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Re: (ET) Wheelhorse and their last ET in 1983
My understanding, from the 2 ex-dealers that I have talked to in the
past, is the main problem was that the batteries GE supplied were not too
good and the customers did not take care of them. Ergo, lots of battery
failures in warranty, and warrranty payouts to dealers. Neither did the
customers (non technical people, not like us) understand the tractors
themselves. Leave her discharged over the winter you're in for a new set
of batteries out of warranty. They also broke a lot of battery
disconnects, didn't check battery terminal tightness every year or even
battery water monthly.
Neither did the dealers service people truly understand them. GE
held 'servicing seminars' for these people and let's face it, a good
small engine man is not and never will be a good electrical
troubleshooter, even with schooling. I have the full 'green book' from
one of these ex-dealers, along with the troubleshooting guides, and even
they don't help. GE's own 'troubleshooting trees' in the manual has
never fixed a tractor for me, even led me to the right area. They were
pretty, but written up by theorists, not experienced people. GE's
schematics are not the easiest to follow by any means. (Wheelhorse redrew
the schematics. Much better in a Wheelhorse manual)
Early GE's had specific problems. One of the ex-dealers I knew quit
because he was tired of replacing deck motors, or out of warranty,
epoxying broken or lifted deck motor field magnets. Also, the leaf
relays with the blue coils had coil burnouts both in and out of warranty.
That caused tractors 'dead in the field' he had to trailer them in to
fix them or spend an hour in the hot sun.
When he quit, he was allowed to return unsold stock for full credit.
So he trailered several unopened boxes containing new tractors and a
couple unboxed ones up to New York and after exchanging th right
paperwork to do it, was told to leave them in the plant back yard, a big
fenced area. When he got there, he saw the whole area filled with boxes
like his and tractors that had been out in the weather for a good while
with new tractors in them. He said 'hundreds of tractors'. I imagine
these all went later to Wheelhorse.
Also - GE's main projected market, IE golf courses soon found out that
these heavy tractors made unacceptable ridges in their turf, both
greenskeepers and golfers didn't like that one bit and word got around
about it. With this market gone, sales slumped.
As to Wheelhorse, by the time they took over, the gas crisis had cooled
off and people wouldn't pay the premium price for electric any more. I
would speculate that New Idea faced the same lack of concern over fuel
cost plus as they sold tractors and used up the Wheelhorse stock,
manufacturing new supplies of these parts became more costly, especially
in smaller lots. New Idea was likely undercapitalized for the sales they
had if they only lasted a year or two, and pulled the plug themselves
rather than go into deep debt in a poor marketing position.
I would have.
There is also the possibility that New Idea was formed by Wheelhorse
to get Wheelhorse out of the electric tractor business and use up the
parts. After all, the by then bad reputation (marketing-wise) of
electrics could rub off on them and affect gas tractor sales, their bread
and butter.
Yes, this marketing and business aspect is an interesting area of
investigation. Especially as we have a resurgence of interest in
electrics such as the Electric OX and a petrofuel crisis that won't go
away this time.
Dave
Weymouth MA
On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:24:06 -0500 "Matthew callahan"
<callahanrc hotmail com> writes:
> Gee, I wonder if that did have anything to do with it... <VBG>
>
> Were there other factors? High cost was probably one. How about
> marketing,
> did wheelhorse do a good job marketing their electric tractors, or
> did they
> pull the same thing that GM did with the EV1? Did the tractors have
> any
> safety issues, premature failures, or anything of the sort?
>
> Matt
>
>
> >From: "Max Hall" <maxmatic gmail com>
> >Reply-To: maxo iname com
> >To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
> >Subject: Re: (ET) Wheelhorse and their last ET in 1983
> >Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:06:05 -0500
> >
> >Gasoline hit its peak in '81, and plummeted almost uninterruptedly
> >through '86 to less than half the '81 peak.
> >
> >I don't know if thast had anything at all to do with it, though.
> >
> >-Max
> >
> >On 12/11/06, Matthew callahan <callahanrc hotmail com> wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > Could any of you enlighten us with your insight on why GE sold
> the
> >original
> > > ET line, why New Idea only produced it for what? one year?, and
> why did
> > > Wheelhorse stop making them in 1983? What were the reasons that
>
> >contributed
> > > to their downfall at that time?
> > >
> > > Any historical references or articles from that time period
> regarding
> >the
> > > downfall of ETs would be greatly appreciated.
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > >
> > > Matt
> > >
> > >
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