The XTND Board is a lightweight and intelligent electric vehicle that redefines urban transportation.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Hello everybody,
Based on the recent comments that came up after publishing the previous update, we decided to share more detailed insights into our current situation. We hear and understand your frustration, but we believe that it is in our common interest to bring the product to life as soon as possible and in the best quality.
Let us address your most frequent comments. The reason we are not communicating a delivery date for Kickstarter is simply because we are currently at a point where we just don’t know, and we don’t want to give anyone another date that we might not be able to fulfil. The moment this changes and we are confident that we can deliver the boards on a specific date, which depends on several things we mention below, you will be the first to know.
The project timeline keeps getting extended due to the issues we are facing in development, manufacturing, our partnerships with China, and fundraising. And while it might sound like an excuse, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a nightmare, considering all of our factories are located in China, and we have no way of getting there to speed up or clear up the communication and development.
Each additional month we spend working on this project costs money in operating costs, even though we try to save as much as possible where we can. The price our manufacturing partner originally estimated was completely wrong, and it kept increasing significantly and repeatedly during our cooperation. As we have already explained in the past, the actual cost of the tooling for all parts of the board that is necessary to start production significantly exceeds the funds we raised through Kickstarter.
The marketing question is rather simple. In order to get investors to support our project, they need to see consistent customer interest in our product, which is why we had to restart our marketing activities. Ongoing confirmed interest, momentum, and traction are much more understandable and conclusive arguments that investors want to see, as opposed to just saying that we are 90% done with tooling and need a bit of money to help us get over the hurdle. In other words, we need to prove that people are still interested in our product, therefore we need to keep our marketing up in order to secure more money, and ultimately, get you and everyone else their product.
As for the comments regarding marketing at the expense of development and manufacturing, as we have mentioned in the past, all of these activities are not handled by the same person, and therefore we are able to focus on both at the same time. The financial investment into marketing is also negligible in comparison to what we are spending on tooling and production costs.
As we mentioned in our last comment here on Kickstarter, we would like to touch base with you and let you know that we are alive and kicking.
We’ve had our hands full this past couple of weeks, which led to our neglecting to answer comments and post updates on Kickstarter like we originally planned, and we apologize for that.
The main issue we did not anticipate is related to the manufacturing process, specifically to tooling/molds. We are working with a rather unusual combination of manufacturing process and material to achieve a lightweight and durable deck without making the production price extremely high. Unfortunately, this process is prone to visual defects and imperfections and we had to modify both the internal structure of the deck as well as the manufacturing process itself. We are confident that we will achieve not only the structural integrity but also the visual quality we strive for. However, this resulted in increased tooling costs and prolonged timeline once again. It is important to note that we still have to work on all these changes remotely via video calls and endless chats, which is very difficult in some cases, although we are doing our best to make it work.
The second thing that has been keeping us busy more than we expected is the marketing campaigns that we are currently running on Facebook and Instagram, as some of you may have already noticed. In any case, we want to share with you why we decided to start communicating on social media and running marketing campaigns. While the engineering team works really hard to bring the product to life, the rest of the team's attention has been focused on increasing our brand awareness and gaining as much feedback as possible. We take our mission to make an exceptional product and to fulfill your wishes very seriously, especially for you, our backers, and our first customers. This, however, requires collecting a lot of feedback so that we can improve the product in the future and make it the best it can be. Luckily, we received a lot of constructive as well as positive feedback, which encourages us to continue doing what we are doing.
We’ve also made a lot of changes to our website and app over the last couple of weeks. For instance, we improved the way you connect your board with your app. Once you receive the board, you will now be able to just scan a unique QR code that we will send you before we ship the boards. This will allow you to have your board and app connected immediately, without the need to input anything manually.
We really appreciate your continued support through all this, and we want to apologize again for the lack of contact in the past couple of weeks - we will get back on track with regular updates.
As we mentioned in the last update, the tooling process in China has already begun and is continuing to go as planned. In the meantime, we are still working on improving all of the parts of the board that do not interfere with the tooling to give you the best possible experience with our state-of-the-art product once we start shipping the boards to you.
