General Motors Discontinues Ariv E-Bike Project
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General Motors will wind down its Ariv e-bike project after experiencing a downturn in business due to COVID-19.
According to The Verge, GM decided to cancel the Ariv e-bike program after conducting a review of its various business ventures amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The automaker first announced Ariv, which is pronounced “arrive” and stylized as “ARĪV”, early last year and began selling the bikes in select European countries in the summer. The Ariv bikes were offered in two variants, the compact ‘Mold’ and foldable ‘Merge’, and ranged in price from €2,750 and €3,400.
Brian Tossan, GM’s director of global innovation, said the automaker “has generated significant insights about micromobility for General Motors, and we plan to use those insights to benefit future innovation.”
The Mold and Merge e-bikes were developed by GM’s Urban Mobility Solutions division in Michigan and Oshawa, Ontario. While they were developed in North America, they were only ever sold in Europe before GM pulled the plug.
GM has made a number of revisions to its mobility business in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The automaker canceled its Maven car-sharing project last month and its Cruise subsidiary also laid off 8% of its full-time staff this week.
GM managed to return a $294 million profit Q1, 2020, but it lost a significant $1.4 billion before taxes in the first three months of the year.
Last June, we asked if GM should one day sell its Ariv e-bikes in North America. While that certainly won’t happen now, we’ll always wonder what could have been for the Ariv project. The Verge reports e-bike sales in Europe and North America experienced an initial dip amid the pandemic, but many e-bike manufacturers are now experiencing record sales as COVID-19 restrictions lift and summer rears its head.
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the only insight they learned from this was nobody wants a $2K-$3K foldable electric bike.
No problem, just more wasted money that could have been spent improving the products that people actually buy.
For a company that kills perfectly good vehicles because they are not making them enough money they sure know how to waste money on crap that was never going to make them any money in the first place.
Maybe they can give the rest away with the EV’s that are coming down the pipeline.
Oh you meant bikes, I thought you meant money
This was Mary Bara’s dream.
Heartbreaking 🙁
Did you guys miss this:
“The Verge reports e-bike sales in Europe and North America experienced an initial dip amid the pandemic, but many e-bike manufacturers are now experiencing record sales as COVID-19 restrictions lift and summer rears its head.”
What a missed opportunity