ARC Vehicle has filed for bankruptcy.
Arc Vehicle, the brand behind the Vector, used funding from Jaguar Land Rover in its initial start-up phase before the car company pulled out of the project. As noted by many moto outlets, the electric bike builder had a bumpy ride. It was reorganized in 2019 due to a lack of investment and renamed Arc V Ltd. in 2021.
To anyone with a grain of sense, this was inevitable. Firstly electric motorcycles have all the problems associated with the four wheeled milk floats – so range will be shit, the time to charge them takes too long and they are heavy. Pretty much every one that has been offered to the market is over priced hideous junk. Arc went full throttle to the top of the range with bikes in the range of ninety grand for what amounts to a useless toy. So, yes, add an even more limited market to what was always limited anyway. I guess they thought the electric bandwagon would roll regardless of objective reality.
Not even Hollywood royalty Ryan Reynolds snapping one up could fire the enthusiasm for the high-tech, hub-steered Vector. Which is a shame, as on paper, the bike sounded great. The front end was designed in such a way that it would ‘dive’ like a conventional bike, it was covered in carbon fibre, had an endless options list and was claimed to go like stink. The price could be one reason for the decline of the brand, although it seems that there were other factors at play too.
Yah don’t say? Who in their right mind would pay ninety grand for a vanity vehicle? Ryan Reynolds, obviously, but enough to keep this project going?
The market has spoken. It’s a shame that the people who started this business and put their money into it, didn’t think to look at what the market actually wanted – and pretty much no one wants what they had to offer and having looked at it, I’m not remotely surprised. I wouldn’t buy one at a fraction of the price. I like my motorcycles to look like, you know, motorcycles as a starting point. I like a reasonable range and the ability to refuel quickly and efficiently. I also want the ability to carry luggage and a passenger. This monstrosity offered none of this and the market for it is limited to as close to zero as makes no difference. How on earth they thought they would make a profit sufficient to keep things going defies belief.
“Ultimately when you sell high-cost low-volume bespoke products it doesn’t take many people letting you down to put you in a difficult position … Things had been going very well, but distribution issues in the US really hurt our revenue which forced us to seek investment.”
Actually, it’s a bloody stupid business model, because anyone with a grain of sense would have seen this one coming a mile off. But then, some people don’t learn from their mistakes.
“It’s the worst process,” he continued. “It’s the most brutal process, especially this second time around because you promised yourself it’d never happen again.”
Once, you could put down to optimistic naivety. But to go back for a second go, nah, my sympathy is limited.
If I was going to spend silly money on an impractical motorcycle it would be a Langen two stroke.
This thing takes impracticality to a new level. Over the years a number of manufacturers have tried to go down the high cost small volume niche market. As Norton found out, it really isn’t sustainable. But these guys turned stupid into an art form and when it inevitably failed as logic and common sense predicted, they decided to do the whole thing again. If distribution issues in the USA were such a problem the business was vulnerable to it, the business model was wrong. Fairly obvious really.
Oh and the bike is shit. I mean really, really shit. It is hideous. I don’t know why it is, but small British start-ups seem to go down the route of jumping onto the electric bandwagon and producing machines that only a blind rider would want to ride – see Maveing for example. Again, impractical and dreadful to look at. The eighty mile range combined with no passenger facility and looking hideous seems to be a thing with these people. No, it doesn’t look like a classic motorcycle, it looks like something designed by a three year old with crayons and built by a couple of blokes in a shed out of whatever bits they could find lying about.
From the news article:
“The company delivered only 11 electric motorcycles to customers, which included Hollywood actor and businessman Ryan Reynolds, and Middle Eastern royalty.”
I expect those 11 will become valuable collectors’ items in the future, if they don’t catch fire.
That vector looks like they were trying to emulate the bikes in Tron (the new-ish one). Crazy money though.
The Maeving is at least priced more sensibly.
I still wouldn’t get one at that price range though.
Two grand? I could see myself getting an electric bike at that price, with those specs. Just for the commute to work and back.
With fuel savings, it would pay for itself in two and a half/three years.
Would need to know how long the battery is expected to last before it needs replacement though…
Still dog ugly, but I don’t care how it looks if all I’m doing is commuting on it.
Maybe I’m a bit vain, but I do care how it looks. And that seat, Bloody Hell.
I think that looks matter when it comes to choosing your mount. I made an exception for the MZ because I loved it for its simplicity and practicality. I find many modern bikes to be pretty ugly, maybe partly because I’m old. I think that is why retro styled bikes are becoming so popular. The Langen is a 250 that produces 76 horsepower and weighs only 120kg. I’m left wondering how you are supposed to keep the front end down.
Or how you justify ninety odd k for a bike that Suzuki were pretty much mass producing in the early eighties. As for ugly, I agree, which is why my machines are mostly retro styles or like the Guzzi have classical lines even if it’s modern.
I was being hypothetical about spending a stupid amount of money on an impractical bike. I could only imagine buying one if I had so much money that I wouldn’t miss it, which of course I don’t.
Quick way to unload some excess income, though, innit: invest it in some obvious non-starter and thank your accountant.