Posts
602
Joined
12/21/2023
Location
Lago Vista, TX, USA
Why don’t teams base out of Dallas? Damn near right in the middle of the States, year round riding with good tracks. More affordable land, taxes, and labor etc. The employees and riders could actually afford decent housing. HOU and DAL (via rail) both have direct access to all the global markets for product. Business is business and the Cali vibe definitely has a financial ceiling .
Why anyone like KTM would choose to relaunch a base in CA is a real head scratcher?
Shhhh, we like Texas just as it is and I see too many California license plates already.
Yes, all good points. I think California has the draw because it IS the mecca of the Moto industry. Regardless of logistics.
I’m north of Austin - they’re already here 😎
Keep them south of Waco and we be aight.
I've always wondered same about Tennessee but most of the industry's experience there is with loretta Lynn's which takes place at about the most miserable time to be there so probably not very appealing.
Other than being centrally located these same reasons seem to be why so much is going on in north Florida / south Georgia.
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Port facilities in Los Angeles and San Diego are the only real reason, from a financial standpoint. The Japanese companies save trillions of dollars on shipping every year by staying in California. (OK, not trillions. And Yamaha has relocated most of its business to Georgia. And, as you mentioned, rail is quite easy (is there a port in Galveston?)) Remember, a huuuuuuuuge portion of motorcycle sales come from California, so having a distribution network somewhere else would increase the number of shipped units dramatically.
However, as a Californian experiencing the Communist takeover first-hand, I can't believe anybody still has a business here.
When I was a kid, I dreamed of living in El Cajon with RJ and Wardy. You could surf one morning and ride the tracks and hills in the afternoon, it does not get cooler than that.
It is amazing what 40 years will do, I know the area is still beautiful, but regulations, cost, and closing of tracks and public land are definitely killing the mecca status for MX in CA. I am another that was scratching my head when KTM built a new HQ there, it made no sense on several levels. I know a lot of teams are going to FL, I would not be surprised if TX or NC do not evolve into the 'new' mecca in time. As much as I like beaches and sun, you could not pay me to live in CA, not that it would matter, I could never afford to ever retire there anyway.
Native Texan here who lived the SoCal dream in the 90s - surfed, moto’d , and snowboarded.. rad place back then for sure. Glad I did it but don’t miss the hassles involved.
Dallas is fed directly from the Port of LA/LB via stack train. Houston, Mobile, and GA all have weekly direct far east calls via the Canal. Houston/Dallas are huge distribution center economies these days. In other words no real advantage to CA ports these days other than supplying the local market. This has all changed in the past 20-30 yrs - in large part because of the widened Panama Canal. Austrian product is actually cheaper to bring into Savanna or Houston than CA.
Fl. S. ga. Cheap land , tax incentives for buisnesses. Fl. Has a huge port , sc. port too there doing a huge expansion. More 40 ft containers in sc. than Chicago or anywhere. Tx. Has the highest insurance rates this is from the oil field trucks & a extremely high fatality rate. Aprox 100k more. Dallas is gets cold too & way ovr populated .
Austrian product may be shipping across the Atlantic Ocean, though... right? (I know KTM builds some stuff in Asia.)
Don't forget that servicing the local market is like servicing 30% of your customers in this case.
Yeah the Gulf and EC ports have the best connections to the Northern Europe markets (aka KTM). I’d rather truck 30% of the market than 70% plus the 70% market is growing while CA is contracting I believe.
There is a port in Galveston but its going cruise only. But only a short distance away is Bayport Terminal and Barbours cut terminal which I work at. They are bringing in rail now to Bayport and B cut already has rail. It would make sense to have some companies here. Why they don't I have no idea. Also, there are a lot of opportunities to ride in the Houston area.
The variety of business knowledge here never ceases to amaze me.
Who do you think pays for these $10K dirtbikes 🤪
The best thing about Texas is that it's a place to keep Texans.
Same for Cali...
'Merica
Post a reply to: Logistically Speaking