The SONDORS Metacycle electrical motorbike, as soon as the darling of the burgeoning commuter e-motorcycle market, has suffered repeated setbacks since its unique launch. Deliveries slowed to a trickle earlier this 12 months and by many accounts seem to have since ceased. Reservation holders, some who’ve been ready for years, have been left at the hours of darkness.
Hypothesis has run rampant concerning SONDORS’s present precarious monetary state of affairs. With the model seemingly getting into radio silence, we’re now getting extra particulars than ever earlier than from an unlikely supply. One of many firm’s factories in China tells Electrek that the California-based e-bike and e-moto firm has stopped paying its payments, abandoning hundreds of partially and fully-assembled bikes within the manufacturing unit’s storage warehouses.
The story truly begins a couple of years in the past when the SONDORS Metacycle electrical motorbike shocked the trade throughout its unveiling in 2021. With only a $5,000 price ticket, the corporate’s founder and CEO Storm Sondors promised the motorbike would attain freeway speeds and provide 80 miles (130 km) of vary. SONDORS is properly often called an early participant within the funds electrical bicycle class, and so the trade had excessive hopes for the model’s first electrical motorbike.
The Metacycle venture overran its timeline by almost a 12 months however ultimately began delivering dozens adopted by a whole bunch of bikes in late 2022. The finished bikes didn’t fairly reside as much as their promised specs, although many riders nonetheless praised the sunshine electrical motorbike as a useful commuter.
Deliveries by no means really picked up steam the best way the corporate promised. It’s unclear what number of Metacycles have been delivered to prospects, although SONDORS’s China-based manufacturing unit tells Electrek that “almost 2,000 Metacycles” had been imported to the US.
Towards the backdrop of unclear supply figures, on-line boards are bursting with reservation holders claiming they nonetheless haven’t acquired their bikes. Most have waited many months, with some having waited for years. Nonetheless others have acquired refunds, although these days many riders have been extra profitable with bank card chargebacks as SONDORS seems to have stopped responding to requests for refunds.
To make issues worse, the trickle of deliveries seems to have ended earlier this 12 months whilst SONDORS continued to promote the bike, bringing in additional income with none extra Metacycles reaching the US. As of at the moment, the Metacycle continues to be presently obtainable for order on SONDORS’s web site.
However as Electrek has discovered, manufacturing for the motorbike ended a 12 months in the past.
In keeping with the manufacturing unit in China that was employed to supply the motorbike on contract for SONDORS, the Metacycle meeting line has been mothballed as a result of what the manufacturing unit claims are a number of breaches of contract by SONDORS and nonpayment for produced and delivered bikes.
The manufacturing unit’s consultant agreed to talk to me on situation of anonymity, offering inner paperwork from the manufacturing unit and images of the Metacycle’s stock, elements, and the stalled manufacturing space.
In keeping with the manufacturing unit, there are presently round 500 accomplished Metacycle electrical bikes which have spent almost a 12 months sitting on the manufacturing unit ground. Lots of them are already packaged for cargo, whereas a whole bunch extra sit in rows ready to be crated.
Along with the finished bikes, the manufacturing unit says it has sufficient elements stacked up on web site to producer one other 1,500 accomplished Metacycles. Some elements quantity a lot larger than 1,500 and most have been piling up for over a 12 months.
However these bikes and elements haven’t simply been gathering mud. The manufacturing unit added that they’ve been constantly sustaining the bikes at their very own expense even whereas SONDORS has stopped making funds.
The rows of sophisticated forged aluminum frames and the mountains of elements have been left untouched for therefore lengthy as a result of SONDORS hasn’t paid its payments for over a 12 months, the manufacturing unit consultant defined.
“In June 2020, Mr. Sondors, [the] boss of SONDORS Inc. approached us to discover a producer for Metacycle, an electrical motorbike idea he designed. On the time, the journey from idea to product was lengthy, with many technical points unresolved. We devoted our sources to this venture, ultimately establishing a manufacturing system for Metacycle and turning his idea into actuality. In November 2021, he gave us the primary buy order (“PO”) for two,000 [units] of bikes, however the steadiness is just not paid totally until now.”
The manufacturing unit consultant laid out the remainder of the timeline, explaining that “in Could 2022, Mr. Sondors mentioned an order of 8,000 items.” Resulting from worth fluctuations of components and elements, the manufacturing unit says that he made a smaller buy order for two,000 items in June 2022 and made a prepayment at the moment, agreeing that the steadiness can be paid earlier than supply. “Later, he requested a rise in manufacturing to 7,000 items per 30 days. Trusting him, we ready components for greater than 2,000 bikes, employed over 20 extra employees, and invested massive cash to construct a brand new computerized manufacturing line.”
