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The 800 pound gorilla

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This may not be true for all markets, but here in the US Traxxas could be considered the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Now, I'll say up front, I'm no fan of Traxxas as a company. I do not like their business practices that have been mentioned on here before. I don't care for the way they market their product or the "extreme RC lifestyle" they seem to promote. Much of their product is good however and in hearing stories and speaking with people and how they got into RC, the Traxxas name comes up more and more and the Tamiya name less and less outside my age group. Honestly, Traxxas is where Tamiya was in the 80's in hobby shops. We all know Tamiya was king in those shops BITD. Well, that's the case with Traxxas now. So I began to wonder, is Traxxas all bad?

I'm going to guess that Traxxas doesn't really present itself the way most Tamiyaclub members would like. Being RTR alone in most cases is a shutdown for me. Going beyond the apples to oranges comparisons about the actual product, does Traxxas aid the hobby? In some ways, I think it does. Their products are reasonably durable. They don't suffer any of the major issues the a Blackfoot rerelease did for instance. The spare parts supply is abundant and everywhere. Their customer service is supposedly pretty good too. 

I've read Traxxas ruined the hobby by pushing the industry towards RTR. While Traxxas always had RTR in their DNA from the earliest Cat (they did make kits for a time and were completely different from what we think of them in the post T-Maxx era), did they foster the RTR push or did they predict and react to a changing market? Model construction as a whole is down and perhaps offering mainly RTRs isn't a bad thing to get folks into the hobby. Despite their attempt to isolate themselves as a "world unto themselves" within the industry (specific battery connectors, etc.) do they not provide a good entry point? They do seem to want to make the experience as trouble-free as possible. Since Traxxas doesn't cover all the bases, but provides a good first experience, could they be a gateway to other aspects of the hobby? What if someone who had good luck with a Bandit wants to race? They might try a Losi, Associated, Kyosho, etc.next. They might be intrigued in the mechanics and try a Tamiya kit.

Tamiya was at one time, the standard. Their instructions were (are) often second to none. They actually did have a spare parts selection. But the random MRC/Tamiya spinner rack at a hobby shop in '86 doesn't compare to the wall of Traxxas parts that ensures your Rustler will be back on the road today. That's not to put down Tamiya, but times changed and Traxxas did too. It helps immensely that most of their lower end vehicles have been around forever and share parts, but that's part of the Traxxas business model. And, on the other hand we may think its silly/sad that a customer may have to return to the hobby shop for a seemingly simple fix because they have no clue how it went together. So good, with the bad (and there's plenty of bad too) is Traxxas a descent ambassador for the RC hobby in their current position or a detriment to it?

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1 hour ago, Problemchild said:

TRAXXAS appeals to this generation 

tamiya is built around nostalgia 

JJ

It's interesting. I think the nostagia has taken over for me, no matter what brand it is (yes, I've heard all about Traxxas business practices and they rub me the wrong way as well).

But I see the lonely piles of parts that used to be my Traxxas trucks, and I feel an overwhelming need to drive them again!

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Back in the day, in America MRC was the Tamiya Distributor.  You could find Tamiya Kits and spare parts in every hobby store.  I think Tamiya was foolish in separating from MRC.  MRC new how to distribute, they were the middle man and it worked well. I'm not sure why the MRC Tamiya partnership ended, in my opinion it was a foolish mistake. 

Now to get spare Tamiya parts In American it's nearly 100 percent via the internet.

As for traxxas, there are lots EVERYWHERE for every budget. From $150 RTR to $900 8S XMAXXs with spares galore. I just rebuilt my 3.3 Revo that I purchased 11 years ago via parts bought at the LHS. Can't do that w Tamiya. 

I love Tamiya, they are the praponderance of my collection. However Tamiya hasn't grown w the Times. TRF didn't last as they didn't hire enough top flight drives and you can't find spares.

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Traxxas put their money into suing the companies that sponsored the big hobby conventions, which used to be a huge promotion of the hobby. Their electronics are garbage and I believe this alone necessitates their large customer support. Their vehicles can only be described as sloppy and fast.
They do sponsor 1:1 vehicles in the X-sport circles which is a slightly redeeming quality, but only serves self-promotion.

Overall, I see them as a detriment to the RC industry.

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I"m new to the hobby in the sense that I came to it in my 40s. Tamiya is the name I knew from when I was growing up, poring over the cars in catalogues so it was the name I was drawn to when I got into the hobby (that and my boss got a Hornet).

I'd read about Traxxas on here but being more kit oriented, stayed with Tamiya (until recent defections).

One day in the park I saw a guy running a couple of trucks. One of them was being launched off a bank so high I winced when it hit the ground but it just kept going, doing it over and over again. I had a good look and when I got home looked it up - it was a Traxxas and, if I got the model right, cost a thousand pounds. 

https://www.modelsport.co.uk/traxxas-x-maxx-4wd-brushless-rtr-8s-monster-truck-orange-x-/rc-car-products/439125

I liked it, it was orange.

I feel like trucks that cater for the six year old in all of us, the Tamiyas appeal more to the 11 year old thanks to their build element and (over) engineering. If Tamiya RC had a slogan, would it be 'not just for bashing'?

I have to say, when I was looking at crawlers, the TRX-4 was mentioned A LOT and it can be purchased as a kit. Tamiya doesn't really get a mention in that arena.

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Traxxas has its place, as does Tamiya I suppose.


I sometimes look at Traxxas but they aren’t really that cheap. Sure they are tougher than a Tamiya, but I recently got so much satisfaction from painting up a nice Sand Scorcher body in the comfort of my own home than I believe I would from a high speed bash of a Traxxas straight out the box.

