Suzuki to quit MotoGP

Oh and as to supplies I have been hunting a 200A meter box with a service disconnect....@#$@#$ are unobtainium.

 

Yep noticed the same patterns as you, IMO big business has better binoculars. While it's comforting to know I'm not the only one (my boss thinks I'm crazy) it's scary nonetheless. In 2018/19 leading up to the longest march break in history we were slow, very slow. Work that we'd been competing again with China was getting better and better (they were pure shit for many years), and I remember the fall of 2019 we got a package of fixtures in to make a few changes to that were not only the best looking fixtures I'd ever seen, they were dimensionaly perfect in every way when I had them on the CMM. This was for a really good customer of ours that was traditionally against outsourcing jobs to china. I could see the writing on the wall, and figured we were cooked just like the mold and die industry had been a decade or more earlier. Our little fixture industry that had flown under the radar for so long was now exposed and figured out.

It wasn't long after that, that the video of china building a hospital in 8 days for this new virus going around came out, and the rest is history. We initially were shut down by the gov for a while and things were looking grim, but once we opened up it was all arses and elbows, and only in the last few weeks have we really got caught up and things back to "normal" 40 hour weeks. Not only have packages we're quoting starting to go back to china as they're showing more stability over there now, and the car/parts makers want their profits back, but stuff is getting put on hold. Couple that with carmakers cancelling ICE vehicles, and the future for us looks kinda grim. We're a small shop, and run really lean, but still....The next few years are going to be interesting.

Back in 2008 when SHTF I bounced around a couple places as they went down and landed here. I think I'm going to ride this one out, and go down with the ship guns a blazin. I'm in a much better financial situation than 2008, but I have some coworkers, family and friends that have taken this milk and honey from the past 2 years to dig themselves a pretty deep hole expecting the good times to keep rolling and last forever. I'm really hoping I'm wrong.

 

It's weird that Dorna would allow eight fucking Ducatis on the GP grid.
Sucks for Suzuki, I was really starting to dig them.

 

Suzuki following VW? Maybe trying to save up for the billions of fines that could be coming?

https://www.reuters.com/business/au...-suzuki-cars-alleged-test-dodging-2022-04-27/

 

Dorna has said they have already talked to other manufactures who are intested in joining motogp.

Bmw? ???

Motoamerica Teams cant give a bonus cause the series is dead. its been dead for years. Crowds are not even crowds. Zero money in the series.

 

This is a classic business death spiral. They have limited sources of revenue so they cut down on marketing, which limits growth potential. Then they get gradually squeezed on their existing revenue streams because of lack of marketing and capital investment, and so on.

Why hasn’t Suzuki sold itself to another (probably auto) conglomerate? If they were an American company I think this would have happened long ago. In which case the MotoGP program would be seen as a tremendous asset to an acquirer. Acquisition is the only way they’re going to survive as a brand. Maybe Toyota wants some 2 wheeled pizzaz?

Suzuki won the rider’s championship year before last, and built a bike that can actually outdrag Ducatis on the straight. It’s a shame to see them go, but when they rejoined I expected they’d pull this shit again. You can clearly see they’ve never been fully committed by that fact that they’ve never started a satellite team.

Rins and Mir will be just fine. I’d wager money that Honda/Mir will happen now.

My money is on Aprilia stepping up to the plate and starting a satellite team. I’m sure Dorna would bend their rules and cover the lease price for a satellite for them.

Whoda thought that pack of Eyetalian scooter slingers were more serious than Suzuki?

Rins to Aprilia satellite. Espargar dos will probably lose his ride at Honda now, but wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up on the other satellite Ape.

 

They did a few years back, to VW. It was an investment but VW treated it as a purchase and started to strip mine Suzuki for their huge position in the south Asian market. Eventually Suzuki had to raise billions to buy out their position from VW and that was the start of their divestment from racing.
VW really f@cked them and they still haven’t recovered.

