We previously talked about Dutch electric bike manufacturer VanMoof's struggles keeping its boat afloat. The brand recently announced its bankruptcy, with a lot of bicycles reportedly left unrepaired in its store. Naturally, this resulted in a lot of people becoming disgruntled with the brand, even resorting to reporting VanMoof for bike theft.
While it's easy to understand the rage on the part of the consumers, there could be a light at the end of the tunnel, ashas just been taken over by new owners. Indeed, it was previously reported that McLaren Applied's Lavoie, an e-mobility brand, was in talks to acquire VanMoof but ended up backing out. However, it seems that Lavoie made a full 180 and changed its mind.
On the consumer end of the story, big changes are anticipated too. Chief of which wll be the abandonment of the brand's in-house retail and service approach. Instead, it's anticipated that VanMoof will make use of third-party resellers and service centers, hopefully resulting in more accessibility on the part of its end-users.
It's widely understood that the root of VanMoof's problems lies in its high-tech electric bikes which had components that were prone to failure and expensive to repair. Nevertheless, prior to going bankrupt, VanMoof claimed to have addressed these issues with newWhile all of this seems promising, it's understood that it'll take some time until we see positive changes from VanMoof.