When I take the SS body off and go for a drive with the Buggy Champ on it, it still makes me smile.

Its the process of a Tamiya kit that keeps me there more than anything I think. The problem is though there are just to many different spares for different models. And if support is lost then the customer’s interest is also lost.

I was looking at the new Semi Assembled (no electric’s) models from Tamiya and thinking about them.Maybe it’s a move towards a lesser carbon footprint for the future to survive?

When you see how much is ‘left over’ from a finished kit maybe all the sprue’s from a factory assembled kit get recycled to go back into the next batch. All the customer has is a cardboard box that they can recycle anywhere.

The other thing that puts me off Traxxas for now is the colour schemes on the bodies. Well apart from a Classic Bigfoot, I could definitely live with that one.

 

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As I've said before, my problem with Traxxas has never been their engineering, but their marketing. The "50mph out of the box!!!" idea just turns me off, as does their habit of trademarking everything and aggressively defending those trademarks, even when the terms in question are common terms in the hobby, and were before they came along.

But the vehicles themselves are decent quality and good value, usually. The Stampede/Rustler/Slash/Bandit architecture is simply brilliant, works extremely well, is durable, and is an excellent tinkerer's platform. The Maxx trucks, while not everyone's cup of tea (including mine), are nonetheless design triumphs.

I do have to say that I've never had good luck with Traxxas servos (or Hitec, actually). I have a 20 year old Stampede that still uses its original XL-1 ESC and 20 turn motor, but went through 2 Traxxas servos (the original standard one and a high-torque replacement) before I wised up and replaced it with a Futaba S148, and haven't had a problem since.

Interestingly, though, just today I stopped in to our local HobbyTown to pick up some paint, and was surprised to see that Traxxas no longer has pride of place in their store displays. All the Traxxas stuff was in one aisle, and the prominently displayed models were all the Horizon "basher" brands (Arrma, Dromida, etc). I don't know if there's some sort of corporate skullduggery at work there, or if it's based on sales alone, but Traxxas seems to have been firmly relegated to second place, at least in that one shop. (And before you ask, Tamiya and Kyosho were both nowhere to be seen. They had Tamiya paints, and a handful of static military kits, and that was it.)

Looking back, as well as looking at the current state of affairs, I would have to say that Traxxas has been a net positive force in the hobby, if only because it brought so many people in in the 90s and early 2000s, when it seemed the RC car hobby was stagnant and starting to fade away. I can't say I'm a fan of how they brought those newcomers in, but if some of them stayed and branched out into more hobby-ish aspects of the hobby, then that's a positive result. And their outstanding parts support and dirt-cheap prices on parts have been good for everyone in the hobby; even if you never buy a Traxxas vehicle, you can easily dip into their deep well of parts and components to scratch-build with, or modify other vehicles.

For the most part, I kind of look at Traxxas like those corporate chain restaurants: don't expect anything great, but don't expect any surprises either. Go in with the realization that you're "slumming it" to some degree, feel smug in the knowledge that you know better than the people who think this is the greatest thing in the world, and just enjoy it for what it is.

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Most of what I was going to chime in has been said above already, but I’ll chime in anyway. 
Re: “ XXmph out of the box “ annoying marketing for sure . I’ve been fielding “how fast does it go?” Questions since my Nikko Turbo faster and I’m still tired of it , lol . Yeah Buddy IDK, you you have a radar gun ? Then I don’t know either lol.  
Arrma , and all the WLToys and Chinese Banggood brands have followed suit with that marketing too. 
 

32 minutes ago, markbt73 said:

But the vehicles themselves are decent quality and good value, usually. The Stampede/Rustler/Slash/Bandit architecture is simply brilliant, works extremely well, is durable, and is an excellent tinkerer's platform.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, My stampede is cobbled together from 1994 vintage chassis, Modern  OEM and aftermarket parts. It is every bit much of a home build as any of my Tamiya kits. It truly is a ln excellent tinkerer’s platform. 
Like the TRX4 has been lambasted for being an RTR crawler, but, like any rig in the scale community, it’s just a platform for more building. 
I also agreed that their business practices have been problematic. 
I think those aggressive and shady business practices have finally reached a level of diminishing returns. I don’t think they are hurting or going to fail anytime soon, but I think they are no longer the undisputed champ in the RTR extreme sports segment of the hobby. I think a lot of people would buy an Arrma instead a Traxxas first for one of those style of rigs now. 

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I can't really judge Traxxas as 'good' or 'bad,' but it seems like they've done a lot of things right to make money in the RC business.

  • North America is a large market, and the vehicles they release resonate with the casual hobbyist in this region.  Monster trucks, short course trucks, trail rigs, dragsters, and speed boats all have 1:1 counterparts.  They tend to show up as race events and demonstrate their products on the spot, tying into the event directly.  The kids, both young and old, are energized by this juxtaposition of loud 1:1 vehicles and 1/10 models near each other.
  • The quality of the vehicles is reasonable even in box stock form.  The plastics are resilient, the gearboxes are durable, there's not too much to go wrong in general.
  • Parts are readily available to repair damage or upgrade performance.  I've never really seen parts out of stock at the hobby shop or online.
  • Is the business practice issue purely their patent situation?  Do we know if they were defending utility patents or design patents?  If they were defending utility patents then it's doubtful they would have won as there would have been prior art such as the Tenth Technology Predator.  If Hobbico's lawyers didn't bring this up then too bad on their part.  If they were defending a design patent, something more ornamental than utilitarian, then it's quite possible they could defend their design against a copycat design like ARRMA was pushing briefly. I guess I'm not aware of anti-trust issues such as being a monopoly, or collusion, or price-fixing, or buying competitors to shut them down.  It's not clear they harmed the competitive process and therefore caused harm to the end consumer.

