The first one is that SoFlow actually put together a board, using some already existing parts (like hubs, seen in many other chinese eboards, and the remote, already seen in the good old bisek, that was actually not good and had remote connection problems, but that’s another story). He then contacted chinese manufacturer that copied and resold their his board, with the winboard brand. That’s common stuff, already seen with Jacob’s hubs, for example.
Second option, he didn’t develop anything and just made agreements with winboard to resell their product as a kickstarter campaign, to make more money and, in a way, scam some people with the “swiss engineered” promises. Winboard deleted their product page to hide the fact that the board was just a normal chinese one
We can’t know which one is the truth, and all your “evidence” doesn’t mean anything. I would actually like the owner to come here and explain how this board was born. This could actually be a good entry level product, the ultimate very last mile vehicle, but the “swiss engineered” doesn’t seem to go well with this, considering that, for now, their office is in China, their motors and remote are chinese and that’s where the production actually happens. If this was sold as a normal board there would be no problem, but if it’s just a matter of rebranding and lying then the don’t deserve to make any money out of this.
So…winboard copied the design, went back in time with a time machine. Used the copied hubs, remote, carbon fibre, design, shape, trucks, same button for on/off, every single detail on their very first model GT-M1 to GT-M8 that has been made 2-3 years ago.
Some how, Winboard updated their hubs to 80mm before Lou…i didnt know this thread turned into a comedy.
@caspa okay, I agree you are drawing some good points here… but people here are without your extensive knowledge of how ‘‘slippery’’ chinese actually are.
IF you could post some of their previous boards and the very resemblance to the ‘‘new model’’, which assumingly ‘‘Lou’’ wants to sell… then that would portray a completely picture here, I think…
Now it just looks like there is some sort of co-operation with the chinese manufacturers/resellers but it is not entirely clear up to this point are ‘‘Lou’’ team really such ‘‘weasels’’ who put different beautiful names like innovation, design etc in front and want to even get some crowdfunding money this way or is it the story as some people also draw here, that the chinese ‘‘got the designs first’’ and just made a production run of their boards, maybe modified or left out a few things and now they have a board which was essentially designed by these swissguys but was actually manufactured beforehand in china, before the swiss guys managed to scrape enough money to cover the manufacturing costs…
This is the missing stone left, I think, as without insider info it is hard to tell what is really going on here… though the longer they go around the problem and does not adress it, the more people will probably get sceptical about it (the ones who are following this ‘‘authenticity’’ of design etc…)
–
Now it is not 100% confirmed yet are they just scammy resellers in West, who want to ‘‘rebrand’’ chinese product by 100% by claiming it is swiss made / swiss engineered and what not…
We do have some fishy, suspicious clues about all this thing, indeed… but I think it is not super wise to jump ahead… no offense, Im sure we will get to the core or closer to an answer, @caspa
Did you not read my post? HE TOOK PARTS FROM CHINA, that’s obvious. Hubs, remote and trucks are obviously the same, but can you tell me what else did they take before the last model?
This is the first, it doesn’t look like a penny with integrated electronics.
Neither does this one
or this one
or this one
(these aren’t even hub motor boards)
While this one gets the carbon fiber but is just a bisek deck. This just means that many chinese producers use the same parts.
Now, the only one that is exactly like that is the last model, so your “time travel” theory argument is just nonsense, because they could have sent the drawings and be copied, production takes time.
But the fact that many parts are just chinese was already clear from the beginning. just to remind you:
@SirDiff Im agreeing to what you are saying here and in previous message… It does look like chinese could have taken the exact design etc… and swiss guys did make it on their own (the design, part specification etc)
By looking at previous models some parts might be similar… like trucks or wheels(hubs), but they dont look 100% the same, at leas to me…
So from this it is hard to claim anything and Im also sort of supporting the idea that Swiss guys just redesigned most / some of the parts, then sent the designs and chinese just rubbed their hands and started production straight away…
–
Though im not entirely sure in what position does this put the Swiss guys… who basically has lost their product now to the chinese…
–
One last thing im unsure of is this:
Who made the Winboard people remove the listing/board from their page?
Was it their own move or the swiss guy made it work?
Look at this, was posted some days ago but the repetitiveness of other posts covered it.
(also, you know that iPhone clones in China come out before actual iPhones, right? People working in their factories just take the projects and copy them. The fact that they don’t have to do any quality control to sell in their market makes production way faster)
Okay… that does explain a few things, so it might be that some sort of legal action did put the chinese to take out the listing/board out of their page.
Also if what @michichopf said is true… then it looks like Winboard was not directly related to Lou, but another factory/company made the deal, thus Winboard is just a 3rd party who got the design/files/3d models etc (thus less responsibility / fault on their side, kind of).
–
If this is true, then chinese are ‘‘slippery’’… just dont know the right english word for them now
–
Yes, I’ve watched the documentary…chinese think if something is a good product, then by taking the design and making it again is not ‘‘copying’’ as we see it… they just sort of have different mentality but it gets nasty when you buy a product which looks like a brand one, when actually it is not and is a knock-off but you have paid a similar price… then this is cheating, in this case, I think.
Ah what a shame. The chinese dude already replied.
