OK, so here's a copy/paste:
"After Buell was gone, I started EBR with the money I had saved from my pay and bonuses from building Buell up within H-D. EBR grew from a start-up in 2010 to being a company that KPMG valued at $50M in 2013. However, it turns out EBR grew faster than the growth financing we were working on allowed. The weaker than expected superbike sales of 2014 meant we had more inventory and parts than we could turn back into cash. In addition our largest customer Hero decided to pull back from expanding globally with the products we were designing to focusing on their home market of India, so expected income from those projects dried up. There is a misunderstanding that they did not pay their bills; that is not accurate…they just pulled back from what we had presumed and planned upon.
Suddenly our income was insufficient to continue the pace, and we could not negotiate delays in payments for products and services we were using for the expected growth. This combination is what drove EBR into receivership. I wish Hero had continued with those products, and believe they would have done even better had they gone global, but they made a choice as a corporation, which was their right. I wish even more that EBR had ramped up more slowly and had not become over-extended. I sometimes wish that small U.S. companies in trouble could get more government support as do companies in similar situations in other countries. But on the other hand, I don’t want big government, and face it, wishes don’t fix the past. They are only valuable as lessons for the future.
EBR assets were bought out of receivership by LAP of Michigan. I joined briefly with LAP, but they did not need engineering services as they were just selling parts and a few bikes built from what was left of inventory of EBR 1190 parts they had bought.
So I moved on to co-start FUELL, because I could see great need for new products and innovation in the electric motorcycle/bicycle world. That is where I have been the last three plus years, and it is very exciting to be free to design radical stuff. It’s a small but really serious team that represents a real technology start-up, with a lot of patentable ideas. This is where real talk around Erik Buell and the team I am working with should be. We have a very exciting portfolio of new FUELL products coming that will show innovation even beyond what we did in prior companies.
I am not involved with the EBR or Buell brands, which are owned by the people from LAP of Michigan. Where they go will be seen, and hopefully it’s all good, but I have no part in it at this time. I would appreciate it if LAP would stop using my personal name Erik Buell in their postings, but what to do… In any case if I can’t stop that, I just would like it to be known that I am not personally associated with a company where I have no involvement in business or engineering. The future of Erik Buell is with FUELL.
All the best,
Erik"