Now let's talk about Tamiya as a business:

  • It's been said many times here that Tamiya services its home market more than any other market, and that seems to be true.  They produce an awful lot of Japanese-marque touring cars, produce some strange-looking buggies like the Thundershot, Big Wig, Saint Dragon or others, and make these Comical buggies that can pull wheelies and that's about it.  Their marketing approach is to hook kids early with educational kits, mini-4WD, scale plastic models, and then RCs.  They do not show up at 1:1 race events and tie into anything.  They seem to appeal to youthful, introverted, tinkerer, engineer, or artistic types moreso than the extroverted motorsports personality.
  • The quality of the vehicles is debatable, at least when it comes to running them.  No one disputes they can make accurate bodies, and know how to make injection-molded plastic parts, but it seems like every model has at least one flaw in it.  Is that charming?  For the tinkerer, maybe.  For the extroverted motorsports person, basher, or the track racer, not at all.
  • In North America the lack of readily-available parts is frustrating.  Most of the online retailers as well as the brick and mortar stores don't carry the right parts trees or hardware.  If you go to Stargek in Singapore or RC Mart in Hong Kong, the situation is completely different (I've seen it firsthand while on business trips).
  • I'm not aware of any patent prosecution on the part of Tamiya, but the MAP situation in North America felt alienating.  Instead of developing alternate marketing, distribution, and sales models to reflect the reality of their position in the market, they just decided to raise prices to the end consumer so their existing channels could make more profit.  Did that result in more Tamiyas being sold in brick and mortar stores?  I doubt it.  Could they honestly say the new pricing reflected the premium nature of their brand?  Not at all!  They continued to ship the same polycarbonate and ABS sprues, plastic bushings, friction shocks, aluminum pinions, and plastic drivetrain parts even after the price hike.

Part of me thinks this thread really ought to be titled, "What are your RC biases/preferences?"  Each of these businesses, whether it's Associated, Losi, XRay, ARRMA, Traxxas, Tamiya, Kyosho, Schumacher, Awesomatix, RJ Speed, Redcat, RC4WD, CRC, etc. all have access to the same market here in North America.  They all have the same levers available to tweak their business models.  They all have access to the same legal system, and have the same corporate tax rules applied to them.  There's nothing stopping them from accessing the same foreign countries and labor pools for mass production.  It's a question of investment and potential profitability for them.  Several of these brands have clustered around a handful of niches and are directly or indirectly competing with each other.  It's really down to each hobbyist to decide which brand(s) he likes, whether he wants a RTR or kit, and how much local parts support is necessary.  Therefore, I don't see it as marking any of these businesses as "good" or "bad," rather, I see it as a question of biases and preferences on the part of hobbyists.

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I’m in the US and I think Traxxas just knows how to market to this US generation and time period. I personally don’t know any kid, young person, or someone new to the hobby in my circle who wants to sit down and meticulously build an RC. Or invest more time and effort in it. They get impatient and just want to run the vehicle right away. I’ve tried with a bunch of them a number of times. They like things that are fast, brutish, and can take a beating, then store the vehicle aside and move on to the next thing. And to be fair, the generation now just have so many options and things to do. They can go online and surf, do social media, online games, video games, social hang outs, travel, do other creative things—and it’s almost limitless than what we had back then. So I can see why Traxxas works here and I’m sure Traxxas is just taking advantage of that market shift. I think hobbies nowadays aren’t the same as what they were back then, like the level of commitment because there’s just so many other things to do. And to be honest, if not for the pandemic, I probably wouldn’t be this dedicated to the hobby because I would be out more traveling instead.

I don’t know if Traxxas is a bad ambassador. I don’t have one (but if I do buy one it will be the TRX-4 Defender ;). I just think Tamiya (and the other Japanese brands) aren’t doing much at all to influence and support the mainstream RC culture today in the US, as they do in their backyard and Asia. I’m sure they could if they really wanted to. The Japanese, they don’t tend to do a quick 360 with their business strategy when markets shift. It takes them time and that’s probably just part of their ideology and culture. It's in the sense of how Japanese commit longer to an endeavor or way of life before they move on. Traxxas probably just adapts and thinks more American (even with the business practice).

It will take a more serious commitment from Tamiya to be back as a serious contender in the US. Even for the smallest things I get frustrated—a lot with their parts. The Tamiya USA shop is always out of stock, fleabay US sellers sometimes sell for unreasonable prices. And, in the last few months, I’ve bought more Tamiya parts outside of the US (Japan, Germany, Italy, UK, Hong Kong, Taiwan, France, Spain, South Korea, China, Greece, Belgium, Ukraine, etc.!) and sometimes for a king pin or a screw and it takes quite a while to arrive! So I alway wonder what their strategy is there. I’m sure it’ll be different when I get a Traxxas TRX-4.

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It’s an interesting thread for sure. For me personally as a customer, this all boils down to changes that occur over time, skill progression, and personal desire for different product types (putting questions of business practices aside). Also, here in NZ Traxxas are pretty expensive compared to Tamiya.

This is how the hobby unfolded for me which is all I can relate to (those with short attention spans please skip to the last paragraph :P).....The first RC I ever saw was a Tamiya grasshopper back in the 80s and it did exactly what Tamiya intended it to do....amazed me and gave me a hobby I will have forever. When I found out you had to build these things, it didn’t excite me any more, or any less...it was just something that had to be done to get to the end product. In fact, my Dad did all the building BITD and I always painted and stickered the bodies because that’s what we were both good at and enjoyed. At the same time, my cousin had a Nikko Bison buggy, it was RTR and to me that didn’t matter one bit. It was great in my eyes and it spent a lot of time hooning around next to my Falcon through  the first half of the 80’s.

