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Old 09-27-18, 01:45 PM
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tcs
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Originally Posted by Tamiya
wonder how much of that is from UK... that'll drop, after Brexit
Actually, very little. It's estimated in one of those reports I linked that out of a total annual EU market of ~20,000,000, only ~80,000 bikes/year are manufactured in the UK: niche firms Brompton, Pashley and Alex Moulton, some children's bikes made in Wales and the craft, bespoke builders.

Brompton says they export 80% of their production. The EU is a major market for Brompton, and if there's a 'hard' Brexit with tariffs & quotas as a warning to other member nations thinking about leaving, it would surely impact that company's bottom line. Brompton has announced plans for a major sales/marketing expansion into China, where they'll find at least (IIRC) seven other companies already offering folding bikes based on Andrew Ritchie's brilliant, patent-expired folding design at various price points and quality levels. One of these bikes, the Dahon Curl, is already provided to the EU market out of another of Dahon's factories, in Taiwan (which is in this context, as we have discussed, not China).
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