Wildfire HPV Quest Manufacturing Feasibility Study

A few years ago, I started the North American Velomobilist website to help promote the use of velomobiles and other HPV's on this continent. As time passed, I grew interested in becoming involved with importing or manufacturing velomobiles and in the Summer of 2004 I decided to look into the feasibility of producing the Quest velomobile, designed and manufactured by the Dutch company Velomobiel.nl, under license here in Maine.

In March of 2005 I traveled to the Netherlands where Velomobiel.nl hosted me while I spent a week and a half learning all I could while helping to put together the Quest that I had ordered. Shortly after returning from the Netherlands, I re-submitted a grant proposal to the Maine technology Institute, a state funded organization which provides seed money to startups and established companies in a number of targeted technology areas. As a composites based product, the Quest velomobile fell into one of these technology areas. The idea was that by outsourcing the manufacture of the composite and specially fabricated mechanical parts, I could utilize the skills and equipment of the people here in New England while at the same time circumventing some of the typical startup related costs and difficulties. The grant was to allow me to focus on determining the extent to which the market for the Quest existed, and also identify who might actually fabricate the Quest parts, based on experience, as well as on their affinity for this project.

Through an on-line survey that was run between mid-August and mid-September, it appeared that adequate demand for the Quest exists here in North America, but at the conclusion of the project it also became apparent that it would not be possible for me to cost effectively replicate the efficiency embodied by the team at Velomobiel.nl. Furthermore, the need to bring in venture capitalists at the very start of the enterprise was not appealing, especially given the lesson of the debt related demise of other cycle manufacturers in the relatively recent past. Still another factor which made me decide against building the Quest under license is the development of the next generation velomobile by Velomobiel.nl which is underway. This machine should offer the aerodynamics of the Mango, but will be made from stamped aluminum plates, and so in all likelihood will be available much less expensively as a kit. It was not difficult to envision building Quests for a couple years, only to have this new machine be released and undercut the market for the Quest, still, 1-2 years shy of paying off the licensing fee. So it is with some regret that I have decided not to go ahead with manufacturing the Quest under license, since it is a great machine and I do believe that it could do well here and would go a long way towards promoting the use of HPV's on this continent. The time spent was not wasted, however, since the many contacts made, and productive and exciting discussions which occurred while carrying out this project are likely to prove invaluable moving forward.

In any event, I have opted to avoid getting involved with VC at this point, and will proceed with Wildfire HPV, taking a more a 'bootstrap' approach by selling a variety of products to support my activities. More on these as they develop.

Please Click Here to check out my initial product offerings.

Thanks also to all of you who have supported this project by bidding on the Ebay items!