As I got into racing, I moved from Tamiya to Kyosho and finally Losi because what I wanted out of a car changed as I did too. I didn’t have any more or less fun with these cars, just a different kind of fun and I still have these two cars today. I also moved on into Karting for roughly 10 years  and dipped my toes in other full size Motorsport so I guess I cover both sides of the customer base mentioned in the above post :D....

As time went on, my mechanical and artistic skills improved and I am pleased to say my painting has also improved a lot since I was 11 as has my attention to detail.....probably to the point of being a bit obsessive!....but hey, I’m sure most of us can relate. :lol:

So, I guess what I’m trying to say here  in my long winded personal story is that most people will probably shift through different manufacturers as their tastes change over time. This is probably neither good or bad as long as they are having fun and are choosing RC as a hobby instead of the multitude of other things they could be doing. 
 

For me,  the fact that Tamiya hasn’t changed much is one of the things that actually draws me to them now and the awesome detail aspects (I.e. just getting into their semi trucks now) really spins my tyres! I love it! Tamiya will always have a special place in my heart and the majority of my RC  collection is Tamiya. Would I have a Traxxas UDR if I had the cash...absolutely! Why? for a different kind or RC fun.

Interestingly, this is also quite a similar discussion to what has happened in the RC aircraft world with Foam almost ready to fly models outgunning traditional balsa and ply models, I own and appreciate both types for different reasons. 

I agree that Traxxas are probably in a similar space as far as desirability to the current customer base that Tamiya was in the 80s, if that means that people get hooked on  (or even come back to) RC, then that’s ok by me. I think Traxxas have their place and I admire the vehicles for what they are and the slice that is there to fill in this hobby currently, however, they will have to try pretty darn hard to get me to spend my hard earned $ on a non-Tamiya vehicle these days!

just my two cents :D.

Cheers

Kurt

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3 hours ago, Beetlemankurt said:

Interestingly, this is also quite a similar discussion to what has happened in the RC aircraft world with Foam almost ready to fly models outgunning traditional balsa and ply models, I own and appreciate both types for different reasons. 

Not to sidetrack this thread too much, but during my looooong layoff from the hobby I had a friend/ coworker in the early 00s who was really into building and flying. He scratch built a lot of planes but did so with foam and foam core  construction  instead of balsa frames. 
It was like he took the material and build techniques of the Budding  ARF market and used that as a platform for scratch building. I mean this guy would sculpt full fuselages out of blank blocks of foam. 
Really cool stuff. 
 

Back to surface based RC. I don’t really have a brand loyalty or anything against any one brand. ( I’m the same way with 1:1 motorcycles ) 
Every RC I’ve driven has its own characteristics and personality. 
 For all of Tamiya’s faults they have in their modern branding and marketing strategy they have one thing I feel they are getting right. 
They know how to market “fun” and are very self aware they are making toys 

Yes, I just said the dirtiest word in the Hobby Grade RC community. Whether you are a beginner getting their first RTR, an extremely detailed scale modeler, or an “extreme sports “ basher yeeting your rig over a garage, you have to admit, we are all still playing with toy cars. Some are just more expensive than others. 
As brilliant as Traxxas are at marketing to they North American market, I have noticed the only models they seem to tout as “fun” are the entry level brushed models . In other words the ones designed to get a kid into the brick and mortar hobby shop. 
Is a nearly $1000 X Maxx still “fun”? Darn right it is! But they will tout it as extreme. 
I say this about Traxxas, but Arrma is the same way. I’ve never seen any marketing where they present anything up market from their 3S models as “fun”. 
 

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2 hours ago, Dakratfink said:

Back to surface based RC. I don’t really have a brand loyalty or anything against any one brand. ( I’m the same way with 1:1 motorcycles ) 

Every RC I’ve driven has its own characteristics and personality. 
 For all of Tamiya’s faults they have in their modern branding and marketing strategy they have one thing I feel they are getting right. 
They know how to market “fun” and are very self aware they are making toys 

Yes, I just said the dirtiest word in the Hobby Grade RC community. Whether you are a beginner getting their first RTR, an extremely detailed scale modeler, or an “extreme sports “ basher yeeting your rig over a garage, you have to admit, we are all still playing with toy cars. Some are just more expensive than others. 
As brilliant as Traxxas are at marketing to they North American market, I have noticed the only models they seem to tout as “fun” are the entry level brushed models . In other words the ones designed to get a kid into the brick and mortar hobby shop. 
Is a nearly $1000 X Maxx still “fun”? Darn right it is! But they will tout it as extreme. 
I say this about Traxxas, but Arrma is the same way. I’ve never seen any marketing where they present anything up market from their 3S models as “fun”. 
 

This is a really good point, and it's something I've noticed in a lot of aspects of modern life, not just RC cars: we take our "fun" very seriously these days. Probably too seriously, most of the time. Everything is "built to tackle the toughest conditions" and "engineered for extreme performance," from pickup trucks all the way down to Gatorade. Everything is a horsepower war; everything is one-upsmanship, and if you're not using the newest mostest bestest fastest, you might as well not even bother.

How is a dune buggy driven by a cartoon bear supposed to compete with that?

Easy; he grins his silly grin, kicks up a little dust, and leaves them to it.

