The following appeared as part of an article in the business section of a local newspaper Motorcycle X has been manufactured in the United States for over 70 years Although one foreign company has copied the motorcycle and is selling it for less the compa

The argument is primarily centered around the reason behind the failure of a foreign competitor to attract Motorcycle X’s customers using the competitor’s copy of Motorcycle X even though it’s cheaper. The argument goes on to claim that the reason must be something other than the loud noise made by Motorcycle X because loud noises don’t sell more cars in the same country. This represents the first flaw of the argument that we will discuss later. Moreover, the author says that since Motorcycle X’s ads don’t focus on the loud sound of the bike, therefore it must not be important to the consumers. The rationale here is weak and is the second flaw in the argument. At the same time, there are reasons to believe that the author’s claim, that there must be other reasons might have some merit as well.

The first flaw in the argument is that it overlooks the differences between the behaviours of those who buy cars vs those who buy bikes. For example, a parent picking up their kid from school would much rather prefer a car over a bike given concerns for their kids safety. Along the same lines, they would also prefer a quieter car so as to not wake up or disturb their kids. Therefore, the author’s claim that since quieter cars sell more than noisier cars, quieter bikes must also sell more than noisier bikes is false, as the type of people who buy quitter cars would be very less likely to buy a bike in any case.

The second stems from the assumptions made by the argument that the absence of any mention of Motorcycle X’s noise from its ads implies a lack of the noise’s importance. This can easily be invalidate by considering examples of famous advertisements which never talk about the most famous aspects of products, instead focusing on the more salient aspects. For example, some chocolate companies never talk about the crunch of their chocolates, instead just focusing on the flavour since the customers already associate it with crunchiness. Hence, Motorcycle X’s ad could be based on the same principle and would thus not talk about its noise since it’s already well established and synonymous with it.

Lastly, the argument does have some merit, as it’s likely that there could be reasons completely removed from Motorcycle X’s noise behind its success. This could have happened as Motorcycle X is considered durable, which might be different from the foreign competitor’s bike since the foreign competitor is also selling it cheaply.

In conclusion, we can see that the author’s claim has multiple flaws and is based on many unsubstantiated assumptions. This could be greatly improved by citing data from a consumer study which compared the preference of bike consumers between noisy and quiet bikes or any other such data which would support the argument quantitatively.