Well keep watching, because there's going to be some extraordinary and rather fun stuff coming along, I can't promise that they'll be British made bikes, but a large chunk of the engineering design is (for those who worry about such things).


I find the idea of "British" companies and "Overseas" companies rather outdated now anyway unless you're talking about very small companies. Over 40 years I've worked for companies where the head office was in Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Italy, and now in one where the head office is in the UK but the engineering is carried out world wide. What it's shown me is that any company will put the work where it's cheapest and most efficient to do so, a "UK" company will move portions of work abroad if it's cheaper to do so - Dyson being an excellent example! But it's also shown me that you can effectively manufacture in the UK (most of my career has been around UK manufacturing) within an overseas owned company, you've just got to be very aware of what you're competing with and make sure you are absolutely using best practice from across the world. And never, ever fall for the line that somehow being born in a particular place makes you naturally good at engineering or manufacturing.


Ref Simon's point, again UK Universities are fundamentally private organisations that are part of a global research network, just at the moment (given Covid) good thing too. And on a slightly different angle, the University of Birmingham's hydrogen train (which my employers are also involved with) is a good example - I am assuming, and indeed hope, that UoB will licence this technology to other countries, having an approach to reducing fossil fuel emissions which is kept solely in the UK so as to boost our economy doesn't seem like the right thing to do at all.


Let's get good electric motorbike designs out there, and then it's for UK companies to show why its worth building some of them in the UK (which it should be).


Cheers,


Andy

Well keep watching, because there's going to be some extraordinary and rather fun stuff coming along, I can't promise that they'll be British made bikes, but a large chunk of the engineering design is (for those who worry about such things).


I find the idea of "British" companies and "Overseas" companies rather outdated now anyway unless you're talking about very small companies. Over 40 years I've worked for companies where the head office was in Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Italy, and now in one where the head office is in the UK but the engineering is carried out world wide. What it's shown me is that any company will put the work where it's cheapest and most efficient to do so, a "UK" company will move portions of work abroad if it's cheaper to do so - Dyson being an excellent example! But it's also shown me that you can effectively manufacture in the UK (most of my career has been around UK manufacturing) within an overseas owned company, you've just got to be very aware of what you're competing with and make sure you are absolutely using best practice from across the world. And never, ever fall for the line that somehow being born in a particular place makes you naturally good at engineering or manufacturing.


Ref Simon's point, again UK Universities are fundamentally private organisations that are part of a global research network, just at the moment (given Covid) good thing too. And on a slightly different angle, the University of Birmingham's hydrogen train (which my employers are also involved with) is a good example - I am assuming, and indeed hope, that UoB will licence this technology to other countries, having an approach to reducing fossil fuel emissions which is kept solely in the UK so as to boost our economy doesn't seem like the right thing to do at all.


Let's get good electric motorbike designs out there, and then it's for UK companies to show why its worth building some of them in the UK (which it should be).


Cheers,


Andy