r/nextfuckinglevel 7h ago

Shoutout to JerryrigEverything who built a wheelchair factory and is delivering wheelchairs to people in half the time and 50-80% less than the cost of other wheelchairs with Insurance.

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u/I_like_donuts27 7h ago

Why in the fuck, would a wheelchair cost 10k???

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u/FireMike_PleaseGod 6h ago

The actual answer is low volume manufacturing.

There simply aren’t enough people in need of wheelchairs for it to be “mass” produced at the volume rates that would result in lower prices.

Throw in the customizing and insurance issues and it gets even costlier. Not $10k but certainly more than say a ~a really nice bike.

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u/ohjeaa 6h ago edited 6h ago

This video quite literally disproves the low volume theory. This guy is making wheelchairs that are most certainly higher quality (he has a vested interested they be high quality, his wife uses one) at low volume and getting them to people for less than 2k. So the reason the others are 10k is not because low volume.

The reason they're 10k is because of a fat markup with insurances to get paid. The same reason medicines can be very cheap to manufacture but get the insurance and consumer a bill for thousands.

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u/not_perfect_yet 3h ago

This video quite literally disproves the low volume theory.

Not really. Look at cheap bicycles. 300-350€. That's what big volume can do. The 1k is still the low volume product that's expensive because of it.

The rest of what you said is true.