Posts
1165
Joined
8/16/2016
Location
Orlando, FL
US
Edited Date/Time
6/12/2017 4:22pm
GuyB, not sure if you need to do anything to make this official (sticky maybe), but here we go for now. Side note, this forum needs a multi-quote function.
Marc has agreed to do this Q&A, which is awesome. It's not every day that you get to pick the brain of the cofounder and CEO of a company that may very well be the beginning of a huuuuge change to the sport and hobby known as dirtscooterin'.
Marc, thanks for your willingness to do this, and for proving all of those that claim "the industry doesn't read Vital" wrong.
I'll open with two: 1. The elephant in the room is that the Alta bikes are currently $15k. Can you shed any light on future plans to make them more affordable (closer to $10k)?
2. Other than Josh Hill's RedBull Straight Rhythm runs, are there any tests or videos that show how competitive the bikes are compared to current 250 and 450 four strokes? I'm talking lap time comparisons for the same rider, same track, same day.
....and a suggestion: the website has some great photos, but is in desperate need of more and better videos. That Supermoto video was a waste of time to watch.
Marc has agreed to do this Q&A, which is awesome. It's not every day that you get to pick the brain of the cofounder and CEO of a company that may very well be the beginning of a huuuuge change to the sport and hobby known as dirtscooterin'.
Marc, thanks for your willingness to do this, and for proving all of those that claim "the industry doesn't read Vital" wrong.
I'll open with two: 1. The elephant in the room is that the Alta bikes are currently $15k. Can you shed any light on future plans to make them more affordable (closer to $10k)?
2. Other than Josh Hill's RedBull Straight Rhythm runs, are there any tests or videos that show how competitive the bikes are compared to current 250 and 450 four strokes? I'm talking lap time comparisons for the same rider, same track, same day.
....and a suggestion: the website has some great photos, but is in desperate need of more and better videos. That Supermoto video was a waste of time to watch.
1. Will this be a distraction to the other riders?
2. What baseball player card will come standard in the spokes?
Even charging on a generator overnight, could you see a time when the Redshift bike can last for a whole day? (Maybe 4-5 hours of operating time?)
1. Currently there are 4 OEM "maps" for power delivery. I've seen in your vids that you customize these.
A - Are owners able to customize these as well?
B - Do you have (or plan to) provide additional downloadable maps through an owners portal?
C - If you do provide new power maps are they free to owners? Free for life?
D - Does the bike come with the necessary equipment to download any updates to the bike?
2. Do you provide other software updates for battery mgmt or other technical tweaks not related to the maps? If so, for how long?
3. What type of 240v outlet does your charger require? NEMA 14/50?
4. Do you have an adaptor that allows owners to charge at L2 public chargers for electric vehicles?
5. Do you plan on following the "Big 6" timelines with model year releases or will you make changes on the fly and immediately introduce them to the production line as Tesla does? For those that don't know, Tesla does label their cars as 2016, 2017, etc but a Jan 2016 built Tesla could be very different than a June 2016 Tesla. Production line changes happen frequently and optional features come and go with no warning in order for them to streamline their production line and costs.
6. What is #1 on your list of priorities to fix with the current production bike?
7. What is the most frequently repaired item/complaint you are seeing from current owners (non crash related).
8. If you were to completely submerge the bike in water (unintentionally of course) what would an owner expect to repair? Would there be a concern for electrocution? Probably a dumb question but I figured someone would want to know.
9. I race the FTR hare scramble series in FL. The races can last up to 2hrs. Typically a mix of 2nd gear woods (60-80%) and the balance being open 4th to 5th gear fields and a fair share of sandy whoops mixed in. On a scale of 1-10 what is your confidence level that a 220lb Vet A rider would finish the race with minimal loss of power delivery? I know there are a zillion variables so please just provide your best guess.
10. Can you swap batteries? If so, how long would it take and how much would an extra battery be?
The Shop
For him to be able to answer you will need to provide more specifics. Even then, he would be just be providing you a best guess which is what I asked in my post above.
Great to see him come here and do this! No question from me except the one already asked about a lower MSRP.
