The SOP (start of production) of the TWIKE 5 has been postponed further than hoped. According to current planning, the first prototypes will not be built until the summer. The subsequent production ramp-up will then take place in the late fall of this year.
Bad news. And yet we also see advantages. Because as annoying as the delay in delivery of the first vehicles in particular is, the background and its effects are otherwise positive without exception.
Instead of the initial target of 200 orders for the TWIKE 5, which was limited to a series of 500, at some point there were over 800 reservations. The last customer would have had to wait around 3 years for the five hundredth vehicle to leave the factory. This is because production capacity was originally limited to one vehicle per day.
We were also increasingly accused of only wanting to serve an elitist upper class. But that is not the idea behind the TWIKE, nor is it the intention of its pilots. It is simply in the nature of the small series that it is more cost-intensive and for this reason we gave the small series valuable extras such as more performance and high-quality materials. To give the higher price a portion of extra performance.
However, the actual idea of the TWIKE is to make a real contribution to sustainable mobility in the medium term with a visible series. The TWIKE 5 creates the necessary foundation for this and the 5 Series’ reservation holders know and support this.
In order to take advantage of the opportunity to meet the noticeably higher demand as quickly as possible on the one hand and to place investments carefully and optimize all processes as early as possible on the other, we contacted an experienced contract manufacturer and presented our project to him. This was already on our original plan, but actually only for about two years after the successful start-up of TWIKE 5 production. The unexpectedly high demand motivated us to make this request now. And that was a very good thing. The cooperation has already got off to a successful start with the first workshops. Both the initial data exchange and the collaboration in a larger and professional team are a lot of fun and are already bearing fruit.
At first glance, the fact that we are starting production later than originally planned and promised is a disadvantage. On the other hand, the more intensive preparation time will result in a higher cycle rate and, above all, even greater process reliability.
We are very aware of the disappointment regarding the significant delay in delivery and would like to apologize for this. However, we are convinced that all the resulting optimizations are worth the wait and therefore hope for your understanding!
We would like to thank you in advance for your brief feedback, a juicy criticism, but also praise, and remain with
Let´s TWIKE!
You can find out who the manufacturing partner will be, what higher clock rate we will achieve and other exciting news about the development of the TWIKE 5 in the following newsletters.
