Difference between the UK and Switzerland,

[Kudoscycles]

Whilst out in Switzerland I thought it would be interesting to visit a local e-bike shop. Immaculate small bike dealer in Sannen in the Bernese-Oberland. About 50 per cent of the bikes for sale were electric bikes,he was a dealer for Flyer,Stromer and Haibike....his cheapest stock bike was 3900.00 Swiss Francs,about £2800.00.
I asked him did he sell anything cheaper,he looked insulted,he thought the Haibike at £2800.00 was cheap.The same bike was over £200 per week to rent.
My experience in the UK is a sale at that value is very rare.
These Swiss have a different idea of value.
KudosDave

 

[mike killay]

Reassuringly expensive!

 

[flecc]

These Swiss have a different idea of value.
KudosDave

They certainly do, the BikeTec Flyers have always been reassuringly expensive.

Off road Flyers similar to this one were well over £5000 three years ago, which was the last time I looked:

 

[mike killay]

At the end of the day, that is just a sick joke.
It's a bike, not made of gold, it has bike wheels and tyres. It has a motor, not as powerful as a vacuum cleaner or mower.
The only costly thing is the battery, and they are not so expensive nowadays.

 

[RoadieRoger]

They will be even more re-assuringly expensive now after the recent revaluing of the Swiss Franc , 30% more .

 

[flecc]

At the end of the day, that is just a sick joke.
It's a bike, not made of gold, it has bike wheels and tyres. It has a motor, not as powerful as a vacuum cleaner or mower.
The only costly thing is the battery, and they are not so expensive nowadays.

Former member EddieO tried that ones forerunner, the X bike, and reckoned it was the best e-bike he had ever ridden. And he had plenty of experience of trying the best of German products.

They are daft prices like all Swiss products, but the Flyers are beautifully hand built, sometimes referred to as the Rolls Royce of e-bikes.
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[mike killay]

Nothing that I can really say to that Flecc.
Quite why manufacturers should deliberately set out to exclude a large part of the market escapes me. As does the 'high quality' of high end bikes.
I rode a high end bike last year. Still had to pedal and the saddle nearly cut me in half.
EddieO was so lavish in his praise of German products and so scathing about Chinese products that I wondered if he was in fact German.
In certain areas, mainly railways, Chinese engineering now leads the World.

 

[flecc]

I think going for the premium market is almost a habit with the Swiss, one only has to look at the prices of their high end famous watch brands to see that. In one way I can see the validity of that, their costs mean they cannot possibly compete well with the bottom end of any market, so maintaining a reputation for the finest products and pricing accordingly to keep exclusivity makes sense. Theirs is a little country so there are easily enough very wealthy customers in the world to keep Switzerland rich.

I agree about the Chinese position now, after all, the German bikes are in the main just assemblies of Chinese made components.
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[Croxden]

My lawn mower is Swiss, good bit of kit.

 

[JohnCade]

I think going for the premium market is almost a habit with the Swiss, one only has to look at the prices of their high end famous watch brands to see that. In one way I can see the validity of that, their costs mean they cannot possibly compete well with the bottom end of any market, so maintaining a reputation for the finest products and pricing accordingly to keep exclusivity makes sense. Theirs is a little country so there are easily enough very wealthy customers in the world to keep Switzerland rich.

I agree about the Chinese position now, after all, the German bikes are in the main just assemblies of Chinese made components.
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Don't think they make the motors though? China has become the new workshop of the world so it would be hard to make anything without Chinese components. The computer I'm using is made in China for instance but it's an Apple and so made to high standards and well designed. Most of the locally made cheaper computers are not made to the same standard and are not designed as well either.

The same goes for components. Shimano may make much of its stuff in China and Taiwan but it's a Japanese company and the Japanese have long moved on from copying Leicas. The Chinese are moving on too but still seem to need something to reverse engineer at the moment with new products. So yes the German bikes have some of the better Chinese made parts. But in a properly made German frame, made of good spec alloy, with better paint and finish than the Chinese ones; and generally they are put together better, and the parts are matched better and the whole bike is designed better by people who know what a bike should ride like than the Chinese assembled bikes I've seen and ridden.

Not to say that the Chinese won't get there in the end. They make good sounding hi fi now having learnt from buying up the British companies. Don't know about the high speed trains though, they seem to crash a lot. Something to be desired in the signalling and control. A bit like the Chinese economy as a whole.

 

[flecc]

Don't think they make the motors though?

The Swiss design e-bike motors and in some cases manufacture them too. The Flyer F crank motor is one such example entirely made in Switzerland and the newer SwissDrive direct drive hub motor I'm fairly sure is made there and has been used on some German e-bike models as well. Of course as I remarked above, they are not constrained by cost since these sell into premium markets, so the low costs of manufacture in China can be an irrelevance to them.

In Germany I think the Daum crank motor unit was made in Germany and it later became the Kalkhoff Impulse motor. That may also be made there, since as a motor for just one e-bike make, it won't be such a high volume product as the Bosch one so much less likely to benefit from manufacture in China.
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[EddiePJ]

Taken at Interlaken Aug 2014.

I rather liked this one.

3,199.00ch for the Bionx bike. 4,499.00ch for the Bosch with frame mount battery, and 3,499.00ch for the bike on the end rack mounted battery..

I think that these were hire bikes.

Two registered bikes. Kind of goes back to the why is it so hard to do the same here question. I wonder if the reg documents could be transferred.

I'm back out there again this July, and have just bought a Thule rack, so that I can take the e-mtb this time. Cheaper to buy the rack, than it is to hire a bike for the two weeks..

 

[flecc]

Two registered bikes. Kind of goes back to the why is it so hard to do the same here question. I wonder if the reg documents could be transferred.

They aren't in the EU so the registration documents wouldn't count. The Swiss were first with a high speed class, even before Germany, since they created such as the Swizzbee and Flyer F fast e-bikes.
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