News Ecells announced their closing this morning (4/28/25)

Glenn Goodlett

Glenn Goodlett

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Ridgecrest, California
Quote from their Facebook page...

ECELLS EBIKES-CLOSED
Effective immediately, we are announcing the closure of our business.
Due to unforeseen circumstances — including extreme tariff increases and other market challenges — continuing operations is no longer sustainable.
We are grateful for the trust and support we have received from our customers and community over the years.
At this time:
We are no longer accepting new orders.
Customers with existing orders will be contacted individually.
Remaining inventory will be handled internally and is not available for public sale.
We appreciate your understanding as we work to conclude all matters professionally and responsibly.
Thank you for being part of our journey.
David Cleveland
CEO, ECELLS EBIKES
David@ecells.com
 
Glenn Goodlett said:
Quote from their Facebook page...

ECELLS EBIKES-CLOSED
Effective immediately, we are announcing the closure of our business.
Due to unforeseen circumstances — including extreme tariff increases and other market challenges — continuing operations is no longer sustainable.
We are grateful for the trust and support we have received from our customers and community over the years.
At this time:
We are no longer accepting new orders.
Customers with existing orders will be contacted individually.
Remaining inventory will be handled internally and is not available for public sale.
We appreciate your understanding as we work to conclude all matters professionally and responsibly.
Thank you for being part of our journey.
David Cleveland
CEO, ECELLS EBIKES
David@ecells.com
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Well that stinks! Hope they can come back once things settle out. I know from personal experience that the tarrifs have cause lots of job losses and uncertainty for many people. I also know it's what our country needs for the long term and that in the short term it's going to and is causing hardship for millions of people. Such a dang shame our own polititcians and business leaders put us in this position always chasing cheaper and faster plus of course higher profits. It has cost our country dearly loosing 95% of our manufacturing here at home in the USA over the last 50 to 70 years.

I just pray we can regain our Made in America pride and workmanship not to mention the security that comes with it... Security that our "leaders" sold out from under us by moving all our manufacuting overseas! They deserve to be punished for what we've lost thanks to their choices. Just like the more recent habbit of our supposidly elected officials giving away OUR tax dolllars WITHOUT our permission! Every stinking one of them should be facing charges and spending years in jail. If individuals want to send money to other countries to help out that's wonderful but it should NEVER EVER for any reason come from our taxes without our express permission in each and every instance!
 
I smell a rat. I suspect they're leaning on the tariff excuse to cover for the "other market challenges" that they don't mention.
 
BiggKidd said:
Well that stinks! Hope they can come back once things settle out. I know from personal experience that the tarrifs have cause lots of job losses and uncertainty for many people. I also know it's what our country needs for the long term and that in the short term it's going to and is causing hardship for millions of people. Such a dang shame our own polititcians and business leaders put us in this position always chasing cheaper and faster plus of course higher profits. It has cost our country dearly loosing 95% of our manufacturing here at home in the USA over the last 50 to 70 years.

I just pray we can regain our Made in America pride and workmanship not to mention the security that comes with it... Security that our "leaders" sold out from under us by moving all our manufacuting overseas! They deserve to be punished for what we've lost thanks to their choices. Just like the more recent habbit of our supposidly elected officials giving away OUR tax dolllars WITHOUT our permission! Every stinking one of them should be facing charges and spending years in jail. If individuals want to send money to other countries to help out that's wonderful but it should NEVER EVER for any reason come from our taxes without our express permission in each and every instance!
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Sorry BiggKidd, but you don't tariff commodities if you are trying to increase manufacturing. Economics 101, you buy stuff, to make stuff, to sell stuff. If you tariff aluminum, steel and wood you don't really care about manufacturing at all and if you won't fight for democracy overseas you will surely lose it at home and we are almost there, that is the hill my ancestors died on and I would willingly do the same. So, This is where our two opposing opinions will have to sit. I guess we both needed to make that clear.
 
Crazy times, just stay safe and stock up on general supplies for a bit.

We as americans have been led down some odd roads in our time..Stay Safe Everyone!
 
biknut said:
I smell a rat. I suspect they're leaning on the tariff excuse to cover for the "other market challenges" that they don't mention.
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I don't think so. "Other market challenges" means competition was already stiff for those low-cost eBikes and ridiculous tariffs was enough to make it not worth it to stay in the US market.

