I'd just like to address the point about the folding bike market being mature. It's as mature as the car market was when the Model T was selling well. In a crowded world with diminishing oil, the folding bike is going to be enormous. I would guess that ten years from now the market will be 20 times as large as it is now.

To return to innovation, I want to be clear what I mean. I don't particularly want to see Bromptons with carbon forks or disc brakes; I'm talking about innovations which are relevant to the type of bike it is. I'd like to have seen them come up with a rear rack that worked better, and could carry panniers, but didn't affect the fold. I'd like to see them with proper multi-speed hubs (a Brompton with a Nexus 8, with the price premium representing only the extra cost of the hub would outsell the rest of their range). I'd like to see them make or source decent folding pedals (at present, I don't believe such a thing exists). It's also been mentioned here many times that quite a number of Brompton parts are of low quality, which is really a shame on a bike that long ago repaid its initial design costs, and is now essentially a cash cow. I'll say it one more time. Companies who sit on their legacy products ALWAYS get shouldered out of the way when a new company with ambition and good ideas comes along. My example with Morgan was supposed to be a negative one. Morgan are still ticking along, but they're a tiny concern making a tiny number of cars. Brompton could be making the same number of bikes in 20 years, with people buying them for the history and the hand-madeness, but if the folding bike market is 20 times bigger, what have they achieved?