This Article continues the Thread from SpeedX Delivery Excuses #1
October 4 2016 – They ‘forgot’ about National Holiday Week – the total shutdown of all Chinese manufacturing plants.
“Our last update forget something huge:
From October 1st till October 7th in China we have the National week.
What does that mean?
Factories, shipping companies, actually whole China are off. They do not work during that period. We’re still assembling some bikes during that period (but not that much, most of our workers have taken off) and will ship them out once the shipping company starts working again.”
October 22 2016 – By the end of October, a few bikes had been shipped out to Asia, however, most of the bikes were still at the assembly stage:
“This update took a bit longer than expected. This time we wanted to make sure that we’d get accurate information from our manufacturing so we can give you a more precise timeline. We even flew in two people from our team to the factory to see what the current status is.
First of all, you have to know that manufacturing a bike – especially with an integrated cycling computer is a very complicated process. In total there are 6 factories involved and more than 15 different suppliers.
For EU backers – the current situation in the assemble factory in Taiwan
As of the week after the national holidays, we’ve shipped out all the relevant bike parts to the factory in Taiwan.
Since it was a large shipment, it was easily noticed by the customs and it was stuck for a few days. They have already received most of the shipment and expect to receive them all this week.
US, Asia, Australia, NZ & RoW backers – Current situation in assemble factory in China
Shipping parts to Taiwan was our main priority. Most of the frame shipments directly went to from the assemble factory in China to the Taiwan assemble factory.
The assemble factory right now has a lot of pressure from the whole company. It is a new team and there are a lot of issues to be solved. This is why we get inaccurate information from them, however for this update we’ve flown in 2 people to analyze the current situation in the factory.
We’ve still missing some shipments from the factories. Most of the shipments we got from the factories, we assembled a few bikes for the Asia & RoW backers and send out the parts to Taiwan, so that part doesn’t get delayed.
US backers
For last week we’ve been focusing on assembling US bikes. Since US bikes will be shipped by sea, we have to assemble 192 of them before the first batch can be shipped out. Depending on when some parts are arriving we’re expecting to finish the first batch next week.
Asia + Australia, NZ & RoW backers
We’re dealing with a new team, and shipping to countries that we’ve never shipped before. That is why we had some shipments with a Form E or Certificate of Origin. If you paid tax, please contact our support and we’ll give you the paid money back.
Next week, we’ll finish our assembling of the first US batch of bikes. After this batch, we’ll resume the assembling for Asia and RoW again.
VAT & Duty Refund
As mentioned (previously), some backers are eligible for a VAT & Duty refund. Since we’re still receiving product refunds, we’ll process this part after everything is shipped out.
Conclusion
We’ve shipped a few bikes to Asia & RoW backers. Since last week the main focus was on assembling US bikes for the first shipment. Next week we’ll start assembling for EU orders in the Taiwan assemble factory. For now, a realistic timeline looks like we can finish assembling of all bikes by end of November.
Once again, the dates were a total fantasy.
November 18 2016 – More delays and apologies:
“It’s time to update about the shipping progress.
Europe Shipping
Apologies for the EU shipping delay again. We expected that the shipping would start this week, but it turns out not. Regarding to the assembly, we already have 30% ready, 40% almost ready (only missing tap button, which gets stuck in customs). Assembly is not an issue now. Once we complete the administrational process, the shipping could be really fast.
We expect the first shipping to Europe could start after mid next week.
It would be another 2 months before shipping to Europe started.
US Shipping
There would be 100 bikes in 2nd batch. The assembly is almost done, with less than 10 bikes left, which should be done in 24 hours. The pre-shipping quality check would be done by 21st. If we make it, we would book the container on 24th.
Btw, as we learn from the lesson of Taiwan exporting administrational process, we’re asking the freight agency to have a tougher expectation of administrational work for LA port arrival, and prepare in advance. We’ll do our best to make 75% US KS backers receive bikes before Christmas.”
====================================================================
Continued with SpeedX Delivery Excuses #3