haha funny!
I don't see how electric vehicles save the planet or save anything for that matter. When you calculate the aggregate cost, cause people only calculate direct costs and forget indirect ones, it's not better and probably more harmful. It may improve eventually ( no one knows for sure) but as an industry trying to take off the initial cost is certainly steep. I say no one knows for sure because economy is not an exact science, it's a (educated perhaps) guessing game...
The counter argument is it will only cost too much initially because it's an infant industry and eventually cost will go down and conditions improve as the manufacturing is scaled. The fallacy in this argument is similar to the ones about using drones. People see drones and think it's the future. Yes, a drone flies over cars and passes everywhere easy and fast. The flaw seems obvious to me, it's ONE drone. once more people start using drones, the air will be saturated and you loose the initial benefit. Just like what happened with cars.
Once electric vehicles spread out, the raw materials will become costly and rare and it's not necessarily going to get easier when more players get involved.
Triumph like other manufacturers, is being subjected to the classic relationship between industrials and politicians. They are building electric bikes kind of like "christian just in case". In case this thing takes off, we want to be here and show that we were researching it and believed it from the beginning etc etc
Triumph execs know, that governments is what makes big industries take off, not some guy inventing stuff in his garage. The airplane industry started this way and so did the oil industry. It helps to pause and think how many gas stations and infrastructure had to be built to make gasoline the practical thing it is today. This wouldn't have happened without solid investments. Car manufacturers couldn't have done it alone. Governments either back industries straight up or put tax incentives to push them forward (a form of socialism: tax payers bearing the cost of the idea.)
With this knowledge in mind, industrials are always looking for cues from politicians. Politicians help industries do well in a variety of ways, like giving them contracts. ( Harley Davidson military contract during world war).
Yes Triumph is building electric bikes but they are not shutting down their bread and butter. they re just trying to play the image they know they are expected to play. They are a corporation with advisors and boards planning long term.
Now to back the virtue signaling, these guys driving Toyota Prius which if you ask me cancels itself out. It gets higher gas mileage but because it carries a heavy load of batteries all the time, it burns more gas when the gas engine kicks in, it's like a loaded pick up truck. So whatever you save using the electric engine, you loose when gas kicks in. Not to mention all the complications added because of the dumb system and cost to have maintenance and mechanics who feel like they have to charge you more because you opted for the hipster vehicle. And the battery packs that cause significant amounts of pollution to be built and only last so many years before you have to buy them again (average 3 to 5 years).
Finally, the dumb Toyota Prius with its advanced technology and its Star Trek dashboard gets about 40 miles per gallon. French car Renault 4L averages 44 miles per gallon and it was made in the 60s and stopped being made in the 80s... so what's Prius' engineers innovation here?
Renault 4L is basic low tech you can fix it yourself. and you are not paying "social status" premiums. So efficient African merchants (Morocco) use it to distribute milk, bread and other goods to the Souks across the country. that's an indicator that it's cheap, solid and reliable. They are still waiting for Tesla though