Category: Asia

Worse than Worst

Binqi scooters
We always hear about low-quality Chinese scooters, and how the Chinese scooter industry has little regard for intellectual property. POCphil sent us this email from Binqi, and we’d actually received the same email recently, but ignored it. Dealers and anyone with a scooter website get emails like this several times a week. This one deserves a good look, though, because it’s the perfect storm of absurdity:
Continue reading “Worse than Worst”

Haynes’ “Chinese scooter” book

Scooter-Station notes that Haynes has released one of their famous service manuals targeted to Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean scooters. Probably handy, but it can’t be too specific, even though half the scooters made in Asia are Yamaha Vino knockoffs, there’s a lot of variety there, too, and surely a wide variety of tolerances and torques and such, which is where the Haynes manuals usually shine. Still, knowledge is power, and even if it just covers GY6-style engines in depth, it’d be useful.

Dealer Expo 2009, Part I: Overview

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Every February, powersports dealers from around the nation descend on grey, shivery, boring Indianapolis to see what’s new in the industry. It’s a chance for manufacturers, importers, and distributors to wine and dine their dealers and hopefully round up some orders for the upcoming riding season. This was our third year at DealerExpo, though it was our first with actual 2strokebuzz press passes. Continue reading “Dealer Expo 2009, Part I: Overview”

Vespa versus Venti

Don’t say it was unexpected (1, 2) but 2sb has learned that Piaggio has taken some sort of legal action against Hammerhead, the importer of the Venti 150 vintage Vespa lookalike. Our source tells us “Piaggio sent Hammerhead a cease-and-desist order in regards to the Venti yesterday.” We suspect it was actually a C&D letter rather than an order“ (there’s a difference) or if it’s based on the design of the Venti or the marketing language used in their flyer, but either way, domestic legal action against importers is usually a safer bet than an international legal contest, especially when China is involved. The good news for Hammerhead is that they’re raking in publicity leading into Dealer Expo (just a couple weeks away), so we applaud their market savviness , if not their design and engineering.

Venti 150: more details!

Way, WAY more Venti 150 info and photos on the Dallas/Fort Worth Scooterist board. Apparently it is a plastic body and the photos show a real prototype that was made to spec in China. The photos look pretty impressive, and the importer is candid about its possible shortcomings. I have to admit that I’m excited about this, somewhat because it’s so Vespalike, but moreso because it appears it’s actually the result of a U.S. importer working with a Chinese manufacturer to design a scooter (at least the bodywork) rather than buying a containerload of off-the-shelf Vino knockoffs. In any case, it appears there’s a real scooterist behind it and not a fly-by-night opportunist, and you gotta love that. An interesting tidbit: it sounds like Adly is working on a similar project, probably with a Lambretta twist. Back to the Venti, wouldn’t there be intellectual property issues with Piaggio? I’m of the opinion that if Piaggio has a problem with it, they could just shut the hell up and make a vintage-styled Vespa themselves, for crying out loud, but lawyers don’t think like I do. (Thanks for the link, bbehanna.)

Baotian’s Vespa knockoff

Chinese manufacturer Baotian unveiled a new scooter pretty clearly influenced by modern Vespa design.
Betcha:

  • That’s plastic bodywork with a tube frame under it all.
  • “Lambretta” (the “Italian” one), Jin Jian, ZNen, FlyScooter, Lance, Milan, and countless others will all be selling this scooter soon.
  • Piaggio, unable to stop China from copying their bikes, will instead launch individual legal campaigns against dozens of importers in dozens of countries, costing the company millions, a cost they will pass on to consumers by marking up color-matched half-helmets another $100 each.

Pennsylvania DOT delays Chinese scooter registrations

The Scooter Scoop (welcome back, Steve, where have you been?) reports Pennsylvania’s DOT is holding all registrations of Chinese-made scooters for review. If this initiative covers any scooter with a VIN starting with “L,” it would not only target the fly-by nighters, but many legitimate NHTSA/DOT/EPA-approved importers and even top brands (like Piaggio and Kymco) that make some models in China.

We’re happy to see a state taking a stand against unsafe scooters and fly-by-night importers, but it seems Pennsylvania has cast their net a bit too wide, and is targeting dealers and consumers rather than importers. Hopefully the new system allows speedy processing of legitimate scooter titles, and penalizes the importers rather than the buyers of questionable Chinese scooters. The dealers deserve a big slap on the wrist, but the importers are the real criminals here.

Find more information about scooter VINs at our scooter VIN database and from Dr. Buzz.

$315

The Scooter Scoop on a $315 motorscooter. He’s not clear if it’s wholesale or retail price, but I bet a lot of sub-$1000 scooters cost less than that wholesale, and in any case, keep in mind that’s AFTER manufacturer markup. Snobbishness aside, can you trust a scooter that costs less than a decent* bicycle?

*A similar drop in quality/price has been happening in the bicycle world over the past decade. My local bicycle shop, who easily supplied reasonably-priced parts for a 1960s Sears three-speed Vina found at a garage sale, won’t work on chain-store bikes, even the name brands. You get what you pay for when you spend the extra money at a reliable dealer.

Nipponia unveiled

Scooter Station sure is excited about Nipponia. (Google translation) The designs are actually pretty novel and interesting (the “Renzo” especially). The Japanese company, now based in Greece, plans to produce these Italian-designed scooters in Greece using Chinese-made parts, and start selling them in Europe in late 2009. Type nerd trivia: Nipponia’s logo features the same godawful Revue typeface as PGO’s logo.

UPDATE: more from Motoblog.it.