• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

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KTM/Husqvarna... now how will this play out?

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rajobigguy said:
Somehow I just can't put a lot of faith in reporting done by a online mag. that reports about things in the mortorcycle industry with a sidebar dedicated to articles such as "Celebrities talk about their boobs".
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I'll go with this - but even if there is some truth to that, it would seem to me that there is not a large market for a 300Lb 200cc street bike in the USA, India & China probably yes, but not USA - unless priced very low.
 
Coffee said:
I'll go with this - but even if there is some truth to that, it would seem to me that there is not a large market for a 300Lb 200cc street bike in the USA, India & China probably yes, but not USA - unless priced very low.
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That a US perspective as I think the KTM 200 duke is a HUGE seller. The "husky" 200 would never fly here but we are not the center of the earth :>)
 
The article only states that they plan to introduce a 200cc Husky duke in the next couple of years. Says nothing about husky only focusing on affordable commuter bikes. KTM offers the duke 200 in India, but not here. They do offer pretty good dirtbikes for the US.
 
For me -- the worldwide street oriented KTM/Husky stuff isn't all that relevant. It does offer a glimpse into the potential mindset of the new owners. The only thing that I took away from the article was that Husky is positioned ABOVE KTM. I thought that was interesting.

In the end, I will wait anxiously for news and pictures of the 2014 or 2015 bikes. That's where the rubber will meet the dirt [so to speak].
 
JonXX said:
Agreed. BMW isn't selling many F800R's, and for good reason, the Nuda R blows it out of the water. Jason and Derek said at the NW Gathering that *if* the Nuda came to the states, it would be like a V-Strom (what they didn't say was "so that it won't compete here with the BMW"). Want the roadster version, buy the arm-numbing, underpowered, ill-handling F800R.
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Nuda R aint nothing like a V-Strom!!!

Nuda's may have the 800R powerplant but this bike was squarely aimed at the Monster/SM market...it's only recently that BMW released a 'touring' which is really a bunch of panniers bolted to the side...the small fuel tank makes it crap against the V-Strom...but put the Nuda in tight, twisty corners and it's a sweet handling bike.
 
ohmygewd said:
Great...Husqvarna maybe the new Royal Enfield of the 21st century :(
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Ive assembled a Royal Enfield out of the crate and let me tell you, they would have to do some serious reverse engineering and replace most of the components with old junk parts from 50 years ago and assemble them...i mean slap them together with junk grease and flecks of dirt and sand.
Theres no way they could take a Husky down to that level.
 
boisedave said:
For me -- the worldwide street oriented KTM/Husky stuff isn't all that relevant. It does offer a glimpse into the potential mindset of the new owners. The only thing that I took away from the article was that Husky is positioned ABOVE KTM. I thought that was interesting.

In the end, I will wait anxiously for news and pictures of the 2014 or 2015 bikes. That's where the rubber will meet the dirt [so to speak].
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That streeter stuff from a dirt bike company is an attempt at growth IMHO ... For some reason, companies must show growth ... Sell 1MIL bikes this QTR and next QTR sell 9999 and not only did you not have any growth but sells are down also ... Gives the stock market a reason to move up or down on a specific company ...

--

2014 bikes? So again, we wait for a new dirt bike from a new owner and this one will be a SP diamond I predict ... It'll take alot to be better than the current 250/310 models ... These bikes really just need some polishing ... and 2 more horses ...make that 3 more ponies ...
 
