 2 paragraphs of the quote was Nick Cleggs,I lifted it directly from his speech!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[morphix]

Dave

sorry mate, but you're way off the mark re Councils and rates. National non-domestic rates - which is what you refer to are an intrinsic part of national taxation. The level is set by central government not Councils. Councils simply collect the rates on behalf of central government in the same way as you collect VAT on behalf of central government. The pot of rates money is redistributed in part back to local authorities by central government and there is no link to pension schemes at all. Local authorities have no power to increase rates, quite the contrary they can only reduce them on a discretionary basis using their powers to allow hardship rate relief. So to assert that they put up rents as shops close is simply baloney I'm afraid.

And of course rates are supposed to be linked to the market rental for a property. Because they are only reassessed every five years, it's a fairly crude link but at the moment, depending on the size of the property you have the rates bill will be around 40 - 50 per cent of the notional market rental. There is currently a small business rate relief scheme in operation which can mean that some High Street shops pay no rates at all (those with an RV of £6000 or under).

Thankfully in the hot bed of engineering excellence which is the North East, there are plenty of companies who are investing in the UK and long may it continue.

John

I reckon these high rates are needed due to central governments excessive and wasteful high levels of spending.. we know that's a reason why Council tax on residential properties is so high, probably a lot higher than it needs to be in some areas..because some of it goes to central government, or certainly funds silly central government projects imposed on police forces and local authorities. Maybe not so much in smaller Parish council areas that can exercise more control.

Big government and our generous welfare state has to be paid for from taxes directly and indirectly. I wish we could get rid of big nanny-state government and go back to local government. I'm sure we would be much better off and taxes/cost of living would come right down. Can you imagine if each area had the power to set its own income tax levels and decide how it spent its revenues? Central gov should have to justify its cases for funding national projects to a regional council body representing all the councils who would determine central gov budget...the way we have it now, seems to be upside down and bottomless pit. It's OUR money they're spending, we write the cheques.

 

[Kudoscycles]

Whilst all the foregoing is interesting my original posting was in answer as to why we aren't making e-bikes in the UK....we don't have a level playing field with the germans and certainly don't with the chinese....but at least we may be able to compete with the german bikes in the future using chinese product and the lion's share of the value added will be here in the UK.
Dave
Kudoscycles

 

[morphix]

Whilst all the foregoing is interesting my original posting was in answer as to why we aren't making e-bikes in the UK....we don't have a level playing field with the germans and certainly don't with the chinese....but at least we may be able to compete with the german bikes in the future using chinese product and the lion's share of the value added will be here in the UK.
Dave
Kudoscycles

The Germans are good at manufacturing all round aren't they? They have a strong manufacturing-base economy..from cars, to even houses! I've seen entire houses fabricated in Germany being transported to UK and assembled here BY GERMANS. How's that for manufacturing!

Our government let us down basically and decided the UK had no future in manufacturing and we should give up trying and become a service-driven economy instead. The UK always was a strong financial base and centre of world finance though, so that's understandable their logic.. but still, we did some fine outstanding manufacturing, and still do.

I hope one day we'll see a revival of mainstream British industries and manufacturing, but it does look increasingly unlikely the way the world is changing. I remember the good old Raleigh bikes as a boy, my town of Redditch was home to Royal Enfield and BSA that made motorbikes... all gone now. Wow just learned my town had two battery manufacturing companies too, one being Britannia Batteries started in 1929, became Alkaline Batteries Ltd, bought out by French and production closed down in 1998. 600 employees at its peak, and one of the world's major manufacturers of nickel-cadmium batteries.

Kudos, here's a thought...do you think if we remain in the EU and eventually join the Euro and fully integrate, that the "level playing field" you speak of could become a reality in UK and manufacturing could kick start again? I personally don't think the EU can or will create a level playing field, even with a unified economy, because the cost of living is always going to be higher in some countries like UK that rely on imported goods more. Also, how will the EU control individual EU countries expenditures? Big challenges ahead..

If the Chinese can make the parts cheaper and easier, why not let them do it eh? Just assemble them here to make the finished BRITISH DESIGNED product, like the Mezzo and the Brompton.

P.S. The US Marine Corps bought our entire fleet (72) of retired Harrier jump jets so we must be doing something right?

 

[Scimitar]

I've seen entire houses fabricated in Germany being transported to UK and assembled here BY GERMANS. How's that for manufacturing!

Hah. About ten years ago I was involved in the building of an oak barn, which was pre-assembled, brought over here in sections and erected by Englishmen - how's about that? There's too much doing-down of British workmanship; sure, there is some rubbish, but there are plenty of good, value-for-money products which only take some finding out. We (and I write this as a Brit) can take on the best in the world and often win in quality, when we're given the opportunity.