I see how the tariffs are affecting things in my company. We are an American company, but product some things in China and a lot of the parts come from China. We have no good choices:
  • If we move assembly of the products from China to the USA, many of the components still come from China. Moving it all stateside takes a lot of time and money. (tens of millions of $ and years) There are not even US-based vendors of a lot of the components.
  • If we move production from China to someplace else in Asia, it's a similar situation, although it's faster to do.
  • So, the next question is whether it makes business sense to continue selling here: Is it still worth it to sell the products here? If we increase the price of the products commensurately to include tariff costs, customers may not buy our goods any more. We cannot just absorb the tariff costs, as then our profit margins will not be enough to keep the lights on and employees paid.
These tariffs are a tax on US and on our companies, while letting the ignorant masses think that it is somehow being tough on these other countries for not having production here. While it IS true that they could be avoided if there were factories here, there are business decisions to be made. In many cases it makes better business sense to leave this market instead. E-cells is the first of many that will fall. Mark my words.

The real kick in the nuts is that the US-manufactured eBikes may not be viable either, due to needing foreign parts, which will also be taxed. Even they may not be able to make it.
 
Smaug said:
I don't think so. "Other market challenges" means competition was already stiff for those low-cost eBikes
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This you got this part right, the rest is blabber.

Ever since Storm Sondors showed the world how to make, and sell low cost eBikes everyone and their mother started getting Chinese eBike factories to build bikes, and putting their own brand names on them. No company is going to last long when there's 500 almost identical other brands trying to undercut the competition. Back in BS, before Sondors, an average 250w eBike's list price was about $4000 online or otherwise.. If anything tariffs will help the eBike market by weeding out the copy cat competition, and only the best and most innovative brands will survive, and prices will still be lower than pre 2015 prices tariffs or not.
 
If our "leaders" hadn't sent all our manufacturing over seas we wouldn't have ever gotten in to this situation! At one time in the last century we made 85-95% + of not only what we used but we also exported all over the world much like China does today. The large difference being we took pride in what we made and sold back then. Sadly that's mostly no longer the case. People lost sight of buying the best they could afford to buying the most of everything at the cheapest possible price. In other words it became about quantity and form over quality and function! All flash and no substance.
 
Fewer cargo ships from China means
fewer dock workers,
fewer truck drivers,
fewer retailers,
empty shelves in stores,
less jobs for workers,
less money being spent,
economy likely to tank like the great depression in 1920's.
 
A said:
Fewer cargo ships from China means
fewer dock workers,
fewer truck drivers,
fewer retailers,
empty shelves in stores,
less jobs for workers,
less money being spent,
economy likely to tank like the great depression in 1920's.
Click to expand...
All possibly and sadly LIKELY true.
Then again if Americans can find their spirit again like the settlers up through the 1960s for the masses then things may workout. It will depend on if people still have grit. Some do some don't and a very few have been living in ways that will hardly change other than the way people see them.
 
biknut said:
This you got this part right, the rest is blabber.
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That was pretty rude, watch yourself.

biknut said:
... No company is going to last long when there's 500 almost identical other brands trying to undercut the competition.
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False. They were doing fine, since the demand was so high. There was room for everyone.

biknut said:
Back in BS, before Sondors, an average 250w eBike's list price was about $4000 online or otherwise.. If anything tariffs will help the eBike market by weeding out the copy cat competition, and only the best and most innovative brands will survive, and prices will still be lower than pre 2015 prices tariffs or not.
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Comparing post-tariff prices to pre-2015 prices doesn't make sense to me. By doing that, you're comparing fledgling technology and manufacturing to mature. Compare pre-tariff to post-tariff, when the technology is close to the same.


BiggKidd said:
If our "leaders" hadn't sent all our manufacturing over seas we wouldn't have ever gotten in to this situation! At one time in the last century we made 85-95% + of not only what we used but we also exported all over the world much like China does today. The large difference being we took pride in what we made and sold back then. Sadly that's mostly no longer the case. People lost sight of buying the best they could afford to buying the most of everything at the cheapest possible price. In other words it became about quantity and form over quality and function! All flash and no substance.
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You're right on this. It was government policies that let businesses do this, because we are RUN by money. Once the laws allowed such extensive offshoring, we started circling the drain. It was just a business decision by people who cared more about enriching themselves than doing The Right Thing. THAT was the time for tariffs, gradual and gentle. Robotics would have taken over the most menial jobs and we would've adapted.
 
