Royal Enfield joins the (British) army

That's the Royal-Enfield that had parts break off of it in the middle of it's own commercial video, while RE was trying to tell us they produce quality vehicles now, right?

Reminder to all, military contracts go to lowest bidders that meet the contract specs. So when you see a product boasting "military grade", that usually translates to "we did the absolute bare minimum and made it as cheap as possible."

Hard pass.
 
adri said:
That's the Royal-Enfield that had parts break off of it in the middle of it's own commercial video, while RE was trying to tell us they produce quality vehicles now, right?

Reminder to all, military contracts go to lowest bidders that meet the contract specs. So when you see a product boasting "military grade", that usually translates to "we did the absolute bare minimum and made it as cheap as possible."

Hard pass.
Click to expand...
If contract specs are higher then industry average?
 
Evoex said:
If contract specs are higher then industry average?
Click to expand...

I get that's a possibility but, when is that ever the case really?

How often do government contracts work like that? Imagine the headline "Government says in public request for proposal that it wants to spend more tax payer money than necessary on multi-million dollar contract."

That's why public RFPs always go to lowest cost bidder, even when it isn't the best or most realistic bid. Anything else could be called a mis-use of public funds and could be political suicide for any minister/gov. official signing off on it.

(I found my way into a family who made their fortune off of large government contracts, so if you're into nerding out on this stuff, read on...)

And even still, it fucks us, because companies either intentionally fudge their numbers in their bid, or else submit bids in sheer incompetence. The missus did multiple decades doing estimating on big heavy civil construction contract bids. She personally submitted a bid for the Eglinton LRT line. Ultimately Metroxlinx won that bid because it submitted the lowest offer, not because it submitted a realistic offer. The missus said from Day 1, Metrolinx's bid was completely unrealistic and impossible. Their bid of $9 billion dollars has ballooned to over $12 billion.

But maybe the real worst part of this process of lowest cost bids winning, and how it fucks us, is that many of the companies submitting bids said that we should be getting a full on subway car system, rather than the (cheaper) light rail/tram car system which has a much smaller carrying capacity. But of course, cheapest option, cheapest bid. It is now estimated that by the time Eglinton line does open, demand on the line will exceed carrying capacity for the line, because of the choice to build a light rail line, rather than a proper subway car line.

TLDR: Specs are made to be as cheap as possible, because politicians and governments are afraid, even if it means ******* the future for the people, organizations are wise to this and cheat the system, and the tax payer always bends over.
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