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Well
no wonder he wants out! It may not be clear to many here who don't have
knowledge of volume production. And there are probably other reasons for
his decision of which I'm unaware. Please keep in mind that I know
very little history of ETs, Bill Gunn or how both have survived after the
manufacturers dropped them.
It
seems he is fully prepared in terms of documentation and tooling to go into
full-scale production. (If he wanted to actually do that, he would likely
have to find replacements for a few obsolete parts, and probably spend some
engineering time needed for re-designs forced by the replacements.) But
that would only give him the capability to produce. He'd still need a
manufacturing facility, employees, and a business organization to do marketing
and build a distribution network.
In
other words, he has a big investment that can go nowhere unless another huge
investment is added. And frankly no one will, because the public firmly
believes electric yard tools are wimpy. It doesn't matter that they're
wrong. The market is not there. Especially since a new ET produced
in large numbers would still be substantially more expensive than a gas
tractor.
You'd
have to create a market from scratch, which requires lots of education.
The marketing guys will tell you (correctly) that educating your market is the
highest effort, lowest return approach you can take.
In
short, what Bill has is not suited to his market. He is left with
supporting maybe 1000(?) running ETs worldwide, which requires dealing in
purchasing/production lots of one to maybe twenty. But he has to do it
with tooling and designs that were intended for high volume production.
With a steadily increasing rate of obsolescence on 30-year-old
components.
What a
colossal pain in the patootie. I admire Bill for keeping things together
this long.
Here's
what I'd do. Find out what the annual revenue from his ET business for the
last five years has been. Based on that, some entrepreneur here or
elsewhere would offer an amount to buy him out, assuming it is being done to
make a real business out of it. Bill probably won't get a
lot for what he has on that basis, but then I doubt he'll get much from a
Costa Rican farmer who just wants to keep his fleet running either. If the
ET parts business is to survive, it must make business sense. It will take
a business person to run it. The coop idea still has merit, but it
will have to be run like a business or it will die.
There
are many things that could be done to make such a business more viable. A
website would help tremendously. A little marketing would help to get the
word out that such a thing as an electric tractor even exists at all.
Selling through existing EV suppliers like EV Parts, KTA Services and EV
America could boost sales. Many of the parts could likely be re-sourced or
re-designed to accommodate the small volumes involved.
Those
who think of an ET as a collector's item or a snapshot of history will
probably see their ETs go up in value. That's because some of the original
parts to restore and maintain them will become unavailable. They have to,
to make the business viable.
If
keeping Bill's role alive even without Bill is a necessity, this is the only way
I see to do it. Otherwise it's just a bunch of guys helping each other out
where they can. That would be cozy, but might not be enough to
sustain the ET.
Chris
I meet Bill a couple years ago at his shop , He
Indeed Has a company stamp out the decks using
His dies. I did see a stack of
them unwelded, and not painted. He finished welding them and then
Sent them to the painter .But not
until someone ordered one! I did order one last fall, Very nice
too.
I know you don’t believe me, but
most of the things he sells he has to buy from suppliers. And
then
Finishes It himself if need
to!
He is about 52 give or take a
year. He graduated the year the designed the Elec Trak June
1969
He does have all the tooling, 6000
drawings, Welding jigs, Fiberglass molds, Everything
!
Keith
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