I think your expectations are a bit high ?

If you buy the gas version to convert your gonna spend that couple hundo you saved on additional E parts anyway.

Dont forget the E version also comes with cheezy lipos that can be sold to offset cost.

That was my first thought. But really can't imagine you'd get much for the cheezy lipos to make it worth the hassle.

Why not, MA does it every farkin' day ? :neutral:

For $699 you can buy one of these and a free charger from a guy on RCU. The stock 2.4 may be plain but its got great range, and works well. I still sold mine for $20 to a friend. The stock Lipos are adequate enough to give 8 minutes of hard runtime, and are hardcased to boot. I sold them for $20 each to another
friend.
I think its a great deal personally. Its a brushless 1/5th scale, not a 1/8 or a Revo/Savage. Of course its gonna be a little more expensive. I have well over $699 in my gasser, so how can it be a bad deal?

I bought one and await it's arrival. Before buying, I considered a Baja clone and then ditching the gasser for an electric conversion. Cheapest I could fathom all that was $800. And at best I still had a RWD car whereas I preferd 4WD. On the other hand, I'll use the supplied lipos, radio esc and motor for some of my other cars rather than sell them off. I'll be using a 1717, MMM and dual 6s 40C 5000mah lipos for this (and some spare pinions). Should hump the ground pretty well..

Obeast, was the video run under stock conditions?

Yup thats box stock, even default ESC settings.

I was debating on picking one of these up as well.. Love the look and design of that... it does very well for stock settings...

for 700.00 yes my exceptions are high . higher than what they are offering. i went to the Ihobby expo 2010 in Chicago and saw this first hand i just the gas version strip down nothing new and i was told also that the priced around 500.00 to 550 range. And like i said by the time you upgrade to your mamba 2650 you futaba, dsm or what ever....i guess i would like to see more roller chassis out there..

You expect way too much, geesh. You can't buy other equivalent 5th scales from say HPI, MCD, FG for 700 bucks. As others pointed out, the 700 bucks for a RTR is approaching the top end of the 8th scale range.

Frankly you won't see many roller chassis out there unless its for a race vehicle; no one sells enough of them, except in the race segment, to make it worth their while. Companies such as Redcat are more oriented towards the RTR crowd, and the junk they toss in for the controller/batteries/motor/receiver/transmitter is usually very cheap, though it may work ok for awhile, and makes up on a small portion of the price.

I don't see how it can be classified as "nothing new" when it and the gasoline are a new product that launched at the same time. I am quite happy with the performance for the $700 price tag. So much in fact I am considering ditching all of my gassers. I have had the XBe less than 2 weeks and have already ran it more than all of my other gassers combined this year.
If you want one of these as a roller for $500+ shipping, let me know. I will see if I can arrange for you to receive one. Once they get more in stock, that is

Considering
 

Considering where this hobby was lets say 5 years ago, I think this is a pretty good deal if the quality is up to par. Electronics can easily be swapped out and upgraded to whatever you like. If you think that every manufacturer should put together the best quality made vehicle and add the best quality electronics for $700 then you go and try to do it with your own company. You may sell a few to customers who want the best of everything, but your business will not last very long, and whatever profits you might make would barely keep the lights on in your shop for a few months. These companies are in business to make money pure and simple. I bet you are not driving a Yugo, or a Wego either. Just like 1:1 vehicles if you want all of the goodies in your car you better be prepared to pay big bucks for those toys. You get what you pay for.

Shoot when we were kids the only thing available was one of those cheapo radio shack specials that ran like 2mph and lasted for a few days if you were lucky enough to have one. Plus only the kids that had rich parents could afford them. Some people are just plain spoiled. How is that workin for ya? Good luck with that.

I think once large-scale electric takes off, other companies will follow suit and make different iterations. Maybe then, things will come cheaper. While I can see the argument about price to some extent.. I still think it's a bargain.

Manufacturing
 

With manufacturing such an intricate product as these trucks and buggies there are always design costs, setup costs, production costs, material costs, legalities of running the company, building rent, utilities, equipment, and a whole bunch of other expenses that only a company owner would know and understand that have to be paid for in some manner. These costs get passed on to the customer. When you think about what it takes to manufacture the parts, assembly, electronics, and testing just to get something like this out onto the open market I do not think there is much chance that we will see these selling for much less than they are right now.

I have no idea what the profit is for one of these, but it surely can not be all that much. Which is why the only way these things can pay off is to produce a very large quanity of them. How many is a judgement call that can make or break any companies bank roll. They have to keep initial runs at a reasonable amount so they don't go bankrupt on the very first run just trying to get the product out the door and onto the shelves. If popularity is good, then maybe the second run is a little bit higher. Most companies starting out have to turn every cent of profits right back into the company to keep it running (utilities, payroll, building expenses). It is only after a few years that any of these R/C companies really turn any kind of marginal profit, and that probably is not much. That is the nature of most business. Most of these companies make their profits on replacement parts not the RTR's anyway. Only the very large comapnies can afford to be generous and provide better quality and more bells & whistles as they grow. Even then they have to watch their bottom line just like everyone else out there. I would suspect that in the future we may see better and better quality, but if anything the prices will go up.

Good summary Jerry.

Thank you sir.
 

Thank you Sir. Just like anything else there are always things going on behind the scenes that we do not get the priveledge of seeing as far as what really goes into what we buy. Yes of course we always look for and want things as cheap as humanly possible, but we have to be realistic. Some people just do not know or understand what it takes to make this happen, and that is why we have these forums to share information with each other of what we have seen or have knowledge about. I hope that my input helps to settle some peoples anxiety about the pricing of these R/C vehicles.