Originally Posted by
berlinonaut
- group one believes Peter is mad, has no clue what he is doing, the whole thing is fake, the bike is way too cheap to become real and it never will.
- group two believes Peter may have been naive to a degree in the beginning but learned and learns his lesson and that - if the Helix will become reality - prices will have to go up
- group three believes Peter did his math and, while the Helix is cheap for a Ti-folder, it will work out and the price is the result of clever production and part of a marketing strategy and we defintively do not know enough about his business calculation to be able to judge.
I am with the group 2, and actually think Peter and his believer were totally clueless.
Cheap Chinese titanium frames (non-folding) usually cost around $600-700. Add cheap drivetrain and cockpit parts then its pure bill of material will easily exceed $1,000. And you cannot sell the assembled bike at $1300 if the part prices already exceeds $1,000. Also folding frame is much harder to make. Chinese titanium Brompton clone frameset costs around $2,000. I have also found that some Chinese builders copied the Montague folding frame in titanium (amazing work indeed) and are selling one at $1,400 without fork. Those builders did not need any R&D because they simply copied existing frames; But Helix need iterations of testing, testing and testing which all adds up over time.
So here's my 2c
-IF peter outsourced the frame to Chinese titanium builders (which I think he should have) the frameset and fork would cost AT LEAST $2,000. Then the retail price of the full bike would be $4,000-$5,000 range.
-The only way to (somehow) meet the claimed price is to use cheaper material (cro-mo or aluminium) and mass produce in existing big factories - in short, let Dahon or Pacific make the bike.
I am not sure whether
a) Peter didn't know this
b) knew everything but lied to people to get money.