Those of you who’ve been reading my stuff here on InsideEVs, as well as keeping abreast with the global e-bike scene, would be well aware of how rapidly technology surrounding e-bikes is advancing. A lot of modern e-bikes can be described as pedal-powered IoT devices capable of integrating themselves to multiple facets of our daily lives.
Indeed, we’re seeing e-bikes go as far as integrating ChatGPT into their inner workings, some even going as far as trying to reinvent the bicycle in its totality. While taking on a different path can indeed lead to innovations, it can also lead to disaster. Those of you who’ve been following Dutch e-bike brand VanMoof over the course of the past few months would know that the brand has been in some serious financial trouble, with its future shrouded in a lot of uncertainty.
The latest development reveals that the company has had to file for bankruptcy, as reported in an article published by The Verge. The company has officially been declared bankrupt in its home country of the Netherlands, following a “suspension of payment proceeding” conducted just the week prior. The so-called suspension of payment arrangement was meant to give the company a two-month cooling off period to recoup the funds to pay its creditors, but alas, it seems even this wouldn’t have been enough to keep the business afloat.
The decision to file for bankruptcy was ultimately relayed to VanMoof employees via an internal email – the full text of which can be found in The Verge’s article linked below. As for the future of VanMoof, well, your guess is as good as mine. The brand has undoubtedly blazed quite a trail in the e-bike industry, with quite a lot of proprietary technology to its name. As such, the acquisition of the brand’s assets by a third party is by no means a far-fetched possibility.
It’s worth noting that VanMoof has been declared insolvent only in the Netherlands, and not in other markets. As such, two administrators have been appointed as trustees to assess the situation of the company in its entirety, and see if a reboot is at all possible. As for current owners of VanMoof’s products, well, they also face quite a bit of uncertainty, as the bikes themselves require connection to VanMoof’s mobile app in order to be used.
Luckily, however, other e-bike brands have developed software that can allow users to access their VanMoof bikes even without the dedicated app. Others have also opened trade-in programs for VanMoof bikes, as explained by Electrek. Furthermore, Electrek’s article highlights that VanMoof’s highly technical solutions composed of lots of proprietary tech could have been a contributing factor to its struggles. Indeed, in today’s tech-driven e-bike industry, it can be quite a slippery slope when it comes to throwing cutting-edge tech into machines that were otherwise meant to be simple.