In a letter supplied by the manufacturing unit to Electrek, SONDORS is accused of being in breach of contract after first pressuring the manufacturing unit to ship extra Metacycle bikes earlier than receiving the excellent funds, then pushing the manufacturing unit to decrease the worth of the Metacycles after they’d been produced, successfully making an attempt to renegotiate the contract.
“From September 2022, Mr. Sondors started delaying his funds, requesting supply of bikes earlier than his funds. Contemplating our working relationship, we despatched him three containers of 120 bikes, for which he has but to clear the fee till now,” defined the manufacturing unit. In October 2022, the manufacturing unit consultant mentioned that they “stopped all manufacturing because of the dangers he posed to our enterprise.”
The manufacturing unit went on to element how after the manufacturing and supply of extra Metacycles ended, Mr. Sondors visited China in March 2023 and “made unreasonable calls for to scale back unit value concerning all of the delivered and undelivered bikes or threatened to switch us with one other producer. We consider he was making an attempt to switch his threat to us and decrease his prices by lowering the acquisition worth. We refused these calls for as they had been primarily requests to change the prevailing contract. Since March 2023, our relationship with him has deteriorated as a result of his failure to honor our settlement and his unreasonable calls for.”
In keeping with the manufacturing unit, they’ve found that their expertise with the corporate is just not distinctive, including that “a number of different suppliers (e-bike suppliers) have had related encounters with Mr. Sondors.”
Round that point in March 2023, Electrek hosted Storm Sondors for an interview on our Wheel-E Podcast the place he placed on a optimistic face for the corporate and claimed virtually 2,000 Metacycles had been delivered. Whereas we weren’t conscious of the extent of those SONDORS manufacturing woes on the time, we probably ought to have pushed him tougher on the time on particular points and complaints concerning sluggish deliveries.
However the saga didn’t finish there. “Since Could 2023, Mr. Sondors has been pressuring us to agree on prepayment deliveries,” defined the manufacturing unit consultant. “His makes an attempt to harass us in China and defame us to our suppliers have been relentless.”
The manufacturing unit claims that since July of this 12 months, Mr. Sondors has “erroneously claimed that no contracts existed between SONDORS Inc. and us and demanded a return of the prepayment.” The manufacturing unit signifies that it has since despatched three formal letters clarifying the existence of their contracts and the methods SONDORS has breached these contracts.
Electrek additionally acquired a duplicate of a “Letter of Censure and Warning” from a significant electrical bicycle trade affiliation within the Chinese language metropolis the place SONDORS contract manufacturing happens. The native trade affiliation, which represents many massive electrical bicycle factories within the space, made a number of claims in opposition to SONDORS.
The affiliation indicated that SONDORS “did not adjust to contracts, made false guarantees, defamed enterprises within the electrical automobile trade and their senior administration personnel, unfold false info throughout the electrical automobile trade, and instigated pointless lawsuits between enterprises within the electrical automobile trade.”
A number of requests for remark had been despatched to Storm Sondors, however no response was acquired by the point of publishing.
All of this comes throughout a interval of maximum uncertainty for the corporate. SONDORS canceled an try at an IPO earlier this 12 months and seems to have misplaced a lot of its workers as extra clues to monetary points have stacked up. Nevertheless, no official assertion has come from the corporate concerning the destiny of the Metacycle venture.
Lately a verified now-former Sonders worker posted in a Sondors Fb group to let everybody know his state of affairs. The put up was deleted quickly after.
The claims of a deteriorated relationship between SONDORS and the Metacycle manufacturing unit, in addition to the reported monetary misery of the corporate, appear to indicate dim prospects for the corporate.
Nevertheless, SONDORS has a historical past of bouncing again from main issues, and it’s not inconceivable that the corporate may pull yet one more rabbit out of its motorbike helmet with a significant money infusion or by promoting the corporate.
If that is really the top for SONDORS, it can mark the final main blow in an unlucky sluggish fall from grace for the often-acclaimed low-cost electrical bike supplier that fairly actually kickstarted the funds e-bike pattern within the US again in 2015 with its $500 fats tire e-bike, in addition to impressed many with attention-grabbing designs whereas even venturing into three-wheel vehicles.
