That's all true. I think this is where my love for the local bike mechanic comes into play: each small town here has a couple of them, and the density is such that no company serving only a single brand could set up that kind of network. And it's also why I will never buy a bike online: these people are essential and to buy a bike with them ensures they stay in business. Every now and then when they are short on time and I have something I need fixed right away I'll be happy to do it myself assuming I have the tools. But for some bikes (for instance: a tandem that we have that has a lot of rare stuff on it) I'd rather have the bike shop work on it than that I'm going to end up risking wrecking something. Older bikes are easier in that sense, far less hard to source stuff.
I think Van Moof could have made it if they had been far more strict on QA and designing for reliability from day #1, bikes are as you correctly noted operating in a hostile environment and you need to design for that. Bike electronics are hard (super easy to mess that one up), batteries are hard, software is hard. If you then add a bunch of custom stuff you've set yourself up for failure. I did not do DD on any of the Van Moof rounds but when evaluating what bike to buy I looked at their bikes and decided that I did not like what I saw and went for a Riese & Mueller instead, which has served me extremely well (12000 km and counting, not a single failure in the field other than a broken spoke which was easily remedied, and likely the result of bumping the bike with another one in the garage here). Van Moof had their shot, they failed and I doubt the buyers are going to make this work without a total departure from both the business model and that bike design. They should make a deal with Bafang, Shimano or Bosch or some other experienced manufacturer to make their custom parts for them in return for some margin, the bikes are plenty expensive to leave enough room for that and they can pay for that from the reduced warranty reserve. As an added bonus they get certification thrown in as long as they don't change the wheel diameter. Then they can focus on the software (which had plenty of problems).
I think Van Moof could have made it if they had been far more strict on QA and designing for reliability from day #1, bikes are as you correctly noted operating in a hostile environment and you need to design for that. Bike electronics are hard (super easy to mess that one up), batteries are hard, software is hard. If you then add a bunch of custom stuff you've set yourself up for failure. I did not do DD on any of the Van Moof rounds but when evaluating what bike to buy I looked at their bikes and decided that I did not like what I saw and went for a Riese & Mueller instead, which has served me extremely well (12000 km and counting, not a single failure in the field other than a broken spoke which was easily remedied, and likely the result of bumping the bike with another one in the garage here). Van Moof had their shot, they failed and I doubt the buyers are going to make this work without a total departure from both the business model and that bike design. They should make a deal with Bafang, Shimano or Bosch or some other experienced manufacturer to make their custom parts for them in return for some margin, the bikes are plenty expensive to leave enough room for that and they can pay for that from the reduced warranty reserve. As an added bonus they get certification thrown in as long as they don't change the wheel diameter. Then they can focus on the software (which had plenty of problems).