Dusty2 wrote:
I have to agree, Right now it's all about an elite group with deep pockets that want to go as fast and as long as they can. What about the other 90% or so that can't afford to drop 4 to 6 grand for a sports car and are looking for a good well built scooter that can do that 150 fpm for a couple of hours. I know that the majority of owners out there can afford the big bucks but what about the rest of us? There is a huge gap in the market. the assorted junk for under a thousand and all the contenders in the Tahoe test. Note that no scooter under about 4 grand even submitted a rig for testing. SAD that they don't have a economy class for testing. It will never be a true test of all dive scooters simply because the lower priced units can not compete with the Ferrari class rigs and thus don't bother to show.
The old adage still applies, Speed costs, How fast do you want to go?
As usual, the rambling below doesn't represent anything official from me or my employer.
You bring up a number of valid points and I could pontificate for a while.
Several quickie things before I get back to work.
1. There is a trickle down effect. Look how many Sierras/Gavins/etc are on the market now due to the introduction of the Cuda and other advanced scooters. 3 years ago, you had your choice of beat to crap Makos and Teknas or you could make the jump to ~$3k for a used Sierra/Gavin/SS. Now, you don't have to look to hard to find a decent scooter for sub-$2k used.
2. There's the other adage: "High performance, high quality, or low price. Pick any two."
I'm constantly looking at how to make scooters more economical. Granted, I'm looking at how to make them cheaper to build, but that directly translates to cheaper prices. Unfortunately, as cliche'd as it is, quality doesn't come cheap and there are some things I just can't get any cheaper - motors, controllers, batteries, aluminum, and labor just off the top of my head. Then there's R&D.
Contributing is 'economy of scale'. We just don't sell enough scooters to get us any better pricing. We're a tiny niche market. Even if we could sell 1000 scooters a year, we'd still be small.
Bottom line, unless there's a major paradigm shift, you're not going to see a quality scooter in the $1000-2000 price range new. If you do, I'd start to look and see where they are cutting corners. Maybe in materials or maybe they're subsidizing the sales to gain market share.
(Btw, I believe the Halcyon R-14 retails for under $3k. Also, IMO, the performance reflects the compromises needed to achieve this.)
3. A reason why some manufacturers may not show up is because they know their performance claims are BS. (No, I'm not accusing anybody or implying any knowledge.) I'm always amused by the claims of the 'Ebay special' scooters. There is no chance in hell that a scooter with 17lbs of thrust, 144Wh battery, and 350 watt power consumption is going to come anywhere near 4.2 mph and/or 90 minutes burntime.
Granted, that is an extreme example. But before the TBM, there wasn't anybody calling manufacturers on their data. Back in the day when I had a Gavin shortbody, it was claimed that they'd do 200fpm in doubles and had 50-ish lbs of thrust. Well, my Gavin was faster than almost everybody else's, however, it tested out in the 190-ish range in singles and had only ~40 lbs of thrust.
To finish up something that ended up longer than I intended, you're more than welcome to design, build, and market your ideal scooter for that mid-range price.
*grin*