Here's an article that describes why bringing all this manufacturing back to the US is a delusional pipe dream.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...trumps-tariffs-wont-bring-manufacturing-back/

And for one do you think Americans are just chomping at the bit to go work in a textile mill, tire factory, shoe factory, steel mill etc. for low pay back breaking work, toxic exposure and long hours.

The other thing related to these tariffs is that they aren't specifically designed to just bring back manufacturing they are applied to everything so much of which we couldn't grow or manufacture even if there was the desire to do so. Do you think we can just start growing all our own coffee or bananas, and all the fresh produce we consume in the winter months? The tariffs will just make everything more expensive for everyone and will have the biggest impact on the poor and working class, they are nothing but a giant regressive tax increase.
 
munirider said:
Here's an article that describes why bringing all this manufacturing back to the US is a delusional pipe dream.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...trumps-tariffs-wont-bring-manufacturing-back/

And for one do you think Americans are just chomping at the bit to go work in a textile mill, tire factory, shoe factory, steel mill etc. for low pay back breaking work, toxic exposure and long hours.

The other thing related to these tariffs is that they aren't specifically designed to just bring back manufacturing they are applied to everything so much of which we couldn't grow or manufacture even if there was the desire to do so. Do you think we can just start growing all our own coffee or bananas, and all the fresh produce we consume in the winter months? The tariffs will just make everything more expensive for everyone and will have the biggest impact on the poor and working class, they are nothing but a giant regressive tax increase.
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Grit like I said. Not to mention there are safe ways today that weren't available in the 20th century and there's robotics for the truly unsafe and flipping burgers.

No most Americans do not understand the worth of actual work or making something new with your own hands.

Yes coffee and bananas could be grown here at the expense of research and hard work. Take a look at the guy in Minnesota growing and selling citrus year round. The earth, mother earth to some is capable of much more with a little human ingenuity.

Americans and likely most all people in the "first" world would benefit from learning the real value of creation and self worth from REAL honest work! Paper pushing and coding are certainly needed but many other things are needed much worse like real family life with quality not races for riches.

Good conversation glad we can all have opinions without BS now if we can just agree to disagree. lol
 
BiggKidd said:
Grit like I said. Not to mention there are safe ways today that weren't available in the 20th century and there's robotics for the truly unsafe and flipping burgers.

No most Americans do not understand the worth of actual work or making something new with your own hands.

Yes coffee and bananas could be grown here at the expense of research and hard work. Take a look at the guy in Minnesota growing and selling citrus year round. The earth, mother earth to some is capable of much more with a little human ingenuity.

Americans and likely most all people in the "first" world would benefit from learning the real value of creation and self worth from REAL honest work! Paper pushing and coding are certainly needed but many other things are needed much worse like real family life with quality not races for riches.

Good conversation glad we can all have opinions without BS now if we can just agree to disagree. lol
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Sure I guess we could grow bananas, they already do grow some in Florida and possibly coffee but why? There really isn't anything inherently wrong with global trade or a trade deficit there's nothing wrong with buying things that we can't easily produce or don't want to.

I'm all for increasing manufacturing of higher value, high tech products but it really doesn't make sense to try and make everything here like shoes or t-shirts, how expensive do you want your Nikes to be? Do you want your children to have to work in a shoe factory?

Putting tariffs on things like jet aircraft would make sense to push American airline companies to buy from Boeing instead of from Airbus for example. Having said that though I recently flew on both a Boeing 737 Max and another connecting flight was on an Airbus and the Airbus was way more comfortable. The seat I got on the Boeing was seriously uncomfortable the seat bottom had a major ass groove and the bottom slanted forward. The Airbus had much more comfortable seats and the seat backs were about half as thick so more leg room without less seats on the plane.

Tariffs should be applied incrementally and selectively not across the board on everything. For example we get potash used for fertilizer from Canada we cant replace that domestically so why is there a tariff on that? It just makes producing food here more expensive. The way Trump is doing it with his blanket on again off again tariffs is just causing mayhem and destroying the American economy. You cant expect to return all manufactured overnight, there needs to be a measured and well planed out approach and that isn't what Trump is doing.
 
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