Other Bikes » KTM's new electronic upgrade marketing plan

KTM has an interesting marketing plan for their fancy electronic features. They give you all the electronic bells and whistles available upfront when you buy their new 890, but only for the first 1500 miles. And then they take them away. Once that happens you can return to your dealer and pay to have one, some, or all of the upgrades and features added back into your bike - hopefully permanently. Personally, I am not too sure that I like the direction that this concept is going after listening to this discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wbfMQpiUpQ&t=2s

I seriously doubt KTM is taking a loss on the bikes regardless of whether or not people opt to pay the additional fee.

I'm not a fan of buying hardware I'm not allowed to use without paying a subscription fee, so no thanks KTM.

BMW have introduced a similar thing on their new cars, built with the “extras” installed so one build and then you either pay to have them switched on from new or they can be activated later, so would not surprise me if a similar model doesn’t come to BMW bikes at some point, although some options can be activated by the dealer after purchase. Potentially good for the used market.

Almost all of my motorcycle buying education was obtained during the 20th century. I guess I am just not ready for the new wave of marketing that first gives something to you then takes it away. While an interesting idea and one that could certainly benefit both the motorcycle owner and the manufacturer and their retailers, the concept is just too foreign for me to feel comfortable with. With my motorcycles and my car, once I buy them I really never want to visit the dealer again if I can avoid it.

How this "here it is and there it goes" feature marketing plan works out is going to have a lot to do with the cost of the upgrades and maybe how far away your dealer is. And if ever ends up being a subscription model, you can count me out. I live on a fixed budget and I always try to minimize and regulate my monthly expenditures. I am already irritated paying my utility, telephone, cable TV and internet access monthly bills. I don't want another one to pay every month - especially as I like to own and ride multiple motorcycles. It would drive me crazy if I had to pay a bill every month for each bike that I owned just to keep it running the way I expect.

BMW have introduced a similar thing on their new cars, built with the “extras” installed so one build and then you either pay to have them switched on from new or they can be activated later, so would not surprise me if a similar model doesn’t come to BMW bikes at some point, although some options can be activated by the dealer after purchase. Potentially good for the used market.

I know some cars (Porsche/Nissan?) had a "you used extra turbo boost, broke a setting" or " launch control three times" or "race settings" and "Sorry but no more warranty"

I guess it could be " too many recorded rev limit excedes" or "abs safety enacted too often" "agressive riding monitored?" and then "sorry we are reducing your trade in value"

Better be careful what we get sold on the guise of "customer choice"

I like it, allows you to try before you buy. Renting features I wouldn't be in favour of though.

Building goods to a single electronic spec and then disabling features isn’t a new idea and can save costs to the manufacturer.

Back in the 1980’s I had a friend who worked as a site engineer for a large American mainframe computer company. The computers were built with maximum memory installed and blocks were jumpered out for customers requirements. If a customer wanted a memory upgrade they asked for it to be installed when actually what happened was it was just enabled. At a huge cost.

I suspect Apple still do the same with memory and storage on some of their products and then code accordingly

Interesting🤔 it does simplify production I suppose, but I presume the manufacturer will be hoping the customer will opt in.
How long before some clever dude works out how to enable some of the options on the cheap 😉

Oops. Duplicate post

The thing about (at least older) motorcycle enthusiasts is that they are about the most conservative vehicle buyers around - which no doubt is what keeps H-D alive and kicking. I do appreciate the concept of allowing the new motorcycle buyer to experience all of the offered features and upgrades of their new bike over a period of 1500 miles and then let them decide which of those features are worth keeping and paying extra for. Of course the price of those upgrades will have a significant impact on their decision to retain them.

While I do think KTM's marketing plan makes a lot of sense and will be a benefit to the original buyer of the bike, if they ever try to transition to a monthly subscription plan, that will really get a lot of blow-back from the motorcycle enthusiast community - probably even BMW enthusiasts. After all everyone (at least of my age) knows that the cheapest part on a BMW motorcycle is the rider.

Zitat von wessie im Beitrag #13

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Zitat von Sanemancured im Beitrag #8

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Building goods to a single electronic spec and then disabling features isn’t a new idea and can save costs to the manufacturer.

Back in the 1980’s I had a friend who worked as a site engineer for a large American mainframe computer company. The computers were built with maximum memory installed and blocks were jumpered out for customers requirements. If a customer wanted a memory upgrade they asked for it to be installed when actually what happened was it was just enabled. At a huge cost.

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ah, jumpers for goalposts. We were doing similar things at Xerox. Initially just hardware like the memory thing you refer to but then as the 1990s progressed, more was in the firmware.

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