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Part of my reasoning for the consideration of bailing.
If what you state is true I would be very disappointed in the company. It is a shitty practice at best and should be a huge red flag for everyone considering to pay their bike upfront.
Its called an example of other brands that have been around for years without trouble, that are now having trouble keeping parts in stock. To give examples of how delays have been common even with very financially stable companies. And point out that since nobody knows, it could be the same reason those companies have had issues.
I do agree that Stark should communicate better . I would say that miscommunications or lack of communication is the #1 reason for any unsatisfied customers of mine. They may lose a small number of customers by being honest and upfront, depending on what the issues are. But I do think that a larger number of people would still end up buying the bike and feel more comfortable doing it. I totally agree that they should do their best to explain what's going on.
Could those dealer demo bikes have been earlier production models that were made almost as a test run of the production line? And they were never intended to have been delivered to a customer? Or have been bookmarked for being built from the start for dealer demos. Reserved before reservations ever opened? I really do hope that people who have paid in full get some better answers than You guys have gotten so far.
All that shilling for the company the last 2 years...
Damn shame it all going up in smoke.
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I get that, but it should have been done before sending out the bike. Get the demos out, train the dealers, maybe have a few ride days throughout the country and then get the public their bikes.
Doing it the way they are now looks like they’ve screwed paying customers. Not saying that’s what they did, but it looks that way.
They may be providing demo bikes for preordered customers to be able to go to a local dealer and demo to get a better conversion rate on the preorders. Just a speculation, the only real reason i can think to do demo bikes at this point.
Well that could be what they are doing for the most part? Other than the taking payment and not delivering on the OP's bike in the time they agreed to.
If They had those demo bikes bookmarked for dealers already , shipped them by boat and shipped the direct to the customer bikes by air. They could have shipped those demo bikes out a while ago. They say there is a distribution warehouse in TX for shipping US parts orders. The demo bikes could have gone there?
I have been lucky enough to visit a warehouse that handled the trucking for 3 of the japanese brands ( at the time) for most of the New England area. The trucking company went and picked up the bikes from the boat, unloaded the crated bikes into their warehouse and then loaded the crated bikes up to go to the local dealerships. I can not remember all of the brands they did, I just remember them saying they did all but one. Yamaha was one of the brands they did. And I think Suzuki. Everything was in crates and I only walked through a small section on the way to the office. But they would have the bikes there for a couple weeks or so before they would get sent to the dealer. Assuming that Stark has some similar network to distribute bikes to US dealers, it could explain the Vin# on Bryans bike.
But all of that aside. I think that they should put something out to explain what's going on with demo bikes showing up. Or at least give some better answers to anybody who has paid in full after being told they were up for getting their bike soon. That has not gotten it or tracking info so long after paying like the OP .
If you put down money, they already got you. At the moment, they are clearly prioritizing people they don't have.
It all about "sales" not delivered product
That was my first thought. Then I thought about dealer training, and then about how long different modes of transporting the bikes could take. And learned that Stark has a warehouse or will have one in TX for parts. So it wouldn't be crazy to think that they sent a couple containers to that warehouse. And they just took longer to get to the dealers than the direct to customer bikes.
This makes no sense whatsoever. You can't get bikes to people who want them but you are going to give a dealer a bike to keep a guy on ice for a year.
How can conversion be an issue when people want bikes and can't get them?
Well, it’s cheaper than flying everyone to Spain to try the bike 🤣
I don’t have a dog in this race, so i don’t really care either way
The could also be shipping demo bikes to dealers that are version 1.0, that have that Stark needs to solve, little things like the rear wheel hitting the swingarm when adjusted forward.
Version 2.0 may not be far away, and shipped to customers.
Almost like this would be a good story for moto journalist to follow up on during a lull in the season 🤷♂️
It seems some are considering first complete bikes as customer bikes? Would you even want your first bikes to be customer bikes? Teething problems, initial production issues.
I think it's completely valid to be stocking up dealerships and repair groups with bikes before fulfilling orders, seems like the smartest business move, makes sense.
What are you guys upset about, the last company who didn't get the business practices correct went out of business (Alta), whatever stark can do initially to stay in business, create v2 models, road bike versions is worth applauding.
Bizarre what people complain about here, without a profitable business there is no bike sales.
There is profit by taking deposits/paid in full apparently. I will wait another month or so....when you put a deposit in good faith on a bike and waiting almost 2 years watching some get bikes, others not getting them and then dealers that were not in on it at the beginning, it is ok to complain a bit. Some transparency may save some sales, considering the economic climate and the current going rate for these, some may end up sitting at dealers.
I thought one of the main reasons for getting an electric bike was the zero maintenance claimed by all the influencers & EV enthusiasts ?
In which case you don't need a service department , and you don't need to train anyone.
All you need to do is actually build the bikes and deliver them to the people who have paid up front
Zero maintenance, ha, ha. Great way to sell bikes...
