Why we built the City U in Copenhagen, not Taiwan

When we costed out building the City U, the math was obvious: Taiwanese assembly was 40% cheaper per unit. Most direct-to-consumer e-bike brands stop there.

We didn't. Here's why.

What you actually pay for in Asia

The €200 saving per bike comes with three hidden costs:

• 14-week lead times. Order placed in March, bike in your hand in June. Any issue with the frame, the wheel, the cable routing — back on a boat.
• Quality drift. When you're 9,000 km from the production line, you can't walk down and inspect a torque setting.
• No real warranty support. "Send it back to us" means a €200 shipping bill on a €1,800 bike.

What Copenhagen assembly buys you

Every City U is hand-built in our Refshaleøen workshop. Same building where we'll fix it if anything goes wrong.

If your bike is delivered with a creak we missed, you can ride it back to the workshop the same week. That changes how seriously we take the QA.

Practical consequences:

• 2-week delivery, not 14
• Every torque setting checked by a human, not a robot calibrated last week
• Lifetime workshop access — not "send it back to the warehouse"

What it costs us

Margin. Plain and simple. We make less per bike than competitors who assemble in Asia. We bet that "less profit per bike, more bikes that customers actually love" wins long-term. Two years in, the data says it does.