MJH, what you are talking about is purely management related. Companies are run despotically, power is clung to good advice and bad advice is equally dismissed. CEOs want to be experts, but they aren't and kill their own businesses. All you have to do is ask customers what they want, but no, that's too easy, the CEO can guess what they want, when they get it wrong the whole thing collapses. I'd suspect most motorcycle related successes are due to importers or riders telling Chinese companies what to make early on, when the Chinese were so clueless they had to ask. Later on 'they think they know' and must take control or lose 'face', of course they don't and this is where the problems start. Main reason why the JV's work much better. When the bigger more experienced companies call the shots things work much better.

I doubt a KTM/CFMOTO JV would work out. KTM will want to use CFMOTO the same way Suzuki use Haojue, and provide the Chinese market with KTM at a cheaper price point, and then export KTM for cheaper price points to the west to compete with Japanese bike export prices from Made in Thailand bikes. However by now CFMOTO management probably think their own farts smell good and will want to make decisions and have equal input or even call the shots, which obviously would be a disaster. I doubt Chinese management can tolerate the thought that KTM are masters and they are the noobs. I hope I'm wrong and actually CFMOTO do have a mature enough culture, time will tell.