Comment by msandford | Hacker News Reader

Comment by msandford | Hacker News Reader

I can't understand why these things are so damn expensive.

You can get a longboard skateboard for $100-$300 or so. I'm sure you can spend more but that's a good starting number. That's for the board, the trucks, the bearings and wheels. http://www.daddiesboardshop.com/longboards/complete-longboar...

It seems like a decent, 1000W+ motor can be had for less than $200. http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLM40...

Controllers are around $100 each, I'm not sure if you could use a single large one or if you'd need a pair of smaller ones. http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLA10...

One of these packs would be enough juice to get you moving, but it might take two to get you the range you need. http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__45145__Turnigy_na... So call that $300 in parts.

Okay so $200 for the board, $400 for the motors, $200 for the controllers, and $300 for the batteries. We're now at $1100. After that what's left? I can think of:

A charger? $200 max http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11597__iCharger_3...

Controls? Figure what, $100 for the radio unit and the receiver and whatnot. Probably much less.

Last are all the brackets and driveline parts. I figure you could machine the motor brackets out of aluminum for less than $50 per pair in quantity, the pullies are only $20 each in quantity and the belts aren't terribly expensive either.

So that's $1400 worth of parts if you're buying them at retail. If you're making quantities of these things of at least a few hundred you're going to be getting better deals than that bringing your cost down to $1200 or $1000 each.

If I'm not completely full of shit here (and I recognize I might be, this is 15min worth of googling) I guess I can't understand why these things cost $2k to buy.

You're not accounting for literally any costs besides parts. R&D, assembly, testing, support, shipping, insurance, marketing, administrative, taxes... I actually doubt that they are spending $1200 on parts because if they were, they would be taking a massive loss on a $2000 retail price.

Yeah, sure but I'm also accounting for parts at RETAIL. I'm not talking to manufacturers and getting wholesale pricing.

I get that there's R&D and all the other things you've mentioned. I guess I didn't realize all that was going to cost $600-$1200 per board. I've always made the assumption that when you're not talking about software that your material costs dominate your price.

Given all that it would seem to make sense for someone moderately interested in an electric longboard as a hobby to build their own. If they're going to charge themselves for their time, obviously not as it would be a $20k device. But if you're interested in it anyhow it sounds like you can get a 50% or more discount.

You're also forgetting... they have to make a profit on this! You're also paying for the near-or-at six-figure salaries of the engineers that have worked on this for a few years.

Material costs only dominate your price if 1) you're minimally improving the material, and 2) you're selling so many units that all of your fixed costs get spread very thin.

Both assumptions are not likely true for Boosted Boards. If they sell 10,000 boards per year, each $1 million in overhead costs equal $100 per board sold. And even the companies that sell 100 million units per year, like Apple, have to spend a lot more than material costs on assembly, testing, support, warranty repair, payments processing, marketing, and probably uniquely high liability insurance costs for Boosted Boards.

This is a reasonable cost breakdown of our first prototypes. As we scaled up, some costs became much lower and others actually increased. For example, we moved from hobby-grade to EV-grade batteries, because we found hobby batteries tended to be less stable and reliable.

Our costs include parts, labor, and many of the costs that others mentioned. For example, having a warranty or a return policy are costs that scale with each unit.

You're correct that you can build something with similar performance (if not reliability) for cheaper, if your labor is free. Endless-sphere.com is one of many resources if you wish to do a home build.

They are not at mass production cost cutting scale and maturity yet. It's a new company and a new (or niche) category of thing. It's still a boutique product with a boutique price.

It's like some custom android thingamajig designed specifically for hospital inventory costing $2000. You can look at it and say that it's got the same specs as a $200 phone + some $80 barcode scanner and some odds and ends. The economies are not the same for an Samsung phone produced at 100ks units per month and some niche product produced at 100s of units per month. It's not even a multiplier. It's just completely different for a lot of small reasons.

Do you, or have you ever run a business?

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