Peloton To Stop In-House Bike Production as Part of Turnaround (bloomberg.com) 21
Peloton will stop building its bikes and treadmills at its own factories and rely solely on partners for manufacturing, marking one of the most dramatic steps yet to simplify its operations and reduce costs. From a report: The move is an about-face from Peloton's strategy over the past three years, when it split manufacturing between its own facilities and partners. The company built a portion of its standard Bike models and the higher-end Bike+ using facilities it acquired in 2019 as part of buying Tonic Fitness Technology. It also relied on Taiwan-based manufacturing partner Rexon Industrial to build bikes and its Tread treadmill. Now, the company will cease operating its Tonic facilities and move all of its bike and treadmill manufacturing to Rexon, Chief Supply Chain Officer Andrew Rendich told Bloomberg News in an interview. "We are going back to nothing but partnered manufacturing," he said. "It allows us to ramp up and ramp down based on capacity and demand." Peloton is making the change after several months of turmoil. In February, co-founder John Foley was replaced as chief executive officer by veteran media executive Barry McCarthy, and the company cut nearly 3,000 employees -- including many members of its executive team. Rendich was appointed to his role in March.
The obvious solution (Score:4, Funny)
Because when you have a major quality-control issue, [nytimes.com] the obvious thing to do is relinquish control over your manufaturing!
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That issue is really the silliest in terms of branding and silly price savings. Clipless pedals have been around in various forms for decades and their design around the SPD-SL style has been around since like the 2000's
People are already paying top dollar for a premium machine just give them a name brand pedal from a reputable supplier. Seems like just greed at that point to try and do it yourself or farm it out to god knows what knockoff company. It's a fixed bike, it's not even like the weight matters
Re: Yay, China! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why blame Biden? Who is really demanding they take the jobs to China? Wouldnâ(TM)t it be the Wall Street parasites who are dictating what and where things are being manufactured?
Re: Yay, China! (Score:2)
How long before... (Score:2)
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Better to outsource this to China (Score:3)
I tried Peloton (Score:3)
I think Peloton have a growing business model problem.
Even if you adore the instructor, watching someone pedal and call out people's names for 20mins isn't all that inspiring.
I tried it for a few months, never got into it, switched over to Zwift. I prefer my own playlists for the most part, and with e.g. Zwift (my current thing, and my Wattbike pointing at my TV), I can watch what I like, listen to what I like, Zwift gives me varied routes and automatically adjusts resistance for hills and suchlike.
The Peloton bike is an overpriced spin bike, and the genius of having the subscription cost triple if you have the bike vs the app... just genius: figure out who's got money to burn and charge like a wounded bull.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
Mini-Boeing? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Boeing had such such wonderful success outsourcing chunks of the 737 Max (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings). I'm suprised more businesses haven't adopted it. Just think of the benefits: 1) Two layers of management (yours, theirs) between you and the manufacturing crew, 2) Firing your outsourcer(s) is much harder than firing an employee, 3) Court battles if you decide to kick an outsourcer out, 4) Your best engineers go looking for greener pastures, 5) There now has to be enough pro
They'll brick existing bikes sooner or later, too (Score:5, Insightful)
Given their past record, I'm fully expecting them to stop supporting existing equipment and/or cut it off from any smart features pretty soon. It would be a natural and a completely expected progression - discontinue a product, shift remaining stock, then stop any support because maintaining it is just bleeding money.
Buy a real bike, ride outside like a normal person (Score:2)
Disgusting! (Score:2)
$1500 + monthly subscription = osteoporosis (Score:2)
If the only training you do is to ride a Peloton, the only thing you can really achieve is to give yourself osteoporosis.
For $1500 one-time you can get a very nice barbell, bumper plates, and a power cage.
You'll build a strong heart, dense bones, healthy connective tissue, and quality muscle mass.
At least if you pay for heated seats, they do what they say and heat seats. If you buy a fitness app s
That did not work out so well for Schwinn (Score:2)
https://www.strategy-business.com/article/17848
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Re: That did not work out so well for Schwinn (Score:2)