Originally posted by ZeroShift
The 'price perception' is quite interesting.
I'm from the 'just tell me the bottom line' school of thought rather than the 'headline trick' school of thought. I hate responding to offers of 'price x' only to find tax ... labor ... are missing and the goods won't work unless I upgrade my something or other with another something or other ... and 'price x' suddenly becomes 'price y'. Hence, target prices are TOTAL prices.
At US$7,300 a 6-speed ZeroShift box sounds a whole lot better than UK£7,500 converting at 1.80 $/£ to US$13,500. But that nice US$7,300 has labor missing and then min 6% sales tax on the total. Frankly, I guess the total installed priced with a normalised sterling/dollar ratio and/or Stateside manufacture will end up around US$10,000 for the T56 by the time it reaches you. The T5 about 30% less. The Scooby 6-speed kit somewhere in between.
By the way, don't go thinking I'm alone here... 
I know it's pretty irregular for the the CEO of an auto company to talk to Internet Forums but I am a petrolhead/racer and you guys are potential customers - it just feels like shooting the breeze over a beer (at the moment!) or a coffee.
With regard to future reliability, I cannot understate the calibre of the ZeroShift engineering team. After getting the invention working, we attracted some of the world's most accomplished transmission engineers. One of our guys was responsible for making a WRC box that even Colin McRae couldn't break. All of our design engineering team have been responsible, in varying degrees, for championship-winning or class-leading transmissions. Few other companies in the world match this team's depth and breadth of knowledge.
Anyway, back to your Yugo. Tub it and load a crate motor then you can hook up one of our T56's... You've got maybe a year to prepare... Get to it! 
D
I see your point, buuuuuuuuut around the states anyways the labor rates vary greatly. They can go from 25 bucks an hour to 200 bucks an hour and maybe higher. Shops don't bid job prices they have a set labor rate and then give you a guess on the amount of hours the job may take based on labor times publiched in the books they go by. However, i'm sure you were already aware of this.
The reason i like to know all aspects is to know whether the ship is being honest with me. Example: I can buy a starter for 50 bucks and then choose the shop that i want to install it based on their reputation and labor rates. On the other hand i could call all the shops i wanted to get a bottom line figure. What they end up doing is charging someone 100 dollars for a starter they can pick up for 35. On top of that they will charge you labor and whatever else they can get away with. I think people are very leary about a bottom dollar figure here.
These first types of trannies you will be releasing are a good choice for commonality and ease of access. They are plentyful here in the states and many customers could easily put these in themselves, thus saving them almost 1/3 to 1/2 the cost to the botom line. Also, if we buy a product out of state we don't have to pay taxes which will again save even more money.
Senario.....I get the tranny for 7,300, and have no more than 100 dollars in materials for the install. Now give me a free saturday or sunday and i have a new Zero shit tranny. The DIY(do it yourself'er) just saveed 30% on the cost of a new tranny. Now that 3k can go toward his/her kids college fund.
BTW, who told you about my Yugo set up? <--That's a joke as i wouldn't be caught dead in one.