Porsche's new companies are all about electric bikes:
In the future, you may come across a lot more two-wheeled Porsches on the streets. The luxury automaker has launched two new joint ventures with Dutch company Ponooc Investment B.V., and they're both all about electric bikes. Porsche eBike Performance GmbH is based in Ottobrunn near Munich and will develop components, including motors and batteries. Anything it creates will then be used by P2 eBike GmbH, the second joint venture based in Stuttgart, to manufacture Porsche-branded e-bikes for consumers that the company plyans to launch starting in the middle of the decade.
Porsche is far from a newcomer in the e-bike space. In 2021, it debuted two electric bikes inspired by the Taycan and were made to complement the Cross Turismo, which has a rear carrier. Those bikes, however, along with their motors and gear shifting systems, were manufactured by Japanese bicycle industry giant Shimano. With one company developing parts and another working on the consumer bikes themselves, the upcoming products the joint ventures will release will be all (or at least mostly) Porsche.
The components business will use the e-bike drive systems develop by Fazua, a company Porsche recently acquired, as noted by Electrek. However, it will also develop e-bike systems under the Porsche brand name — it will even sell the technology it designs to other brands. As with anything Porsche, the bikes under the new ventures will most likely not come cheap: Its Taycan-inspired bikes, for instance, set buyers back at least $8,500 at launch, with the sports model selling for prices that start at $10,700.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 06, @03:35AM (2 children)
A few years back ford came to the office and propose an investment into a mass self driving car at... $500,000 starting price. Wall Street boys passed.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday August 06, @03:55PM (1 child)
The original 8 bit 64k RAM IBM PC was $4,000 forty years ago, the Apple was even more expensive. I've watched tech prices drop all my life, and I'm 70. In 1977 a 24 inch color TV was $600 in 1977 dollars.
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(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday August 07, @04:33AM
A reasonable computer have had the same price all over the years. To be on the cutting age you'd have to spend the same $4000 inflation adjusted now.
As per TVs, it's a different story.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.