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17 hours ago, speedy_w_beans said:

Is the business practice issue purely their patent situation?  Do we know if they were defending utility patents or design patents?
 

Their latest lawsuit was against McClan racing over the MMax esc name.

https://www.rctech.net/forum/chat-lounge/1071095-traxxas-suing-maclan.html

I wonder if RC electronics will now say min/most since the word Max in the RC world now belongs to Traxxas? :lol:

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3 hours ago, markbt73 said:

This is a really good point, and it's something I've noticed in a lot of aspects of modern life, not just RC cars: we take our "fun" very seriously these days. Probably too seriously, most of the time. Everything is "built to tackle the toughest conditions" and "engineered for extreme performance," from pickup trucks all the way down to Gatorade. Everything is a horsepower war; everything is one-upsmanship, and if you're not using the newest mostest bestest fastest, you might as well not even bother.

How is a dune buggy driven by a cartoon bear supposed to compete with that?

Easy; he grins his silly grin, kicks up a little dust, and leaves them to it.

mic drop

standing O

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I have seen some GOOD, definitive points made here!! The Frog got me into the Hobby back in 1984... 

I was heavily into Buggy Racing, even securing major Sponsorships. Then by the mid 90's, the joy dried up for me. The "Model" went out of RCs. Everything started looking like the SAME Blob Body on a Flat Carbon Fiber Chassis. And don't even get me started on what they called a TRUGGY!! YUCK! 

So I took a nearly 15 year hiatus from the Hobby... 

I was DRAGGED back in after accidentally finding some Videos on YouTube about Scale Crawlers!  Built not Bought, custom, functional, Über realistic, reasonably inexpensive and accessible.... 

I was completely hooked!! Axial was the ONLY game in town then, though HPI had one that some People used. Things were going swimmingly - until Traxxas struck! 

They actually asked us, in the U.S. Crawler Community for help in design. They took suggestions, which I thought at first was kinda cool. 

THEN they released the TRX-4. First at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Toy Fairs, then to media hype everywhere..... 

RTR ONLY. Almost $500.00 (when everything else was under $350.00). They took our suggestions alright. Fitted them ALL! Okay I'll admit, I still like the lockable Diffs. It's something that I've balked about for years - permanently Locked Diffs DON'T work well on hard surfaces!!! 

Of course Traxxas used typically SUBSTANDARD Servos to run them - then charging the user an exorbitant amount for an upgrade that should have been there in the FIRST place!! 😠  Though we quickly realized that cheap Metal Geared 9g Aircraft Servos worked a treat! 😜

One of the appeals of the RC Trail Truck/Crawler Hobby, was the ease of repairs IN THE FIELD. TRX-4s were NOT easy to repair - even at home!! 😖😠😠

That wasn't the worst thing.......... 

BECAUSE of very aggressive Marketing, these OVERPRICED Machines were selling like K-Pop Albums!! Mostly to pre-teens with Executive Dad's.... But the sales boon created a hype in the RC Community as a whole. "If they're selling THAT well, they MUST be good" Traxxas saw that as the green light for their Second release - the $529.00 TRX-4 Bronco!!  Granted, beautiful Body. I'd even take one today, but I've got stubborn principles.

So more serious RC Guys started buying too. THEN.... Axial, Vaterra, HPI and Losi saw this and thought "HEY! We're not charging enough!" SO THEIR Prices went UP!!! 😳😞😠

This would be continuing today..... 

But then my old Sponsor, Team Associated came into the picture. Using a "Shell company name" of Element (though we ALL knew), released their first Crawler, after observing the Market for several years. Gave it a funny Name, the "Sendero"... It had non Licensed EVERYTHING! It had their World Class Dampers, advanced Steering, strong Chassis, industry first Front Overdrive.... 

And it could be had as a KIT, and was CHEAPER than any of the Competition!!! Sadly, due to a few Axial and Traxxas Fanboy YouTube Channels SLAMMING it, sales weren't as good at first. Then Common Sense kicked in with a lot of People, and it started moving! 

It also created a paradigm shift in the Market....

Axial, Losi, Vaterra AND Traxxas LOWERED some Prices!! Traxxas then brought out the TRX-4 Sport with non Licensed Body - which became VERY popular with serious Crawlers - because of its simplicity. They then released the TRX-4 Sport Kit!!! A first for them since about 1993! 

Even THEY ended up realizing that incredibly high-end, HIGH Dollar Rigs aren't going to do well long term in the RC Crawler Community...... 

It's HOW they keep selling SO many $900.00 XMAXX "trucks" in these financially troubled times that completely baffles me! If I wanted a TOUGH, smackdown Basher, I'd get a 6S AARMA Senton for $600.00 which is just as tough, just as UN Scale and just as good of a Basher!!! I just don't see the point of the XMAXX.... 

OH..... And where was TAMIYA during all this???? 

Making 3 Wheel Trikes, a Teddy Bear driving a Dune Buggy and a polka dot Hornet - among other things. 

And yet - I still love Tamiya, above all else!! Not any of the new stuff.... They really don't get it. 

Nope, the old stuff.... The reason why I'm in this Hobby for my lifetime. But Man, they really don't get it anymore!!

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On 1/10/2021 at 6:02 PM, speedy_w_beans said:

I can't really judge Traxxas as 'good' or 'bad,' but it seems like they've done a lot of things right to make money in the RC business.

