...go 'East' young man...

[auntymal]

DUCATI TO OPEN THAILAND FACTORY

Italian motorcycle maker Ducati has confirmed it will build a new factory in Thailand that will produce bikes for South East Asia

Ducati will open its first manufacturing plant outside Italy, in Thailand, joining the likes of Honda and Triumph.

It is unlikely that Ducati will sell Thai-made products outside of soutgh-east Asia, as the move allows the Italian motorcycle maker to side step big tariffs that increase the cost of imported products.

By setting up a manufacturing plant in Thailand, Ducati can sell products much cheaper by avoiding tariffs (some tariffs add as much as 40 per cent to the cost of the vehicle) and also by using cheaper labour.

This move has prompted Italian unions to rattle a few sabres, claiming that jobs will go offshore. At this stage Ducati plans to only sell Thai-made motorcycles in the south-east Asian region, but like many car makers that build in Thailand and sell in the region (Honda, Ford, Mazda, Nissan et al), Australia is now a major market.

Could we see the same thing occur with Ducati?

Honda will be selling its Thai-built CBR250R in Australia and Thai-made cars have been on sale here*in various forms for almost a decade.

It is unclear which models Ducati plans on building at its Thai plant, and whether parts will be shipped in from Italy or fabricated elsewhere. However with the name 'final assembly'*plant, it is clear that Ducati aims to deliver the impression that only assembly will occur at its new Asian facility.....

[Mr.S2R]

does this mean Thai dyed Ducatis??

be interesting to see the resulting build quality and price

[mattyvas]

If the car manufactures are anything to go by I'd say it would just be a matter of time until we started seeing Thai made Ducatis sold here.
I know now they would be saying that it is just to get around import tariffs in Thailand, but i bet you they won't be able to resist the lower shipping costs, cheaper labour from Thailand as said already.
Combine that with the fact they would still ask the same money for Italian built bikes and profits go up.
Hmmmm Thai built Ducatis.

[FIFO]

Combine that with the fact they would still ask the same money for Italian built bikes and profits go up.
Hmmmm Thai built Ducatis.

Your spot on with that matty.

Even if the Thai built bikes are better which probably won't be to hard ,i personally wouldn't buy one.
I bought a Ducati because of the heritage faults and all.
 if you had the money would you buy a Ferrari made in Thialand?
The only way to stop Thail Duc in AUS is don't Buy them, but that won't happen.

[mattyvas]

Yep that won't happen, because new customers might not know and old customers will have no other option.

[vossy]

Could this mean all our current Monsters are keepers?

[Mr.S2R]

Could this mean all our current Monsters are keepers?

interesting thought Vossy - basing it on being Italian made may retain value??

[Betty]

This topic has been raging away on the General Board for some time:
http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=45303.0

It's possible that the Australian market is the market to be effected by this.

Ducatis have always been relatively popular here as far as I know despite the relative expense. But we also have a large number of Ducati snobs some of whom are yet to admit Ducati have continued making bikes after they turned away from the bevel drive.

The problem Ducati have in Australia is pricing. The bikes should be cheaper coming from Thailand (you will notice I haven't acknowledged the 50% currency swing between the AUD and Euro in the last two years and the lack of impact on bike prices) ... but if the retail price is lowered dramatically the impact is unknown. If the price isn't lowered dramatically the impact could be even worse.

At best I could see a gradual decrease in pricing over a number of years ... in the meantime somebody will be better off - and it won't be the end user.

[Mr.S2R]

Ducati snobs some of whom are yet to admit Ducati have continued making bikes after they turned away from the bevel drive.

very insightful commentary Betty - wonder if the advent of gear driven cams would make the bevel snobs return?  Mind you if you follow the rumours around after the 1198s they will go gear driven and make the horizontal cylinder face the other way - cassette gearbox etc etc.

also would it be a wild assumption that there would be some better build quality introduced from the Thai factories?  Ok maybe not straight off the bat but in a number of years of refining and improving their manufacturing process?

[mattyvas]

It is interesting regarding pricing, cause we have all seen the pricing increase in the last 4 years or so of new models coming to market.
i.e. many have a 2V 1000cc DS Monster costing somewhere in the region of 17k-20k depending on what it came with from the shop, that is for those who bought new and I am not sure how many did.
When you look at the new Gen Monster(s) in particular the 1100s with pipes/ecu/filter you were/are looking at close to 30k on the road for a 2V bike.

If the price stays the same and the quality is the same or worse yes they will be in trouble. If the price stays the same and the quality is better off the bat then it would be hard to complain.
When you look at the other SEA car makers, they all mostly had a rocky start and in time have come good and put out a quality product. The difference is, this product is already in the market and they risk much bringing an inferior built bike to your local retail store without complete testing to know it is of the same quality or better than what we see now.

Interesting to watch and wait. 

[FIFO]

Well i guess the term Rice rocket will include Ducati in the future

The build quality will be as good or better from Thailand as the plant will be set up buy Ducati.
As generally is the case with other manufactures in Thialand such a Toyota with their hilux being built there.

The thing is i wanted a European desingned and built bike. if i wanted a Asian bike i would have bought a Hyosung.

Ducat's built anywere else other than Italy wont have the same persona, and i wouldn't own one no matter how good they are or will be.

[Betty]

Matty, who do you mean when you refer to SEA car makers? My geography skills are practically non-existent and have therefore never really known what SEA consists of.

If you are talking about the Thai built Hondsa for example I didn't know there were initial quality problems. If Ducati has quality problems with bikes coming out of Thailand they will be in deep shit I reckon.

But the main thing to remember is that buying a Ducati is not a reasonable/logical/rational or cost based decision. It is an emotional one ... and a bike made in Thailand is not really motivating on the same level as an Italian built bike is for many. Dare I say that if you are buying a Honda Accord you don't really care where it is built so long as it works in the boring predictable fashion you expect.

The bevel/rubberband divide will be so significantly irrelevant compared to the Italian/Thai divide that it serves only as an historic marker.

Ninja edit: Rob has just said it better while I was bullshitting away on the keyboard.

[mattyvas]

What do you mean bullshitting, it is imparting valuable wisdom of many years of Ducati ownership.
SEA = South East Asia.
And yes you are right, generally car buyers don't care a great deal about where their cars are made, i.e. VW's for our market come from South Africa.
But a passionate Ducati buyer wants his/her bike to come from a factory that is full of issues and problems.
Who wants to buy it and just have it work.....

Then I would buy a rice rocket, there you go I've just flipped the argument.

[Betty]

SEA = South East Asia.

Yeah sorry I knew that ... I just don't know 'where' south east asia is (as in which countries are SE Asian?)

i.e. VW's for our market come from South Africa.

Not ours ... all the best VWs are made in Mexico ... remember everything is legal in Mehkicko.


As for the bullshitting ... has anyone ever known me to do anything else?

[monstermick58]

I think you guys are onto something when you talk about made and built in Italy, but I thought that they were building small CC bikes that suit the local (asian) market.







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