“Where are the rest of the Yamaha snowmobiles?” and speculating about our future.

[mikextx]

 

[CooperT]

View attachment 139002

What’s your point? I’ve seen pictures of all brands up in flames...

 

[CooperT]

You nailed it!!!!!Good humor with the sceptics its almost like Russian bots taking over the post....oh yea lets make the most advanced engine in motorsports history and then shut'er down 3 years later cause we suck...just made some popcorn

They spent ALOT of money on that engine!

 

[WillowAce]

They spent ALOT of money on that engine!

Yup, they spent a ton of money designing an engine specifically for the Pro-Cross chassis. Problem is that now Textron owns the Pro-Cross chassis the have Yamaha by the short hairs. Smart move on Yamaha's part, dump the Pro-Cross dependency, develop their own chassis that optimizes the 998, and then hook Textron's short hairs up to a winch.

 

[mikextx]

Yup, they spent a ton of money designing an engine specifically for the Pro-Cross chassis. Problem is that now Textron owns the Pro-Cross chassis the have Yamaha by the short hairs. Smart move on Yamaha's part, dump the Pro-Cross dependency, develop their own chassis that optimizes the 998, and then hook Textron's short hairs up to a winch.

I hope like hell that your right.

 

[earthling]

I hope you guy's are right , I really do. But I just feel it in my gut and from a pure business stand point there going to pull the plug. My reasoning is this, I'm a cnc machinist at the last remnant of Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem Pa. now called Lehigh Heavy Forge. In my shop we have the crane and machine capacity to handle work pieces up to 150 tons. We do a lot of Navy Nuclear, power generation and steel producing work. when we get in a new job that requires new or special tooling the cost from the likes of Greenleaf or Sandvik ect. ect. is astronomical! I can't imagine what it would cost to design, engineer and retool a production line for an entirely new sled or sled's, I'm sure well into the millions! With all the variables we have in this little niche market called snowmobiling, I don't see Yamaha getting there ROI out of an all new line of sled's! They can't continue on there current path, That's proven with there limited 19 release and current offers on all the carryovers! I see no other option for Yamaha then to help the dealers clear out the non-currents and pull the plug! Like I said, I ""HOPE"" you guys are right, and I truly hope I'm ""WRONG""!!!

Its not millions, its Teens if not Tens of millions in investment. A million dollars doesn't go very far in the corporate world these days. But do the math. What is the selling price of an average snowmobile and what is the number of snowmobiles and parts sold by a player like Yamaha. Assuming that they won't settle for the status quo of the last half dozen years and they want to take some market share back from the others, what is the target number of sleds they would like to sell.. 8000, 10000 worldwide?... multiply that out(total_sleds*selling_price) and you get the revenue basis they are targeting. Investing teens or tens of millions makes perfect sense but its not like you have to come up with that money overnight, you come up with a multi-year plan that allows you to draw on net profits to fund the next generation of development. Snowmobiling is not a niche market, its a $1B industry on the snowmobile side alone. Its a $25+B industry in net economic impact. Yamaha does not have its fair share of market (SOM) so investing 10s of millions makes sense, Yamaha should be a 20% market player which would put them into a $200-280M+ business (PG&A included). A mid size business to be sure but not an unreasonable investment thesis. Helping Yamaha is the fact that they have shared costs on the engine side and they really only need a few different sizes of chassis.

 

[rtx moose]

They spent ALOT of money on that engine!

In devolopement of the engine they were testing it with there own chassis too!! people who think they only tested that motor only in a cat chassis are ignorant...the engine was just the beginning to things to come!

 

[CooperT]

Yup, they spent a ton of money designing an engine specifically for the Pro-Cross chassis. Problem is that now Textron owns the Pro-Cross chassis the have Yamaha by the short hairs. Smart move on Yamaha's part, dump the Pro-Cross dependency, develop their own chassis that optimizes the 998, and then hook Textron's short hairs up to a winch.

In devolopement of the engine they were testing it with there own chassis too!! people who think they only tested that motor only in a cat chassis are ignorant...the engine was just the beginning to things to come!

i agree, I found this thismorning on a Facebook page...not sure how much truth there is to it, but I believe it.

 

[Wannaviper]

I have been depressed all week. What about the fact that there is only one 2019 Viper model, in one color, with none of the upgrades that AC gave to its 7000 series? In other words, the only 2019 Viper is identical to its 2018 LTX predecessor, with the exception of graphics and color. Logically, that tells me that Yamaha was looking out for the dealers who have the 2017 & 2018 leftover inventory, as well as any unsold units sitting in warehouses. If the 2019's had all the upgrades (like AC does) the leftovers would be harder to sell without severe discounting. Now, with sleds still being identical, the dealers can sell the leftovers for the same, or close to the same price they get for the 2019 model. Not giving the Vipers the 2019 upgrades was a calculated move to help get rid of the 2017 & 2018 leftovers. Of course the downside is, if anyone was looking for a new Viper in 2019, they may look seriously at the AC 7000 with updated bodywork and better controls.