  • North America is a large market, and the vehicles they release resonate with the casual hobbyist in this region.  Monster trucks, short course trucks, trail rigs, dragsters, and speed boats all have 1:1 counterparts.  They tend to show up as race events and demonstrate their products on the spot, tying into the event directly.  The kids, both young and old, are energized by this juxtaposition of loud 1:1 vehicles and 1/10 models near each other.
  • The quality of the vehicles is reasonable even in box stock form.  The plastics are resilient, the gearboxes are durable, there's not too much to go wrong in general.
  • Parts are readily available to repair damage or upgrade performance.  I've never really seen parts out of stock at the hobby shop or online.
  • Is the business practice issue purely their patent situation?  Do we know if they were defending utility patents or design patents?  If they were defending utility patents then it's doubtful they would have won as there would have been prior art such as the Tenth Technology Predator.  If Hobbico's lawyers didn't bring this up then too bad on their part.  If they were defending a design patent, something more ornamental than utilitarian, then it's quite possible they could defend their design against a copycat design like ARRMA was pushing briefly. I guess I'm not aware of anti-trust issues such as being a monopoly, or collusion, or price-fixing, or buying competitors to shut them down.  It's not clear they harmed the competitive process and therefore caused harm to the end consumer.

Now let's talk about Tamiya as a business:

  • It's been said many times here that Tamiya services its home market more than any other market, and that seems to be true.  They produce an awful lot of Japanese-marque touring cars, produce some strange-looking buggies like the Thundershot, Big Wig, Saint Dragon or others, and make these Comical buggies that can pull wheelies and that's about it.  Their marketing approach is to hook kids early with educational kits, mini-4WD, scale plastic models, and then RCs.  They do not show up at 1:1 race events and tie into anything.  They seem to appeal to youthful, introverted, tinkerer, engineer, or artistic types moreso than the extroverted motorsports personality.
  • The quality of the vehicles is debatable, at least when it comes to running them.  No one disputes they can make accurate bodies, and know how to make injection-molded plastic parts, but it seems like every model has at least one flaw in it.  Is that charming?  For the tinkerer, maybe.  For the extroverted motorsports person, basher, or the track racer, not at all.
  • In North America the lack of readily-available parts is frustrating.  Most of the online retailers as well as the brick and mortar stores don't carry the right parts trees or hardware.  If you go to Stargek in Singapore or RC Mart in Hong Kong, the situation is completely different (I've seen it firsthand while on business trips).
  • I'm not aware of any patent prosecution on the part of Tamiya, but the MAP situation in North America felt alienating.  Instead of developing alternate marketing, distribution, and sales models to reflect the reality of their position in the market, they just decided to raise prices to the end consumer so their existing channels could make more profit.  Did that result in more Tamiyas being sold in brick and mortar stores?  I doubt it.  Could they honestly say the new pricing reflected the premium nature of their brand?  Not at all!  They continued to ship the same polycarbonate and ABS sprues, plastic bushings, friction shocks, aluminum pinions, and plastic drivetrain parts even after the price hike.

Part of me thinks this thread really ought to be titled, "What are your RC biases/preferences?"  Each of these businesses, whether it's Associated, Losi, XRay, ARRMA, Traxxas, Tamiya, Kyosho, Schumacher, Awesomatix, RJ Speed, Redcat, RC4WD, CRC, etc. all have access to the same market here in North America.  They all have the same levers available to tweak their business models.  They all have access to the same legal system, and have the same corporate tax rules applied to them.  There's nothing stopping them from accessing the same foreign countries and labor pools for mass production.  It's a question of investment and potential profitability for them.  Several of these brands have clustered around a handful of niches and are directly or indirectly competing with each other.  It's really down to each hobbyist to decide which brand(s) he likes, whether he wants a RTR or kit, and how much local parts support is necessary.  Therefore, I don't see it as marking any of these businesses as "good" or "bad," rather, I see it as a question of biases and preferences on the part of hobbyists.

On point with every fact listed. Tamiya gave a stab at the American market when they put an honest 100 percent effort into it's TRF line. For example The 801Xs were competitive and designed here in America with American top tier drivers. 

There were Tamiya events and tents at Indycar Racers and TRF parts were in the hobby stores. It was a great business model that they copied successfully for a short time. I'm still baffled why they stopped. When they had top drivers developing their cars the cars were competitive, the cars sold, newer models came out, and just like halo cars for real cars it drove bussiness into the hobby shops and customers looked for Tamiya. 

Than Tamiya started dropping the drivers or just let them slip away. Cars stopped being developed, for example the long wheelbase 801x and electric versions were never released to the general public. And before you knew it, TRF was gone and so was Tamiyas American presence, again.

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On 1/11/2021 at 4:32 PM, markbt73 said:

This is a really good point, and it's something I've noticed in a lot of aspects of modern life, not just RC cars: we take our "fun" very seriously these days. Probably too seriously, most of the time. Everything is "built to tackle the toughest conditions" and "engineered for extreme performance," from pickup trucks all the way down to Gatorade. Everything is a horsepower war; everything is one-upsmanship, and if you're not using the newest mostest bestest fastest, you might as well not even bother.

In some ways we're a victim of our own success.  I mean, when you've made a pickup truck that's solid, reliable, starts every morning winter or summer, doesn't need a whole host of parts to keep it running and is as comfortable inside as a car, how do you sell your new model?  I mean, if you market your new pickup as "more reliable than our old one" then you're basically saying your old one had reliability problems.  At the current stage of automobile development - like so many other industries - we can build reliable to a cost, so it's no longer a selling point, it's a given.  It becomes a diminishing return.  So how do you sell?  You make it bigger, better, faster.  This year's truck faster than last year's?  Yes, it has 10% more power, but it has a 10% bigger motor.  That's an easy improvement.  You can keep making the motor bigger and bigger every year until the next technological advancement makes it smaller again.

