Peloton expects it to be a number of months before either of its treadmills are offered for sale again after a recall was issued on both models yesterday. One of the models posed the risk of “injury or death,” Peloton said.
The more expensive Tread Plus treadmill, which has been on sale since 2018, “could take months” to return to market, said Peloton CEO John Foley on a call with investors this afternoon. Peloton needs to develop a hardware solution to prevent people, animals, and objects from getting sucked underneath the machine and then get that solution approved by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). A six-year-old child died recently after being pulled underneath a Tread Plus, the commission said.
The cheaper machine, the Tread, could be up for sale again as soon as July, Foley said. He said the timeline for a fix to be approved could be six to eight weeks. Fixing the Tread will be simpler, he said, since it largely involves making a change to screws and washers.
Peloton recalled both treadmill models yesterday due to concerns they could injure owners or others near them. The Tread Plus had the most serious problems, with more than 70 recorded incidents of adults, children, pets, or objects being pulled under the treadmill.
The issues were less severe for the lower-cost Tread model. The CPSC said there were 18 incidents of the Tread’s touchscreen falling and causing minor cuts and bruises in the UK and Canada, where it’s primarily for sale. That model has only been sold in limited numbers in the US, but it was supposed to go on sale widely starting May 27th.
Foley told investors the company’s treadmills would return with safety in mind, saying the company needed to be a “leader in safety in the industry.” He said the company’s repaired products would be “one of the safest if not the safest treadmills in the world” and that “when we bring them back to the market, we expect them to be the best products by far in the market and the safest products.”
Peloton initially resisted the CPSC’s urge for a recall. In a note yesterday, Foley said that was a mistake. “We should have engaged more productively with [the CPSC] from the outset,” Foley wrote. “For that, I apologize.”