“Sure happy to receive guests. This is the address 无锡市滨湖路4号智慧产业园B区 Wuxi Binhu district 4 - Zhihui Industrial Park - B district - I also can pick the visitor up from the Wuxi train station. Please inform me in advance when you come - this is my mail [email protected] - cheers”
He then apparently went on and replied one of the backers who doubted that SoFlow’s office is a Winboard office by saying :
“lol you also welcome to visit me and then we can go together to visit Winboard. I am also curios how they operate - I heard its trading company manage by three women (but maybe just a rumor)”
@SirDiff Of course different models,different body. but you dont see the same hub motor? same remote? same trucks? The oldest one that resembles the most to Lou is GT-M6. I would say GT-m7 but you guys will say its a clone… Biesek, look at their store on alibaba, they specialise in bicycle. its quite common for chinese companies to resell other manufactures products for commision.
You can get fake apple/samsung etc. But is it the same 100%? Of course they cant copy 100% what is no released yet. So how can they copy 100% from lou? Also as you say, in China you can get fakes, so how comes apple/samsung cant stop clones , but a small swiss can in few hours ? Aint it obvious? winboard makes 10-50 million turnover annually, i dont think they would let a small swiss company bully them. Trust me, Chinese goverment/patent office will side on Chinese companies over foreign unless there is political reasons.
You also should know so-flow is a reseller company. Look at so-flow instagram. They resell a lot of what Winboard offers rebranded (obvious they work together).
@greenstuffs21 I will message him. But i will go when i have my business trip later this year as i wont risk him trying to be slippery and come out with excuses. i dont want to waste a trip looking at a desk with excuses.
Look guys, im not bothered because its easy to tell you guys made up your mind. You saw something you like, and you guys want it to be true. fair enough. Im 100% telling you right now, your backing resellers. have fun.
I backed them for Lue 1.0. One of the first backers actually. I was scouting a penny/nickel electric boards for a while and was kind of thinking of buying SoFlow FlowDeck at first. That’s when I discovered that their (or “their”?) new Lue board is going to be launched so I saved the KickStarter date in case the price is right. The early bird prices were OK so I went for it. Don’t mind if they are just re-sellers but it is weird why not admit it and just dig a deeper hole. I don’t think I could get a much better price even buying the (similar) board directly from china (considering the import charges). I also don’t think this campaign is a straight scam, that our money will be lost. But things do seem fishy at times yet I am an optimist so far. Anyhow, there is still plenty of time to back out if needed.
I understand the specs are probably greatly overrated but still, the 4 guys who went for a test ride seem to have a good time. Portability is cool. It will be a good board for short commutes to work and lunch breaks Once they deliver it, that is. But for me, even if it board fails to meet my expectations or they take a long time to deliver, I have a 4-year-old who will be impressed by it in a year or two. I’ll give it a Spider-man themed interchangeable top deck and he will LOVE IT
Winboard chinese website offers the GT-M7 for £200(not including shipping + minimum order 2 units) for the carbon fibre version compared to £390(not incl shipping) advertised on kickstarter (2.0 model). So no, your not getting an equivalent deal.
Shipping would be the same since both are shipped from China and no you wont be charged custom duty if you order from Winboard. Since chinese usually declare the value very cheap or declare it as a gift. That is how Lou (im guessing) will do it also.
So…to summarise. your not getting a deal. After kickstarter they will raise prices so everyone after you will get a shitter deal. From the success of this campaign, more Lou equivalent will appear on kickstarter.I really dont see a positive…
So a few day ago I send them this message via Kickstarter, and think it’d be interesting to share it here:
“Instead of miles you’re using mph (miles per hour) as a measurement of distance and at one point km as a measurement of speed.
The fact that not a single Lou team member noticed this error worries me a little bit.”
Though they were able to find and fix the mph error, they’re still advertising the Lou 1.0 with a speed of 28km… Ouch, my brain hurts
Well, I didn’t actually say that the campaign was about getting a better deal. Heck, I didn’t say that I was getting a “deal”. Or even “equivalent deal”
Still, being one of the first backers, I shall eventually be receiving two additional replacement decks and a set of additional wheels which increases the value of the KS for me (but not for everybody).
Also, Alibaba usually has minimum order quantities. You can’t usually just buy one piece, like you said. I don’t need two boards Not to mention bad experiences regarding support of Chinese products as soon as you mark the item received and leave feedback. There is no support whatsoever, replacement parts are not available, shops are closed. We shall see how the situation will be with SoFlow. I don’t have great expectations, suppose I could only be surprised at the end. So, weighting pros and cons, I chose to back them and there is still a chance to pull my pledge. Everybody else should do their own math and decide. You seem to have a need to force your opinion to people which I don’t like.
Lmao, dang. I need to start reselling and lie. seems so easy. When did buyers sense of morality go so low?
The GT-M7 was actually available, you didnt have to wait. Its just Lou needs to due to kickstarter policy.
With your purchase, you could have bought 2 boards, lmao. For you and your daughter. Winboard do offer 1 year warranty. If one breaks, u got another to ride straight away haha, so i guess 2 year warranty? Winboard makes 10-50million a year. They aint some little scammy chinese company that would leave you hanging if any problems occur. Where do you think Lou is going to send your your unit for repair? The repair services they talk about are sponsored by Winboard obviously.
anyways, as i said. People made their minds up even if it is a worse deal.
When i see people getting scammed, should i stay silent? If you see someone get scammed, do you? In this situation, your funding the scammer.
Once they deliver it, that is. But for me, even if it board fails to meet my expectations or they take a long time to deliver, I have a 4-year-old who will be impressed by it in a year or two. I’ll give it a Spider-man themed interchangeable top deck and he will LOVE IT 
