A closer look at our pilot production run

With the change in vendor, rework needed, and additional time required for testing, we would regretfully like to announce a delay in order fulfillment for Reevo. We know that you have been looking forward excitedly to receiving your bikes and that this news will come as a disappointment.

Please accept our sincerest apologies. We will be doing our best to reduce the length of the delay and provide clear and constant communication throughout the process.

The quality, safety, and reliability of every bike that we ship remains a top priority for the team. This has been our commitment from the very start, and we intend to stay true to it.

We are now expecting to begin order fulfillment early November 2021 for orders made during our initial campaign period (Oct – Dec 2020) and December 2021 for orders made after (Jan 2021 – now).

Why the change?

Reevo was designed to be a one-of-a-kind, innovative e-bike. It has been really wonderful and humbling to see your enthusiasm and love for the design that we’ve created.

However, bringing a unique product to the market also comes with its own set of challenges as many components are not available off-the-shelf, and were designed and developed by our team.

By our estimations, Reevo comprises of around 75% custom designed parts. In comparison, traditional e-bikes typically contain around 5 – 10% custom designed parts. These include:

• Battery lid, frame housing, wheel casing, fork covers, LED housings, logo cover
• Internal frames
• Fork
• Stem
• Kickstand
• Steerer tube
• Fingerprint module
• Gearbox module and cover
• All wheel components
• All gears and pulleys
• All shafts and spindles
• Airless tires

And here are the standard parts that we use:

• Handlebars and grips
• Brakes
• Crankset
• Pedals
• Seat post
• Saddle
• Headset

The team has identified two (2) issues that we would like to resolve before shipping out the bikes. These issues were not present in the First Article (FA) samples that we received, and only surfaced during our pilot production run with the mass-produced parts. Here are the details:

Issue #1- lowered fatigue strength on certain components

Several parts of the bike are made from die casting, such as the fork, stem, wheel, and gearbox. These are large parts that with expensive molds. The die-casting process is a standard manufacturing process that allows part to be produced at a faster rate. Our supplier claimed that they have the expertise to conduct sufficient design for manufacturing (DFM) and produce the necessary tooling. The first article (FA) samples of these parts arrived with no visible issues.

However, quality checks via a third-party inspection company found unacceptable levels of porosity in the die-casted parts. Unfortunately, porosity is not easily detectable through visual inspection, as compromised parts can look normal on the surface.

Porosity happens when there are microbubbles trapped inside the part, reducing fatigue strength. This can lead to fatigue failure when the parts are repeatedly loaded. In fact, over 90% of bike parts failure happens due to fatigue. Therefore, this is a safety issue to us which must be resolved before shipping out the bikes.

Our consultant has suggested several design changes as well as opting for another more competent supplier with vacuum technology to reduce the effect of such cavitation. However, this will require a redesigned mold. Our engineering team is highly confident that this issue can be solved with the new tooling and design changes.

Issue #2- housing warpage during mass production

The aluminum internal frame of the bike is a critical structural member of the bike, as well as a mounting point for the plastic housing. This means that the plastic housing is screwed to the aluminum internal frame.

However, even though we have previously received a batch of decent quality aluminum frames, subsequent batches did not fulfil our quality inspection again. We are frustrated that our supplier failed to weld the parts within our specified tolerance and failed to detect the issues in their outgoing quality check. Compounding the matter, the team has also noticed some warpage issues with the plastic housing. This is normally due to a less than optimal cooling rate and insufficient number of ribs in the design.

Combined, these two issues result in an inconsistent bike appearance and in some cases, failed assembly due to misaligned screw holes.

Our engineering team plans to fix this issue by modifying the mold to allow more uniform cooling and add more ribs to ensure minimal warpage. The frame misalignment issue will be resolved with the use of a better welding fixture and a go/nogo gauge in our supplier’s inspection process.

Should you be worried about these quality issues?

No, absolutely not. We have full confidence that these issues can and will be solved. Our engineering team has already identified the root causes and will immediately proceed to work closely with our suppliers for the fabrication of the new molds and rework of existing ones.

Further qualification tests will also be carried out before resuming production.

Other challenges

Beyond manufacturing and quality control challenges, it has also been a couple of months full of obstacles such as:

• Supply chain disruptions and long lead times for components due to COVID.
• Movement lockdowns and strict operating conditions for our manufacturing facilities due to COVID.
• Worldwide raw material cost increases (absorbed by us).
• Global material shortages, notably for bike components and microchips (including the Qualcomm 4G chipset that runs the antitheft feature that we covered in a previous mini-series update).

A huge factor in these quality issues is our inability to travel to some of our supplier’s factories to inspect and troubleshoot these issues on site. Working online can be hugely frustrating for such matters.

We are not looking to make excuses, but we do ask for your understanding as these are external factors beyond our control that are affecting multiple industries worldwide.

Can I reconsider my contribution?

As much as it pains us to say this, we cannot allow refunds for orders made during our Indiegogo campaign. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to provide refunds as a majority of our campaign funds have already been allocated to ordering components, mold fabrication, development costs, and operation costs.

Your Reevo will still be shipped out, 100%. This was, and still is our number one priority. We are a team of entrepreneurs building our dream bike and sharing our vision of the future of electric mobility with the world.

To reiterate, we have already begun our first production run, which we are now putting on hold due to quality control issues.

The road to delivery

As the team work’s towards resolving these issues, we would also like to restate our commitment to providing you with timely updates on our progress here on our Indiegogo page.

We will also be making use of these few months to improve the Reevo app through a UI / UX overhaul. Please stay tuned for a sneak peek into the new design soon.

Other than that, the team will also be making our first announcements regarding the appointment of regional distributors in the near future. Our distributors will ensure a strong sales and after-sales service network within their regions which translates to a worry-free ownership experience for you.

And that is it for today’s update. We hope that it has provided some clarity on the manufacturing process and delivery. Once again, we apologize for the delay in order fulfillment and would like to reiterate our commitment towards delivering a quality product that you can be proud to call your own.

As always, you can contact us at hello@reevobikes.com if you have any further questions. Thanks, and have a great weekend!

With love,

The Reevo Team