Update: Launch Edition Production From Our Director of ProductUpdated 4 days ago
To all of our TM-B Launch Edition Customers,
I want to start by thanking you (and everyone else) for your patience. I agree that we haven’t communicated as frequently or transparently as we should have.
What’s most important to all of us at ALSO is building and delivering a best-in-the-world product. In this case, that means the highest performance electric bicycle in the world with features you'd only ever expect from a software-defined EV. It also means a more reliable product than this category has ever seen. And while we knew going into our product development that this was going to be a big job, it has brought some challenges we didn’t expect along the way.
I want to share a few examples for context. These are things that our team has spent nights and weekends working on, but have ultimately resulted in delays to our originally intended shipping timeline.
As we mentioned in a previous update, we've faced significant supply chain challenges on materials that are in high demand thanks to the worldwide AI boom. Specifically, we've been challenged on raw PCB materials and certain IC components. Chasing supply of our original design’s material hasn’t been enough. In some cases, our team has had to source and requalify new materials, which requires new engineering and testing work.
Another challenge we've faced involves the unique nature of the TM-B's battery. Our battery packs such a punch, in terms of both performance and features, that existing battery standards don't fully cover it. As many of you know, there are multiple battery standards that apply even within the US, let alone globally, to these sorts of products and capabilities. This has led ALSO to deeply engage with standards bodies, certification labs, cell manufacturers, and more, in order to work through novel certification questions our product’s capability has raised—specifically, the high capacity nature of our battery, paired with its 240W PD capability and sophisticated battery management, is the first-of-its-kind in this category. As a result we’ve been collaborating on defining a new set of performance standards for an entirely new type of product and that has taken more time than we anticipated.
Lastly, this product is packed with EV-grade technology and we’ve taken a highly considered approach to building and scaling key elements like our DreamRide drive system. In a very compact package, DreamRide includes two motors, an integrated inverter, and a one-of-a-kind Top Frame latch. This level of integration and performance density exceeds almost any EV on the market today and means development and production requires extreme care and precision. That wasn’t unexpected, but we've been deliberate about our ramp to ensure high quality as we begin our journey of scaling the TM-B.
With any complex and technology-laden product, we have a choice. As we ramp production we can relax standards against an original timeline or we can hold to a high standard and face potential delays. We believe our decision to hold that standard was, and is, the right one. And, at the same time, we agree that we should have been more communicative along the way.
At the end of the day, the entire team at ALSO has been working tirelessly to deliver the best-in-the-world product experience we've promised you. We're sincerely sorry it has taken longer than we, or you, anticipated. The specifics as to why haven't come early or often enough, but we’re committed to improving that as we move forward.
We cannot wait to get you your TM-Bs and we truly believe they will be worth the wait.
Saul
Head of Product, ALSO