Unfortunately this is at odds with the state of today's world.  We keep building bigger, faster trucks to sell to people who wouldn't know they wanted them if they weren't there; meanwhile we're rapidly using up our natural resources and destroying the environment we depend on.  But it doesn't matter, because it's tomorrow's problem - let the scientists figure that out, meanwhile we'll keep making / selling / buying faster pickups and all the other things we don't really need.

But can we put the brakes on this?  Do we tell our children, hey, sorry, but when we were growing up we had pickups with 6 litre V8s that were faster than anything you can buy in today's showroom.  To an extent it's already like that - we had a supersonic airliner, we put people on the moon, even in Britain we had a 3 litre musclecar that a working class kid could afford - now we've got none of that.  It's too expensive, too costly to the environment, too dangerous to insure.  OK, so we've got a lot more that we didn't have - smartphones, wi-fi, self-piloting drones, but isn't it all a bit sanitised now?  A bit lifeless?  Maybe I'm just too old to see the interest in it.  Everything gradually becomes homogenised - the only way to put your identity on something is to paint it a different colour or put some stickers on it.

I've sometimes had the feeling that today's Traxxas as a company wants to push us to this sterile, homogenised future, where you can have what you want provided someone sells it.  The reason the Dodge Demon and the Civic Type R exist is because people were buying new cars and sending them to tuning shops to have huge superchargers and crazy body kits fitted.  But manufacturers don't like that - if it goes wrong it reflects badly on their product; it costs money to pay out on a warranty claim that wasn't of their doing and costs reputation to refuse to pay out.  Certification bodies don't like it either - what's the point in having a car pass emissions tests or pedestrian safety tests if we're going to stick on tuning upgrades and angular body kits?  So better for everybody if they put a stop to that and just sell us a modified car in the first place.  But that's not the point.  The point of a modified car is, you modified it to suit your image, to give it your badge of individuality, to make it be the car you want, not the car the manufacturers tell you you want.

Now I have no evidence whatsoever to back this up - not even the lawsuits really suggest this - but I get the creepy feeling, with the body designs and the same old paint jobs and the same old incremental updates to stuff that's been around for years - that Traxxas really just want us to buy their products and drive them, not modify them or customise them.

I'm probably being very unfair here, because like it or not Traxxas are now a key player in the scale crawler scene, they facilitated the move to portals, lockable diffs, multi-speed transmissions.  OK, their first car was expensive, but it had features that no other car had.  Yes, other cars got expensive, but they were following suit with more features.  And yes, Element's offering was great and helped bring prices back down but besides the price, does it offer anything that an SCX10 didn't?  My mate has one, I've driven it, it's a great chassis and you can't argue with the price, but it didn't move the game on - like the Carisma SCA1E, it offers a way into the crawler scene at the opposite end of the price scale for people who don't want multi-speed trannies and portal axles.

My point here though is that the scaler scene has always been about scale realism, customisation and individuality.  Even with a huge wealth of kits on the market, lots of people still bake their own from parts.  Now that new rigs are so capable it's actually more fun to do an event with a homebrew and have to work hard to get through a course with no penalties.  Traxxas are there, being a player in that scene, offering an angle for those who don't want to design a homebrew or build a kit, and the huge presence of TRX-4 Defenders at national events didn't make those events any less fun.

So maybe it's just the lawsuits that make me wonder about what Traxxas really wants from the RC community, and if they care where it goes once they've put everyone else out of business and become the only brand in the entire world.

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2 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

Traxxas really just want us to buy their products and drive them, not modify them or customise them.

When the Short Course truck conversion to No Prep Dragster scene started a few years ago, Traxxas released a video they produced themselves on how to convert a Slash to Drag car. 
So I think they know a few of their platforms are jumping off points for hobbyists to build custom projects. 
I think they do still act like a 1:1 car manufacturer though and don’t want anyone to blame them for irresponsible things done with their product ( or pay out warrant claims from “not recommended several use ) 

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3 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

Now I have no evidence whatsoever to back this up - not even the lawsuits really suggest this - but I get the creepy feeling, with the body designs and the same old paint jobs and the same old incremental updates to stuff that's been around for years - that Traxxas really just want us to buy their products and drive them, not modify them or customise them.

Ha! Well, if that's the case, then they certainly shot themselves in the foot by making products that are so standardized and modular and take advantage of parts-bin engineering. They're just crying out to be modified. Or cannibalized for other projects.

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This is an interesting thread. I don't have much knowledge at all about Traxxis, but looking back on my RC hobby, I can tell they are very different companies. Like many here, Tamiya was a big part of childhood and I did want many of the cars they produced back in the 80s when I was growing up, that 1985 catalogue was awesome! But that wasn't my first connection with Tamiya, it was model making. By the time I'd gotten into RC at 15, I'd had already had countless model kits, and a lot where from Tamiya, plus I'd bought a lot of Tamiya paint. I bet many of you would have similar experiences and few other companies would have interactions with their customers the same way.

Traxxis looks to me to be a product of the times, with people given so much more choices these days, Traxxis seems to fit a market of 'what it now', and they seem to know their market well. But I think Tamiya also know their market quite well, and I bet in the majority of hobby stores around the world, they are one of the dominate brands there, but unfortunately its just not for RC these days. 

Traxxis and Tamiya are also two completely different companies. Traxxis is a pure RC company and Tamiya is a model making company that also happens to do RC (I would love to know what percentage of Tamiya turnover or profits is RC related).