2. Will you/are you already building a supermini or other similar bike in the near future
3. How do you plan to decrease weight? From what I understand, weight is a tad bit of an issue currently.
Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to do this, we all appreciate it!
That would most likely mean up to your neck when you are standing.
#10: The batteries are heavy and require two hands, but if you want to, you could swap them out in as little as 10 minutes.
I would imagine they are expensive though.
Pit Row
Sorry about the slow take up on this. Didn't realize we were actually doing it or where! Let me try to catch up on the backlog...
1) You couldn't make the first one a softball, eh? For now we're hoping to hold the pricing steady, even while gas bikes get more expensive every year. We had to work really really hard to bring this level of technology in at the cost that we did. At least one thing that softens the blow is the maintenance. With effectively no drivetrain maintenance, the Redshift will be far cheaper to run than a 4 stroke for a dedicated race effort. We've spoken with a number of privateer teams that are really excited about the money it will save them.
2) A/B laptimes are one of our big marketing goals this year. I think you'll see lots of regular customers like Ben990 putting up their own results. Pros have contracts, and since we're not yet homologated, they have to be careful not to upset their sponsors or they won't have a ride to compete on. But we're working on it, and I'm confident of what the results will show when we can post them.
Bonus answer: on video, we've been allocating our very small marketing team to demo rides and to competition/events (all about proving the bike is the real deal), and away from video. This year we may be able to get some help from some partners and give you some fresh eye candy...
2) We'll offer a complete array of baseball card and clothes pins as aftermarket options, from the affordable coated paper and wood all the way up to factory carbon fiber cards and titanium clothes pins, just like the pros.
Charging off a 220V (recommend 5000W or more) generator is the way we do it today, and most riders get pretty full days of ~4 hours of real ride time, BUT you do have to set up your loops to come back and charge over lunch. The more technical the terrain, the better it stacks up to gas since we don't burn energy from revving and slipping clutch. The faster and more open the terrain the worse it stacks up. We had an A rider run a hard enduro course and come back after a 5 hour ride with 30% charge. But a pro can burn through a pack in 30min on a moto track. For me, it's a full day today, especially with the generator, but it won't be for every rider and one thing I'm adamant about is that I don't want a customer to ever be stranded because we oversold the real range of the bike.
You can think of it roughly like this (of course it varies wildly by rider and terrain, but the basic thinking holds): every 35-40 miles of steep off-road range on the bike costs you ~$5000 at retail and ~70lbs. We can build you a 80mi bike, but you won't like the weight and the cost of it (neither will we). Plus it will take twice as long to charge...
Where does KERS fit into the possibility of continual charging? Or does it?
My questions:
1. Currently there are 4 OEM "maps" for power delivery. I've seen in your vids that you customize these.
A - Are owners able to customize these as well?
Our next step is to offer alternative "packs" of 4. This is the safest and most stable way for us to give you more options. Down the road, we expect the owner/user to be able to do it themselves, but it really does take a huge amount of testing to define the sandbox that they can safely play in without hurting themselves or the bike.
B - Do you have (or plan to) provide additional downloadable maps through an owners portal?
Initially, they'll be available through the dealers. Dealers or Alta may be able to offer trackside/trailside tuning at some point as well, but I don't want to put dates on that.
C - If you do provide new power maps are they free to owners? Free for life?
Yes, the plan is for these to be free. I'm always hesitant to say forever because we're still a startup, and we're still learning, but I'm fairly sure that there will always be some subset of broad options and tunability available for free.
D - Does the bike come with the necessary equipment to download any updates to the bike?
Right now updates are only done by the dealer, although because all that is required is our proprietary laptop, it doesn't necessarily have to be AT the dealer.
2. Do you provide other software updates for battery mgmt or other technical tweaks not related to the maps? If so, for how long?
Yes, we are releasing regular software updates that typically expand the performance and featureset of the bikes. This is the only bike I know of that can be better 6 months after you've bought it than the day it was new. These include everything from improved power and range to faster charging to better display of info on the screen. There's also a small bag of unexpected tricks we have planned for the future. Just like the maps, these must be installed by the dealer.
