Looks like Briggs is killing off the pressure washer, portable generator and snowthrower market to mass retailers. And closing a 2 year old warehouse building in Germantown, WI.. And also interesting in the same article is Kohler acquired Curtis Instruments days after announcing the acquisition of Heila Technologies.
This is the first intelligent thing they have done since the take over
Big retailers force the price down & also dictate terms like defferred payments
Briggs can not afford either so their only long term survival plan will be to reposition themselves as a top shelf premium product and leave the HF market to cheap imports then convince the market that their "made in the USA" products are worth the extra .
They should also buy back some of the parts manufacture so they are making their own replacement parts & not tryig to turn a profit on reselling stuff others make .
Their days of being the largest engine maker in the world are gone and in the not to distant future IC engines will end up being banned so they will have to go battery or hydrogen .
The average consumer here rather go for the cheapest thing they can regardless if doesn't support their neighbor. Personally I try to buy American whenever can as long it is reasonably priced. I rather pay for quality instead el cheapo work.
This is also one the reason I buy oem parts whenever I can.
it will be interesting to see if and How Briggs embraces the EV market. I am not a bog fan of EV yet but as time passes we are seeing more and more conversion to EV and battery power.
The old saying you get what you pay for, Briggs has to many internal parts that are plastic, I always steer clear of those motors, even ones that have John Deere names on the recoil, favorite motors are Kawasaki, Honda, Yanmar and Caterpillar.