Specifically, we are improving the acceleration and braking behavior for different riding modes in order to get the most predictable and responsive behavior for different skill levels. We are also working with the data that we collected during our latest, more extreme test rides, which will allow us to properly set up the maximum regenerative braking power in regards to the battery cells’ capabilities. Our latest motors were able to generate previously unexpected amounts of energy during long descends. The regenerative braking was able to charge the battery pack up to three times faster than our charger. Doing this from time to time is a nice quick boost of available battery power, but frequent long downhill rides with a lot of braking would reduce the lifespan of the battery pack in the long term. That’s why we will modify the behavior of our back-up energy dissipation system that was originally made to work only when the battery was fully charged. Now, it will go into action during long descends in order to always charge the battery cells at a speed that doesn't affect their life span.
In regard to the mobile app, we are redefining the visuals, and working on new iterations of a few sections of the app. We are making some changes to make the experience more user friendly and easier to navigate. For instance, we are changing the color scheme of the whole app based on your selected riding mode so that you always know what speed and range to expect whenever you open the app. As you can see, our design team is paying attention to the smallest of details to make the modes as interactive and expressive as possible.
Moreover, we are reviewing the designs for our guide and onboarding screens that will show you how you can interact with your board. The guide will also teach you to perform some basic actions, such as charging your board and your remote, but it will also walk you through our unique safety features, how they work and what they can do for you with a more in-depth approach. We are still working on the final content, but you can see an example of how the onboarding screens will look like in the pictures below.
As for the software development, we updated our in-app maps in line with our design changes and improvements to make them more stylish and interactive. We improved the timeline of your rides and added more detailed statistics for all the data nerds among you. What is more, we’re designing a better initial onboarding experience that, we believe, will be both instructional and entertaining.
For our next Kickstarter update, we are preparing a comprehensive document that will explain in detail the specifications of the board and all of its current features. We have made a number of changes during the manufacturing process, which, in the end, made the product a better version of itself. We can’t wait to share all of it with you, along with the reasons behind the most important changes.
Thank you all again for your support as well as feedback, we really appreciate it.
At long last, everything in our Shenzhen factory is lining up for the mass manufacturing process to begin. Let’s take a look at some of its steps.
We need to manufacture approximately forty types of parts, most of which will be made by injection molding or die casting. Making the tools for these manufacturing processes involves milling large blocks of steel and any mistake in the design would be difficult and expensive to fix. That’s why we start by thoroughly analyzing our designs with the engineers from the factories who will design these tools to identify any potential issues or visual defects. Making the molds and dies is a multi-step operation that requires our input in various stages, so being physically present at the manufacturing sites in China would be a great benefit and we hope that no travel restrictions will stand in our way.
The most important and complicated part is the deck, consisting of two pieces made from a combination of nylon and carbon fiber. Finding the perfect balance between these two materials is one of the tasks we need to solve before the mass production and it is possible only after the manufacturing tools are made.
In the meantime, while the tooling process takes place in China, we'll continue to work on improving other parts of the board, mainly the electronics and firmware because creating the best possible vehicle is a continuous process. It's important to mention that all of this, the current and future improvements, is something that we can work on while the tooling is being made in China. These are two separate processes that can be executed independently.
As we mentioned in the last update, thanks to the nice weather, we could take the board outside and run a couple of testing sessions. The data we collected during these rides revealed that there is a room for improvement in the acceleration performance of the motors, as the new battery pack is capable of delivering a bit more power than the motors are currently using during the first few seconds of acceleration from zero. Recent test rides also helped us get a better understanding of our desired smooth throttle and brake response as well as what we could improve in this area. We will be testing different settings for these acceleration and brake curves, which will eventually turn into different riding modes that the board will select based on the user's experience.
Creating a premium product means thinking of every last detail. The board itself is not the only part of the customer experience, which is why we also spent a little extra time adjusting the packaging so that the unboxing will be literally a tangibly satisfying moment.
Another thing we are excited about is that we made some pretty cool photos and videos for our new website as part of our May photo shoot. We are rather happy with the result, not to mention that showing off the board for the photo shoot was in itself exhilarating, but no need to take our word for it. See for yourselves and do let us know what you think!
Last but not least, we finished our new website, which involved some significant improvements. Now, you can not only see the new photos but also learn more about what the XTND Board can do on the product page that covers all its features in more detail. We also added ‘About’ and ‘FAQ’ sections for even more information that you might be interested in. And as always, we’d like to hear your thoughts so feel free to share your feedback with us, it will be much appreciated.
Anyway, thank you all for your amazing support, you indeed are simply the best.