 

[flecc]

Kudos, here's a thought...do you think if we remain in the EU and eventually join the Euro and fully integrate, that the "level playing field" you speak of could become a reality in UK and manufacturing could kick start again? I personally don't think the EU can or will create a level playing field, even with a unified economy, because the cost of living is always going to be higher in some countries like UK that rely on imported goods more. Also, how will the EU control individual EU countries expenditures? Big challenges ahead..

Full integration will work since it means a federal state with a single economy. That is automatically a level playing field, all present countries being states within a United Europe with national fiscal control at the centre. The states would only have control over local taxation like the sales tax that US States operate.

P.S. The US Marine Corps bought our entire fleet (72) of retired Harrier jump jets so we must be doing something right?

Not really! The Harrier was the most over-hyped product we ever made. Although a huge technical achievement, it was useless as a warplane in it's original form since it's arms and ammunition payload simply weren't viable. In addition , it's VTOL capability has never been viable since it reduced the range to uselessness, hence it being used as a jump jet instead, taking off with ramps or using conventional take off and landing.

Very early on we tried to sell them to the US Marine corps but their findings were as I've said above, so they rejected the trial planes while the US continued it's own VTOL research. With that taking too long, the US returned to the Harrier idea and McDonnell-Douglas (later part of Boeing) did a complete redesign, naming it the AV8. That plane was made in various versions, mostly larger and much more effective, more heavily armed and with some range improvement.

The McDonnell-Douglas AV8s was so much better that we switched to the AV8 manufacturing program 31 years ago and the RAF was re-equipped with them, but the popular Harrier name was retained since in Britain it was officially called the Harrier 2, national pride and all that. We have now discontinued their manufacture and the planes we transferred to the US marine corps are their US designed AV8s of course since they don't use the Harrier 2 name.

So the planes we are familiar with were mostly AV8s of various types, made viable by US engineers I'm sorry to say.

 

[jazper53]

To be able to manufacture e-bikes in Britain will require a Banking system that is pro business. Our Banks are very reluctant to lend to small/medium industrial ventures, despite the Bank of England incentives to Banks to increase there lending to business, they still prefer to speculate on risky ventures such as betting on the price of food products (Barclays makes £500m betting on food crisis - Business News - Business - The Independent) It is about time these banks are forced to go to gamblers anonymous to cure themselves of these destructive tendencies that is slowing down Britains recovery

 

[Scimitar]

Not really! The Harrier was the most over-hyped product we ever made. Although a huge technical achievement, it was useless as a warplane in it's original form since it's arms and ammunition payload simply weren't viable. In addition , it's VTOL capability has never been viable since it reduced the range to uselessness, hence it being used as a jump jet instead, taking off with ramps or using conventional take off and landing.

The Harrier was designed for a specific role in the event of a major flare-up and things going bang in the East of Europe - to take off from woodland clearings and drop tactical nukes on suicide missions, as well as harry Russian forces before they could get too close.
Of course, it never happened and it was left looking a bit sad, wonderful piece of engineering though it was.
TFFT, I say.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Not really! The Harrier was the most over-hyped product we ever made. Although a huge technical achievement, it was useless as a warplane in it's original form since it's arms and ammunition payload simply weren't viable. In addition , it's VTOL capability has never been viable since it reduced the range to uselessness, hence it being used as a jump jet instead, taking off with ramps or using conventional take off and landing.

I remember in the Fauklands war or could've been the first Iraq war, seeing on the news the Harrier Piolots boasting about their huge tactical advantage in dogfights through viffing, where they used the vertical jets to stop and jump up, leaving any following enemy fighters in front of them so that they could blast them. I found an explanation here:
The Eeriness of Viffing a Harrier

 

[flecc]

The Harrier was designed for a specific role in the event of a major flare-up and things going bang in the East of Europe - to take off from woodland clearings and drop tactical nukes on suicide missions, as well as harry Russian forces before they could get too close.
Of course, it never happened and it was left looking a bit sad, wonderful piece of engineering though it was.
TFFT, I say.

Agreed, but it never even measured up to that as the US marines found. A vertical take-off and landing on the original design burnt so much of it's limited payload of fuel that it reduced the operational time to just a few minutes, too limited for anything effective. In addition, it's very limited firepower rendered any chance it had to do damage ineffective.

The helicopter gunship has proved to be a far more effective solution for that need, it's large and versatile armament payload and range proving a devastating weapon in every theatre it's been used.