opinion on traxxas

[Streetsports]

Sometimes it comes down to how much money you have to throw up a defense .. and not so much what the courts think.

I can agree with that. Its smart to have a lucrative business.

 

[arrma_tigger]

Not so smart when that attack is seen by your customers as bullying the marketplace. Again, cantilever shocks are not new (even to the RC world). Most business owners I hear about this from also do not view this as 'spot on'. While Traxxas may have 'won' their arguments, they have chased away alot of potential customers. Less customers = less business .. not sure how 'smart' or 'spot on' that is for a business. If you have a continuation of less customers, then eventually there will be very little or none. Is this your idea of success? There's a very big difference between fairly competing your way to the top and bullying everyone to the top. Which do you think is the safer path?

Please explain why it is legal for Traxxas to reverse engineer something and use it without giving credit (or then claiming a patent) but at the same time, no other company (smaller than you) can do this same thing? Additionally, if you hold a patent on something, unless it specifically states 1:1 scale vehicles, then its implementation into a smaller vehicle does not change the application or liability - meaning the patent doesn't care if it's RC or not. A propeller .. is a propeller, regardless of size.

As for obtaining a patent, while it's not easy, it's also not difficult. It's your job as the patent seeker to know if a patent exists or not - you can file for a patent on something that already exists and potentially, already has a patent. It is then your job as the patent owner to protect your patent. If you analyze the majority of Traxxas lawsuits, I think you will find that most of them occurred in a specific area of Texas. With the Supreme Court making some changes to how things happen, I think you will see a different outcome in similar future court cases.

Traxxas has also blatantly gone after social media personalities (RcSaylors) .. and this hasn't helped them. The RcSaylors were reviewing a product called the Remo S-max - it's not even a Traxxas product. What the RcSaylors pointed out in the video was how much the S-max looked like a baby Xmaxx. Why didn't Traxxas sue Remo for the vehicle and for using a similar name?

FYI - Just this month, Traxxas has sued a Mfr for what appears to be - using the word 'MMax' as the name of an ESC. Where, you ask? US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (hmmmmm). Complaint: 'COMPLAINT For Trademark Infringement, Unfair Competition, and Dilution, and Unjust Enrichment'.

Consider this scenario:
As relates to Traxxas’ battery connectors: Only Traxxas can manufacture and equip their iD plugs onto their batteries. No third-party company has access to, nor has successfully reverse-engineered the iD tech. If you want to buy a Traxxas electric vehicle, and you don’t want to buy Traxxas’ batteries, you only have a few options:

You can use an adapter that converts a Traxxas connector to something else, like a Tamiya plug, Deans or other.
You can use batteries with UNI 2.0 plugs.
You can cut the Traxxas connector off and solder your own on (with balance leads).
You can use a different speed control.

Those are your options. Traxxas has yet to initiate litigation with the adapter mfr's .. and one has to wonder why. IMO (as well as others), Traxxas has the ability in this scenario to eliminate most of its competition, but this action would further remove Traxxas from the rest of the hobby world - they would be putting another nail in their own coffin.

The major benefit Traxxas has over competitors is how readily available their parts are in alot of locations (storefront purchased btw, which means Traxxas has already profited from it). If ANY vendor would duplicate this, they just might run Traxxas out of business.

You might think I'm a Traxxas basher .. but if you take a look at my vehicle collection, you will note many Traxxas vehicles (and others) over the years. As I stated, I don't have a problem with their vehicles - I do have concerns with their business practices.

The bottomline is the customer .. without customers, you have no business. The rc hobby exists largely because of enthusiasts (customers). If enough customers view your actions as negative, then you will have no business. Chase these people away and you've signed your own death warrant.

 

[Surchaufeur]

Wait traxxas is suing an esc manufacturer for having "max" in the esc name? This is some nice bullshit

 

[arrma_tigger]

I can't see the actual filing .. but that's what it looks like.

 

[jondilly1974]

How about Traxass suing the Saylors?

 

[arrma_tigger]

I said that too - though I don't know if they sued them. I know they harrassed and bullied them.

 

[Gilgamesh]

But the use of them on rc's was. The u.s. patent office doesn't give out patents easily. If you have both trucks to look at it becomes obvious that arrma copied traxxas. The court system thought so also. Any business owner would know that traxxas' business practices are spot on. This is why they're winning. Capitalism ftw. not going bankrupt or selling out. It could also be from all the $ savings on red loctite lol

no, Traxxas was not the first to have law down suspension in an RC. If you're saying Arrma copied Traxxas then Traxxas copied Tamiya with traditional shocks, hubs, knuckles, wheels, tyres you get the idea. Its standard industry designs and concepts. You don't see real F1 manufacturers suing each other over their suspension layouts. And the court system thinks we're too dumb to see the difference between the Revo and Nero. I can't blame them, Traxxas is a company with 13yr olds as their target market.

 

[arrma_tigger]

If you look at Traxxas' patent for the throttle link, the whole world is in trouble.