Boys-
A prior posting on an Indian based news release indicates that about 75% of KTM vehicle sales in a recent period were of 200cc bikes in India. The uber sophisticated hi dollar rigs we see in these United States may just be pond scum.
anselmo
 
Bobby said:
Same here, otherwise there wouldn't be a mad scramble behind the scenes at KTM ramping up to take over distribution as fast as possible. If Pierer wanted it for himself why put the fox in the hen house to keep it safe???
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How does that make sense? The Fox is surely there now then! It won't be KTM doing major distribution - that would kill KTMs ability to move their product. Go back and read where SP wants to keep it separate (as much as that makes sense) Thus, Logistics is maintained. Oh, I think there will be shared resources - everybody does that now. Look at Rotax, WP, Showa, KYB, SACHS , Countless others. You see engineering, components, everything - on everything - its a World market.
I guarantee that Bajaj had little to invest here - that's not the way they operate. Doesn't mean that is the way they will "Spin-it". Opportunist, IMHO. From the logic of it all KTM did not need to buy Husqvarna nor does it really need anything from it at all. Actually it's kind of a burden if yo look at it. SP is got something else up his sleeve.
 
Just some thoughts...

If the intent is to complete with the Japanese bikes, you have to compete mostly on price. In fact, to start to gain market share you have to sell at a lower price. And if Yamaha is manufacturing in Chennai and is moving KYB production there, you may have little choice but to manufacture or assemble in India to compete.
Basically, you design and prototype in Austria, source your parts from all over, (engines from Taiwan, etc.) and assemble in India. Not much different from how Apple builds iPhones.

BMW got things going in that direction and they invested a lot of money, but dirt bikes aren't their core.
The new owners seem to have things setup to make the next move to lower costs even more.
At the end of the day, they need to sell more Huskys. 10,000 a year is not enough to pay off the investment.

India is a huge market but price sensitive market. I would guess you can't sell a lot of Austrian built KTMs over there. Most of the bikes used over there are low cost, small cc, air cooled 4-stroke or 2-stroke bikes and scooters. Easy to work on and cheap available parts. They're used to carry 3-4 people at a time! Anyone who's been over there has seen the crazy traffic and lousy roads. It would take a low cost bike built for that market to compete. When Ford went into India they had to design small cars just for India, heavy duty shocks, good horn!, and easier to maintain.

I would say that any decent bike selling for less than $8,500 msrp can't be built in the U.S. or Europe anymore. At least not for long.
Pardon my ramblings...
Dave
 
everfree said:
Just some thoughts...

If the intent is to complete with the Japanese bikes, you have to compete mostly on price. In fact, to start to gain market share you have to sell at a lower price. And if Yamaha is manufacturing in Chennai and is moving KYB production there, you may have little choice but to manufacture or assemble in India to compete.
Basically, you design and prototype in Austria, source your parts from all over, (engines from Taiwan, etc.) and assemble in India. Not much different from how Apple builds iPhones.

BMW got things going in that direction and they invested a lot of money, but dirt bikes aren't their core.
The new owners seem to have things setup to make the next move to lower costs even more.
At the end of the day, they need to sell more Huskys. 10,000 a year is not enough to pay off the investment.

India is a huge market but price sensitive market. I would guess you can't sell a lot of Austrian built KTMs over there. Most of the bikes used over there are low cost, small cc, air cooled 4-stroke or 2-stroke bikes and scooters. Easy to work on and cheap available parts. They're used to carry 3-4 people at a time! Anyone who's been over there has seen the crazy traffic and lousy roads. It would take a low cost bike built for that market to compete. When Ford went into India they had to design small cars just for India, heavy duty shocks, good horn!, and easier to maintain.

I would say that any decent bike selling for less than $8,500 msrp can't be built in the U.S. or Europe anymore. At least not for long.
Pardon my ramblings...
Dave
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You may be right about this -
Then again in a few years they may be the only one who can afford a +8500.00 bike!
look at Peking, China, used to be nothing but Bicycles - now its Mercedes, BMWs, Lexus, Cadillacs.
Monetary entropy.
 
Bill502 said:
Maybe they will call them
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Maybe SP does not like this direction or the guy who wrote it ...

Why is SP and HIS company lumped in with bajaj at every turn here?

EDIT: After reading some posts here and there, I can understand all the confusion on what is or is not happening here ...
 
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