Pit Row
I know You know that's not true. While You will not have to do all the maintenance that a gas engine needs. That is all anybody means when they say none of the maintenance you have with a gas engine. You still need to do the other stuff. And the gearbox will require an oil change after the first 5 hours( every 40 hours after that). And anything can break. Having a third party that you trained to repair and give accurate info on why something failed is a valuable tool. Having a large number of people that can help fix a bike if an issue comes up or a part needs to be swapped out. Showing them what is the same ,and what's not the same. And any precautions that are needed to be taken around the battery.
Some shops might not even want to work on Vargs without their techs being trained first. Many shops will not work on my Silverado because its a diesel , even though the chassis and a lot of stuff is the same on the gas versions they will work on.
I would guess they would want to train the dealers for all the same reasons other brands train dealers on working on each different brand. I see less of an issue with demo bikes than I do with taking the payment in full and not delivering on that timeline.That is the last thing they should do.
Does anybody know if Triumph will be asking for upfront payment when they launch ?
Will they be doing the trip to Spain ?
*trip to India
Sure Stark would benefit from more transparency.
I can't think of a deposit lower than $100 for any kind of motorcycle but after paying the whole sum you rightly expect your bike to show up in a couple of weeks, not a couple of months.
I see a lot of videos of Stark owners from all over Europe (France, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Austria, Italy and so on), I'm wondering if this issue might be overly affecting US orders ? Maybe due to transatlantic shipping (you don't book a container for a couple of bikes) or different state regulations ?
Are there any of you guys in this situation (waiting over a month after full payment) with shipping to Europe?
It feels like if enough of you guys pay for your bikes then the shipments that are supposed to be sent to the states will fill up the containers and get on the ship and through customs... then they make the trek across the Atlantic and into United States purchasers hands. Pay for your bike specially if its due September 30.
Just a suggestion.
I had not thought of that. I figured that if they could make 20 bikes a week now, I think that was what they were doing last I heard. That they would not take more than a couple weeks to fill a container to ship. But if a guy is on the list from the US and then the next 60 are not from the US. I could see that causing a delay like the one the OP is experiencing. I do not know how many bikes fit in a container or how big the container's are they are using. So 60 bikes might not cause a delay. Going in exact order of building bikes as they came in , could cause delays like that with filling containers. But they can only build bikes so fast right now, so I doubt that people all paying in full before they get a request would really help things move along much better. I think it would just have more people having shelled out all that money and might not make things move much faster.
While I'm sure the payments help Stark out, I do not think that they "need" them in order to build the bikes. If that was the case, why not ask for larger amounts of payments to be made in full? In my opinion it has to be something else, or some combination of stuff slowing production. Its too bad they are being like every other manufacture and not being more transparent about some delays.
Perhaps they source some chassis components from the same place another brand uses and that brand has used their buying power to slow down production for Starks orders? Whatever the delays are, They owe it to their customers to NOT ask for payment in full until a bike can be delivered in the timeframe they agreed to when They sent the request for full payment.
"I do not know how many bikes fit in a container or how big the container's are they are using."
If they are use 40' shipping containers and double stack the crates, 40 should fit in a container, so 2 weeks of production based on current production rate, or 8 hours of production based on maximum achievable production rate of the battery pack assembly line.
You can share space on containers ,
and other options, if you are giving people delivery dates when they have paid in full
" waiting to fill a container" is just another excuse
The influencer didn't have to wait for a container to be filled
Maybe this is covered in this thread and I missed it, or in another thread, but what are Stark’s plans to ramp up production? Have they made that known?
20 built a week currently, with 17,000+ preorders is kind’ve alarming to me. It’d take almost 17 years just to fill the preorders they have today at that rate!
Sorry I started this speculation about transatlantic shipping, in fact I was more interested to know if some European customers had experienced the same issue of lengthy delay between full payment and bike delivery. Just to see if it COULD be related to shipping overseas (not that it would do any difference for the waiting US customers anyway).
So if you've ordered a Varg from Europe and have made full payment, please chime in, enlighten us!
My dear Ned, yes your company is ramping up production, that is their main objective right now that their product is out they "just" need to deliver more and more of them.
Stark acknowledged multiple times that their incredible success with 18 000 pre orders (some kind of world record for the industry) was a logistical nightmare, they expected much less and had to review their plans to grow much faster than they had expected. Unfortunately, but understandably, they do not share any hard data about their production rate, no manufacturer likes to give away this kind of info.
That being said, as a growing startup I wish they would alleviate customer anxiety and communicate whenever they reach some kind of milestone like "100/200/500 bikes delivered" or "currently assembling 1/10/50 bikes per week". That could be some positive communication from them and stop people speculating so much one way or the other.
"That being said, as a growing startup I wish they would alleviate customer anxiety and communicate whenever they reach some kind of milestone like "100/200/500 bikes delivered" or "currently assembling 1/10/50 bikes per week". That could be some positive communication from them and stop people speculating so much one way or the other."
That's why I'm encouraging people to share their VIN numbers on here, so we have some idea how many have been shipped.
If anyone visits a dealer with a demo bike, post the VIN number!
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