 

[Notoriousone]

I hate their general philosophy about suing other RC companies and for that reason I am not a big fan. I am building a 4tec 2.0 speedrun car, but only that specific model because there is so much aftermarket support for it like Carbon Fiber chassis, motor mount kits, braces, battery trays etc.. They are a popular brand because lets face it, Traxxas has had for years the best marketing and advertising campaign in RC in general, they know who buys their stuff and how to appeal to those people. They are geared towards bringing newcomers into RC and they know how to do it. Go online and type in RC car and I bet most often a traxxas picture or ad will come up first. That kind of market power insures a lot of repeat business so they pretty much do what they want and don't care about what others think

 

[Casual]

I love my E Revo 2.0 and got it compliment the Kraton 6S V3 we had.
Love my friends XMaxx 8S, its a tank. In my OPINION, its the best basher toy out on the market. Looking forward to picking up mine.

 

[LDAGfoodaholic]

I wanted to get a slash before i saw the senton. now I think that the the slash is overpriced. about $700 for the 4x4 brushless slash and traxxas battery or you can buy a less pricey alternative at $300. also i am 80% sure the senton is faster

 

[Casual]

I wanted to get a slash before i saw the senton. now I think that the the slash is overpriced. about $700 for the 4x4 brushless slash and traxxas battery or you can buy a less pricey alternative at $300. also i am 80% sure the senton is faster

The Ultimate Slash 4x4 is only 5~550 bucks here in the states. This is the model with pretty much most of the aftermarket upgrade parts that Traxxas offers for the Slash platform.
Speed... both can do over 40mph out of the box so meh..
As for the battery... Well whatever I void my warranty right away since all my batteries are on IC/EC5 and all my vehicles are also IC/EC5 so the battery is moot for me and I hope for most hobbyist here too.

 

[Porschetech🇬🇪]

Started out on Traxxas (pushed on me by lhs) and slowly saw how poop they are. Saw arrma and quickly realised how superior they are over Traxxas. Just my 2 cents on the matter.

 

[gkujae holt]

Check out my painful thread on the X-maxx vs Kraton 8s. It certainly brought out the passion in everyone.

My thoughts are they are playing in the same pool but are different in lots of ways.

Traxxas are generally more expensive to buy\maintain long term but availability is great. Every hobby shop has parts and trucks to look at. There are some questions around reliability in some of their models (*cough X-maxx ESC, Drive-line) but both sides have their faults really so its an argument as to which is better\worse (*cough Spectrum Controller, Kraton Chassis).

Arrma are the newer\innovator on the block. They have some great vehicles with new ideas at decent prices however parts availability is not as great.

I have both, and appreciate them equally and for different reasons. It really depends on what you're looking for.

so whats anyones opinion on traxxas.

Traxxas are easier to work on !

 

[Rip King MC]

I used to LOVE traxxas when I didn’t know any better.

Same.

 

[Rip King MC]

Good cars, bad company. I think they can make some pretty great vehicles that are pretty high quality (and overpriced), but I am not okay with how they do business. I used to be a huge fan of "laxxas" (TheRcSaylors reference ? ) until I found out about other brands like Arrma and Axial and Losi that weren't as overpriced, and I started liking those brands more than "laxxas." I am also not a fan of their ways of business. What they did to the Nero, and what they did to TheRcSaylors (If you don't know what I'm talking about, just search up YouTube Video Strike Update and Mail Time on YouTube) were pretty upsetting. So, yeah, I am not a huge fan of them, but it's because of their company, not their cars.

 

[Surchaufeur]

The Ultimate Slash 4x4 is only 5~550 bucks here in the states. This is the model with pretty much most of the aftermarket upgrade parts that Traxxas offers for the Slash platform.
Speed... both can do over 40mph out of the box so meh..
As for the battery... Well whatever I void my warranty right away since all my batteries are on IC/EC5 and all my vehicles are also IC/EC5 so the battery is moot for me and I hope for most hobbyist here too.

sentonhits 50mph out of the box i think while the slash struggles at 42mph 300vs550$

 

[Monster-Crawler]

no, Traxxas was not the first to have law down suspension in an RC. If you're saying Arrma copied Traxxas then Traxxas copied Tamiya with traditional shocks, hubs, knuckles, wheels, tyres you get the idea. Its standard industry designs and concepts. You don't see real F1 manufacturers suing each other over their suspension layouts. And the court system thinks we're too dumb to see the difference between the Revo and Nero. I can't blame them, Traxxas is a company with 13yr olds as their target market.

Agreed! My Nero and Big Rock look a lot different than the E-Revo, with or without the body on. Other than the horizontal shock positions, there really is no comparison, the Nero platform is a tank compared to the E-Revo/Summit platform.

 

[Surchaufeur]

Agreed! My Nero and Big Rock look a lot different than the E-Revo, with or without the body on. Other than the horizontal shock positions, there really is no comparison, the Nero platform is a tank compared to the E-Revo/Summit platform.

Traxxas being traxxas they just ruin the fun they lock you with the apple lipos chargers bodies you cant customize your traxxas only thing you can do is paint your own maxx body and leds thats it but the price for that is juicy for the quality specially the bodies who are paper thin. Pfff the cars are just made to milk your money sure some other brands do too but they don't do it intentionally they do real innovations and no slash reshells only xmaxx is great but diffs and gears are poopy made change that and slap an unbrekable body and its a beast

 

[Casual]

sentonhits 50mph out of the box i think while the slash struggles at 42mph 300vs550$

So does the Ultimate Slash 4x4.
And yes I can justify the Ultimate Slash vs The Senton 3S. Can't say the same for the Slash 4x4 VXL vs Senton 3S.