With the improvements and all the 2019 models that AC has come out with still using Yamaha 4 strokes, Yamaha must be planning on supplying engines to AC in 2020, and beyond. That has to be good for Yamaha's bottom line. Unfortunately, that could also mean that Yamaha is leaving the sled business as many have been predicting this week, but the optimist in me says that 2020 will to be the year when Yamaha leaves AC behind and will introduce its own new chassis to compete with AC, Polaris & SkiDoo. At least, that is what I want to believe; I just hope that the new Yamaha chassis is as good, or better, than the Pro Cross chassis that has worked so well with their engines. Another possibility, that seems unlikely now, is that Yamaha got rights to the Pro Cross chassis out of its deal with AC, and can build its own version of it in 2020. That wouldn't be a bad thing at all!

 

[CooperT]

I checked the yamaha website and it says they have 16’s as leftovers as well...

 

[20/80]

Its not millions, its Teens if not Tens of millions in investment. A million dollars doesn't go very far in the corporate world these days. But do the math. What is the selling price of an average snowmobile and what is the number of snowmobiles and parts sold by a player like Yamaha. Assuming that they won't settle for the status quo of the last half dozen years and they want to take some market share back from the others, what is the target number of sleds they would like to sell.. 8000, 10000 worldwide?... multiply that out(total_sleds*selling_price) and you get the revenue basis they are targeting. Investing teens or tens of millions makes perfect sense but its not like you have to come up with that money overnight, you come up with a multi-year plan that allows you to draw on net profits to fund the next generation of development. Snowmobiling is not a niche market, its a $1B industry on the snowmobile side alone. Its a $25+B industry in net economic impact. Yamaha does not have its fair share of market (SOM) so investing 10s of millions makes sense, Yamaha should be a 20% market player which would put them into a $200-280M+ business (PG&A included). A mid size business to be sure but not an unreasonable investment thesis. Helping Yamaha is the fact that they have shared costs on the engine side and they really only need a few different sizes of chassis.

I wonder what the real price of a sled costs a snowmobile company coming of the line finished, this may surprise you, my best guess is somewhere around 1200- 1500 bucks a sled depending on the options and that may be high.

 

[earthling]

I wonder what the real price of a sled costs a snowmobile company coming of the line finished, this may surprise you, my best guess is somewhere around 1200- 1500 bucks a sled depending on the options and that may be high.

It wouldn't surprise me but it may surprise you Just kidding I obviously don't know you but I do have a ton of experience in manufacturing and my gut says your cost estimate is very low. For anyone else that looks at $1500 and thinks 'man am I getting ripped off'.

The real cost of a sled is not the raw material costs or production costs or the people or the engineering or electricity or the marketing or the delivery, it is all of the above. The basic math is that to achieve 50% margins you have to sell at 3x costs, competitive pressure will always drive you back towards the basics of managing cost to manageable product margins. If you get too far above the equation (do too well) competitive pressure drags you back, if you get below then you get into trouble. Competitive Economics being the great equalizer and reality (costs) being the base upon which you build. That sets you up for basic operating parameters and different manufacturing sectors have different views of the world of course with respect to CAC (cost to acquire a customer), warranty issues (lifecycle planning), shared efficiencies (one chassis to rule them all!), and of course there is the leverage you get from selling at varying levels of scale (i.e. consumer vs prosumer vs b2b) but competitive pressures will always drive you back to the basics. In other words, if all it costs was $1500.00 to produce a sled the competitive pressure would force someone to sell them at $4500.00 and that as they say would be that but it isn't so its a bit more complicated than you would think (and more expensive). I had a quick look at the Polaris numbers and I encourage anyone interested in this tangent of the conversation to do the same. Being public they have to publish a lot of core information and they are, at least on the surface a fairly efficient company but they aren't breaking any of the above rules. Their margins might be slightly higher but maybe not, I didn't look that close but I guarantee they are in the ballpark.

 

[Farmer 73]

All I want from Yamaha is an answer, or better yet, a commitment that they are staying in the sled business for the next 10 years! Hell I will take 5 years! I really don't care, at this point, how long it will take to get a new updated model. Yamaha loyalists are use to waiting! We just need a answer that they will be around or not! Maybe Peter-----------Tew himself don't know if they will be around 2 years from now!

 

[allyammies]

Remember textron uses the 998 in the wildcat sxs

 

[Farmer 73]

Do we know if Yamaha is participating in any of the sneak peaks?