 

Davide Brivio --- the champion of it all....seeing the future

 

The mold industry is a great example of shortsightedness. When companies started to have their molds built overseas, they made the incorrect assumption that the IP for their tooling was secure. The mold makers built duplicate molds, and put themselves into direct competition with their US customers. Once the cows were out of the barn....no going back. And your point regarding quality would be surprising to many people. Certainly on the packaging side of things, stuff from the Pacific Rim was easily identifiable due to the poor quality. Now they're as good as anyone. Despite all of this, I don't see China as being quite the problem as it might have been prior to all of this world instability. The fact remains, that a container coming East that was $4k a few years ago, is approaching $30k. Then there's the whole question of whether your container can even make it to the docks, or out of Long Beach. There's a lot of uncertainty that eats up that competitive cost advantage that they have, with labor and subsidized materials. We just had a large customer bring an RFP to us that we typically wouldn't have had a look at, as they have bought from China for years. So of course the first thing the guy says, is we're too high. I asked if he bid it to other domestic suppliers. He had, and we were most competitive, but he wanted us to match his price out of Asia. Nope. So fast forward 5 weeks, he's calling me in a panic, asking how quickly we can tool up and get into production, as he needs parts in 2 weeks. Sorry buddy, we're talking months. Haven't heard back from him, but heard him saying "we're fucked" as he hung up the phone. No sympathy from my side.

 

I remember the VW thing now, didn’t realize they were raiding Suzuki. That’s unfortunate. They’re a great brand. It’s interesting that VW group acquired Ducati and seem to have invested in the brand instead of strip mining. Maybe because Ducati is upmarket and makes most of their money in developed markets?

Fortunately for Suzuki, there is a wild boy who likes loud and fast things, runs a car company, understands the value of a brand, and likes spending big money to buy things he likes. Call Elon! Electric Hayabusas go brrrrrr! Put a rocket on a Busa and it’ll really fly.

 

They wanted the small car market share that Suzuki had in south and parts of Southeast Asia. Didn’t give a shit about the motorcycle, marine or atv portion.
I might be off but Suzuki had a bigger market share of the low to middle level auto sales market than Tata in India and way larger portion than VW and that’s what VW wanted.

 

VW China is one of, if not the most profitable part of VAG

 

Exactly, it's like going to a childrens Go Kart track, where every throttle is restricted, every engine is the same, as well as tires....
A hr later you still have 20 kids all in a pack...Close racing...no not really.

It's become manufactured digitally controlled racing..
May as well watch mannequins on electric motorcycles soon

Yaaawwwwnn, lol

I'd much rather watch 2 to 4 guys of the same caliber and machine slugging it out vs. a spec series where everybody of every caliber is packed like sardines.

Sure.. there's times when it's entertaining but the "soul is gone" it has been for many years.

Jus my opinion, others results May vary

 

Glad Motion and Bird could get you sorted out

 

Oh well.

 

Thanks for providing great examples of what not to do. It's been very prosperous. Sometimes when the needle points north, you need to head south.....

 

That hurt me, Bruce.

 

Wow. Looks like Suzuki just got busted for pulling a VolksWagen and fudging diesel emission numbers. Feds from 3 different countries raided them. This was just 4 days ago. Maybe they know this is going to snowball into big fines? If they were already iffy about the MotoGP project, then this may have knocked they right over the edge.

https://www.elrisala.com/2022/04/29/raid-on-the-three-largest-offices-of-suzuki/

I don’t see how Suzuki is going to survive as an independent company much longer. Looks like they already have a partnership with Toyota.
https://www.motor1.com/news/314373/toyota-suzuki-deepen-partnership/

If they end up getting fined to a faretheewell and there’s a global downturn, why wouldn’t Toyota just pick up the whole thing for a song?

The board and leaders of Suzuki are all extremely old, once they die off times will be a changing.

 

Also Dorna is gonna sue them for money.

 

Good luck. We just had to switch mfrs on controls and a 400 amp panel in hopes we might be able to finish a project within 60 days of deadline.