I'd also read on Tamiya blog recently that Tamiya are having trouble keeping up with demand during COVID (https://tamiyablog.com/2020/12/popular-plastic-model-due-to-nesting-chairman-shunsaku-tamiya-speaks-of-worldwide-shortage/) so while that will ease once this pandemic is over, it still means whatever Tamiya is doing is working for them, so I'd guess it would take a big thing for them to shift strategy.

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16 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

In some ways we're a victim of our own success.  I mean, when you've made a pickup truck that's solid, reliable, starts every morning winter or summer, doesn't need a whole host of parts to keep it running and is as comfortable inside as a car, how do you sell your new model?  I mean, if you market your new pickup as "more reliable than our old one" then you're basically saying your old one had reliability problems.  At the current stage of automobile development - like so many other industries - we can build reliable to a cost, so it's no longer a selling point, it's a given.  It becomes a diminishing return.  So how do you sell?  You make it bigger, better, faster.  This year's truck faster than last year's?  Yes, it has 10% more power, but it has a 10% bigger motor.  That's an easy improvement.  You can keep making the motor bigger and bigger every year until the next technological advancement makes it smaller again.

Unfortunately this is at odds with the state of today's world.  We keep building bigger, faster trucks to sell to people who wouldn't know they wanted them if they weren't there; meanwhile we're rapidly using up our natural resources and destroying the environment we depend on.  But it doesn't matter, because it's tomorrow's problem - let the scientists figure that out, meanwhile we'll keep making / selling / buying faster pickups and all the other things we don't really need.

But can we put the brakes on this?  Do we tell our children, hey, sorry, but when we were growing up we had pickups with 6 litre V8s that were faster than anything you can buy in today's showroom.  To an extent it's already like that - we had a supersonic airliner, we put people on the moon, even in Britain we had a 3 litre musclecar that a working class kid could afford - now we've got none of that.  It's too expensive, too costly to the environment, too dangerous to insure.  OK, so we've got a lot more that we didn't have - smartphones, wi-fi, self-piloting drones, but isn't it all a bit sanitised now?  A bit lifeless?  Maybe I'm just too old to see the interest in it.  Everything gradually becomes homogenised - the only way to put your identity on something is to paint it a different colour or put some stickers on it.

This resonates very much with me. We seem to have to a point of creating technology for technologies sake. I'm still managing just fine without a smartphone, tablet, laptop, fitbit, plus a lot of other stuff people take for granted now. It just shows the power of advertising to pulls peoples 'I want' strings, rather than people buying stuff because they actually need it. I think This is why you see adverts on tv for cars, but you never see tractors advertised. Tractors cost a lot more than cars so you'd think that advertisers would want to persuade farmers to buy their products (Farmers have time to watch TV too right ?). So why don't they. Because a farmer actually needs a tractor. When they need one, they seek out the sellers, and they don't replace old machines while they still do the job. So putting out a new model tractor with smartphone connectivity and a heated seat probably isn't going to sell any better than the previous model). So I try to avoid buying anything I see advertising for, on the basis that if it's being advertised then I don't need it. :)

With regards to the Traxxas Gorilla question, I've looked through the range that modelsport offer (I'm in the UK) and other than the scale crawlers I don't see anything that appeals to me. Plus they're eye wateringly expensive in the UK. To put it in perspective, 5 of their most expensive models would pay for a 10 year old V8 Jaguar XF. Spares aren't particularly easy to get hold on this side of the pond either. The last time I needed to buy drive shafts and a summit diff, I had to order them from New York. On the positive side, I've used their drive shafts and differentials in my War Rig and Skidder, and they're very well made, tough components. Tamiya could learn a lot from how they design these sorts of components so that they don't break.

My own 2 cents, I think Kyosho sit in the middle between the 2. Their build quality and general design is better than tamiya. (Thinking about the optima re-releases, they actually put thought into bringing the design into the 21st century, rather than just banging out the 80s model with the 80s flaws). The Blackfoot is just a design flaw on wheels. The chassis and gearbox are totally unsuitable for use as a monster truck. The best bits are the bodyshell and the tires.

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2 hours ago, yogi-bear said:

Traxxis is a pure RC company and Tamiya is a model making company that also happens to do RC (I would love to know what percentage of Tamiya turnover or profits is RC related).

You know, as much as I love my Tamiyas that I have today, I was never that into them in the it heyday. Dad and I raced Kyoshos, Yokomo, and Team Associated Pan cars. 
Even as a child I thought they looked fun and performed well enough for what they were. However, they have always seems like a model company that happened to make RC. 
In my aged and wizened state ( and 4 Tamiyas later ) I “get” it  

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5 hours ago, Dakratfink said:

When the Short Course truck conversion to No Prep Dragster scene started a few years ago, Traxxas released a video they produced themselves on how to convert a Slash to Drag car. 
So I think they know a few of their platforms are jumping off points for hobbyists to build custom projects. 
I think they do still act like a 1:1 car manufacturer though and don’t want anyone to blame them for irresponsible things done with their product ( or pay out warrant claims from “not recommended several use ) 

 

4 hours ago, markbt73 said:

Ha! Well, if that's the case, then they certainly shot themselves in the foot by making products that are so standardized and modular and take advantage of parts-bin engineering. They're just crying out to be modified. Or cannibalized for other projects.

Honestly, that one of the reasons I like Traxxas products, there are a bunch of parts interchangeably  with the 2wd lines, both nitro and electric, and the 4wd electric line is heavily interchangeable amongst the different lines as well as back and forth between the 2wd and 4wd models, so you can swap parts around easily. Not only this, they’ve been around so long now that I can update and upgrade the old 2wd platforms with newly available pieces from Traxxas and the aftermarket.  Looks like I can do that with my Axial products and with my Tamiya vehicles too.

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