“It won’t be a cakewalk”
McLaren subsidiary buys insolvent e-bike builder VanMoof
8/31/2023, 7:23 p.m
Multi-award-winning e-bike builder VanMoof has a future. But the new owner promises that the next few years will be tough. The financial situation is difficult. A higher double-digit million amount is necessary for stabilization alone.
The insolvent Dutch bicycle manufacturer VanMoof has found a new owner. Lavoie, a provider of electric scooters and a subsidiary of Formula 1 supplier McLaren Applied, announced the acquisition. The company did not name a purchase price. However, McLaren Applied CEO Nick Fry put the investment sum, including fresh money to stabilize and expand the business, at “several tens of millions of pounds in the short term”.
“This is a great opportunity for us because VanMoof is a company with a great product,” added Fry. “But it won’t be a cakewalk because this company has put itself in a difficult financial position.” High costs for warranty cases had added to the provider of high-priced e-bikes.
Long delivery times and waiting times for repairs
The brothers Taco and Ties Carlier founded the company in 2009 and wanted to equip major cities around the world with the “ideal city bike”. The minimalist VanMoof bikes had won international awards for their design. Technical innovations were also initially highly praised. VanMoof promised the bikes were almost impossible to steal with a digital lock, built-in alarm and GPS.
But in the end, technical defects, long delivery times and waiting times for repairs meant the end for the Amsterdam company. The main problem was that VanMoof wanted to keep everything in-house – including the production of spare parts and repairs. In 2021, the company posted a loss of around 80 million euros.
In mid-July, founders Taco and Ties Carlier wrote in an email to 800 employees, who were quoted by the media: “We are sad, but above all we feel proud of what we have achieved.” The brothers wanted to sell a billion bikes, in the end it was almost 200,000. But now more could be added