ROKiT Made has announced it will create the "largest e-bike manufacturing facility in the United States” that is set to open in 2021.
There currently aren't many ebike manufacturers based in the United States, and certainly none of significant size, but the facility will apparently produce 300,000 units in its first year with plans to increase that to 900,000 in the future.
The facility will be located on a campus named Orb near Las Vegas and ROKiT has already allocated funding for building the infrastructure and campus. The Orb campus is designed to be big enough to view from the International Space Station and will employ over 2,000 workers. ROKiT Made claims the facility will provide on-the-job training for its employees and will assist in boosting the local economies.
ROKiT Made is part of the ROKiT Group that describes itself as "a next-generation global media company" and is made up of businesses that deliver mobile phones, beverages, WiFi services and film and music distribution. It doesn't currently produce any electric vehicles but it does sponsor the Venturi Racing team that competes in the FIA Formula E race series.
The ROKiT Group is made up of a number of brands across a wide spectrum of sectors.
ROKiT Group is entering the ebike market based on analysts' predictions that 130 million e-bikes will be sold globally between 2020 and 2023 and, according to a May 2020 study by
Fortune Business Insights, the global e-bike market is expected to reach $46.04 billion by 2026. Rather than produce the bikes in East Asia like most manufacturers, ROKiT says it wishes to "reimagine American manufacturing by moving away from the current trend of robotics and artificial intelligence, and instead utilize human intelligence and American labor." The company has apparently secured exclusive rights to 10 consumer-tested designs from established e-bike companies at a range of price points and intends to license more in the future. After production, ROKiT Made will take on the marketing, and both retailer distribution and direct-to-consumer sales. It is not clear at this point if any of the designs will be for eMTBs.
Jonathan Kendrick co-founder of ROKiT Made, said: "We are bringing manufacturing jobs to America. ROKiT Made is the future of American manufacturing. We are dedicated to identifying, licensing, and manufacturing cutting-edge products. The focus is on building e-bikes in our Las Vegas Orb campus, which is strategically situated in an enterprise and duty-free foreign-trade zone."
Dean Becker, Chairman and CEO of ROKiT Made, said: "There is no better time than now to invest in a new American manufacturing facility, and that's exactly what ROKiT Made is doing. We have studied the e-car business for several years and noticed that the existing concepts for the public new entrants into the e-car business and other e-mobility sectors are currently flawed; none of the companies show serious consideration to where their vehicles will be manufactured and built. We believe that to create a strong e-mobility business you have to start first with the facility, and then move on to the product. By ensuring that the build and assembly of our products will be done domestically we are adding American-built value to our products."
- Prestige Worldwide
Looks more like Ilton John and Richard Brandon got together and have a pile of cash to burn.
RoKiT is pretty shady
They went to the bike industry because there are more people who they can fool.
www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/06/01/elon-musks-companies-receive-4-9-billion-in.html
buffalonews.com/business/local/teslas-buffalo-plant-gets-884-million-write-down/article_fe1e6866-9dea-5c56-a217-b3bc35a69acd.html
@sardine: If it were sone type of IPO scam they wouldn't be hoping to merge with a special purpose acquisition company.
www.google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/rokit-made-reimagining-american-manufacturing-114600908.html
A better guess is that they are anticipating a Biden win, which will mean big subsidies for sustainable transportation alternatives, and which is a good thing. Or maybe they just want to make a bunch of e bikes and create American jobs?
www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs
The green energy companies that went under, failed on their lack of demand because green energy is so expensive. For example, if I was to get solar panels for my house, it would take 25-30 years to pay off. I am not against green energy at all, but right now it is not efficient or inexpensive enough to be viable. Only electric cars have been gaining ground because they made the costs comparable with gas cars and are efficient.
Here are the subsidies given to companies right now. Majority of the top subsidized energy companies are green energy.
subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/top-100-parents
news.usni.org/2019/11/29/report-u-s-shoulders-steep-price-to-protect-merchant-ships-in-strait-of-hormuz
The list also ignores the environmental costs and cleanup that we have to spend, effectively subsidizing the fossil fuel industries. Also, many fossil fuel companies have failed because they over-extended themselves and were reliant on market assumptions that were incorrect.
www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-09-17/abandoned-gas-wells-are-left-to-spew-methane-for-eternity
The reason why the fossil fuel companies are so heavily regulated is because they demonstrated they won't hold themselves accountable and they will not act as responsible citizens. Think about every bit of pollution, oil spill, foreign conflicts, etc. involved with the history of the industry.
www.cfr.org/backgrounder/opec-changing-world
www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-environment/2020/05/11/369209/more-oil-and-gas-bankruptcies-could-be-on-the-way
www.ourdailyplanet.com/story/offshore-oil-and-gas-industry-challenged-by-lawsuits-and-bankruptcies
@stonant Oil company bankruptcies do not take away environmental obligations.
cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/Bankruptcy-does-release-oil-gas/97/i6
The cynical part is me wonders how much subsidies went into funding the fake science that has caused us to do nothing about the fossil fuel problem.
www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/exxon-and-the-oil-industry-knew-about-climate-change/exxons-climate-denial-history-a-timeline
WTF! This has to be the worst design brief ever put to tender.
I'm not in manufacturing, but this sounds rather dubious. How can you build a manufacturing plant when you don't even know what you're building yet?
I mean, ROKiT *is* a shady group so...
Get the contracts and designs then learn as you go sounds like their idea. If you build it, they will come.
I'm not even sure what ROKiT is...other than they sponsor a racecar. Is "a next-generation global media company" like RedBull...but not as cool or successful?
www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-183291
But applicable here? Maybe this is the new scheme? Foxcomm and now this...will we be seeing a bunch of companies introduce a "plan," get local, state, and federal gov. to give all kinds of tax breaks...company milks it for a few years...and then bails on project as "unfeasible." Taxpayers left holding the bag for all the infrastructure that was build and out of the tax $$$ it would have gathered. Company wins!
"ah yes....old white men"
*ticks box*
-massive ego:✅
-shady business plan:✅
-venture capitalists looking into exploiting a hype:✅
Yea, this definitley looks like a scam.
E-bikes apparently...
They better be black and white, and have a tequila bottle mount...
Urban areas are a huge market.
As long as I'm not too old and relatively fit, I actually prefer the feel of biking a pedal bike, but I'm sure there will come a time that I'll switch over.
also banning cars would do planet a lot of good, but may be too late, as CO2 levels are already beyond 400 parts/ million?
Obama started doing it with solyndra mentioned above and Tesla/solarcity.
Taxpayer funded croyn capitalism. Congress/senate is bought and paid for by globalist bankers at this point.
Does'nt matter what system of government/commerce a country has, rule of law for all people rich and poor is paramount to
maintaining a middle class with some semblance of control over their own destiny. cue Thomas Jefferson quotes..