3. What type of 240v outlet does your charger require? NEMA 14/50?
Because there are so many 240V outlet standards in the US, the charger ships with a NEMA 5-15 120V plug. However, it is fully compatible with 240V sources. For legal and safety reasons I can only recommend that a professional electrician change the plug format on the charger after careful evaluation of your power source (whether house or generator).
4. Do you have an adaptor that allows owners to charge at L2 public chargers for electric vehicles?
We do not today. We did a survey of charger availability vs where our customers would be riding and there was nearly no overlap. If and when we introduce models that are more commute and street utility oriented, and the charger networks expand, we would change strategies from the ubiquitous wall outlet as a default to (probably) J1772 L2 and L3 compatibility.
5. Do you plan on following the "Big 6" timelines with model year releases or will you make changes on the fly and immediately introduce them to the production line as Tesla does? For those that don't know, Tesla does label their cars as 2016, 2017, etc but a Jan 2016 built Tesla could be very different than a June 2016 Tesla. Production line changes happen frequently and optional features come and go with no warning in order for them to streamline their production line and costs.
We are trying to stick with industry cycles for two reasons. a) recreational riding is so much more seasonal than commuting and we want customers to be able to buy the bikes when they're gearing up for their season b) Tesla has created some nightmares for themselves in terms of product complexity through that release cycle. The customer doesn't have to deal with it that much and they can bury the costs behind their own dealer network and massive valuation. We don't want to do that to our team (many of whom came from Tesla), or our dealers, so we're trying to be more disciplined about releases. The upside for the customer is that it will make parts availability far better and make the used market and value for the bikes much clearer.
6. What is #1 on your list of priorities to fix with the current production bike?
Nothing, it's perfect of course
7. What is the most frequently repaired item/complaint you are seeing from current owners (non crash related).
Pegs are slippery. We tried to serve both the MX and SM with a single peg, and it doesn't have the grip it should for offroad. It can be sharpened with a file, and we have a new peg in the works.
We also had some early bikes that had one section of harness that didn't have anti-capillary wire, and that could create a ground fault if standing water was left on the bike for too long (the bike would self-diagnose the fault and prevent live throttle). Every other part of the bike is effectively waterproof (IP67 or IP69K), so we replaced that part with anti-cap wire to ensure full waterproofness.
8. If you were to completely submerge the bike in water (unintentionally of course) what would an owner expect to repair? Would there be a concern for electrocution? Probably a dumb question but I figured someone would want to know.
Perfect timing. See above. The bike is fully IP67, which means rated to 30 seconds under a meter of water. No hydrolocking, no water in the crankcase. Assuming you don't leave it sitting on the riverbed you should be fine. It'll keep running under water. However, you don't want to leave standing water for both corrosion and slow ingress, so it's a good idea to make sure it dries out well after a dunking. Finish your ride, find a spot to lean it way over in both directions, check for water in the subframe, and leave it in the sun if you can.
9. I race the FTR hare scramble series in FL. The races can last up to 2hrs. Typically a mix of 2nd gear woods (60-80%) and the balance being open 4th to 5th gear fields and a fair share of sandy whoops mixed in. On a scale of 1-10 what is your confidence level that a 220lb Vet A rider would finish the race with minimal loss of power delivery? I know there are a zillion variables so please just provide your best guess.
I wouldn't say more than 50%. We had a local hare scramble that sounded similar and had a veet class customer finish, but had two young French national level riders only make it about 1/2 way. As an A-level at your size and depending on the accuracy of that 20% field and sand, I don't think you would make it if I'm honest. That FL is flat may really change the equation vs our experience in CA though...
I'm really looking forward to customers publishing more and more of their ride and range experience, as more bikes get out there.
10. Can you swap batteries? If so, how long would it take and how much would an extra battery be?
Batteries can be swapped and mechanically it's pretty straightforward, however, we do not recommend that as an alternative to charging. The connector is not designed for that many cycles, and it requires moving a 70lbs lump from under the bike that will cost you over $3k if you drop it the wrong way - AND for a field swap the bike is probably covered in mud. We have a guy doing exactly that with a mechanic this year at the ISDE, but he understands that we can't warranty the use.
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