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Torquehouse /RESEARCH CHAPTER 06

Industry & emerging technology

Supplied source dossier · Prepared September 17, 2026 · Claims retain their original qualification.

From the September 2026 research edition. Product details and prices are dated source records; confirm the exact model and manual before buying or making changes.

Research date: September 17, 2026. Every bullet ends with its source and the source's publication date (or "accessed 2026-09-17" if undated). Items I could not confirm are marked unverified. Forum posts and opinion columns are labeled as such. They show what people reported, not official statements.

1. Ownership and corporate history

Hobbico bankruptcy (2018) and the Horizon Hobby purchase

Horizon Hobby: owners, acquisitions, brands

Team Associated (Associated Electrics)

HPI Racing

  • HPI was founded in 1986 in Southern California by Tatsuro Watanabe as Hobby Products International. In 2016 the HPI and HB brands split, and Ripmax (UK) acquired HPI Racing. In 2019 the Vestergaard Group, a Scandinavian distributor, took ownership. [source: https://www.hpiracing.com/en/about, accessed 2026-09-17]
  • HPI Racing A/S Limited appears as a registered UK company, number 12121836. [source: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12121836, accessed 2026-09-17]
  • Any change after 2019 (2024–2026): unverified. I found none.

Castle Creations

Traxxas

  • Traxxas is privately held and based in McKinney, TX. Wikipedia names Jim Jenkins as founder and Mike Jenkins as owner. [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traxxas, accessed 2026-09-17]

Other 2024–2026 industry deals and closures

2. Pandemic RC boom and shortages (2020–2022)

3. Tariffs, de minimis, and prices

Industry price actions (2025–2026)

End of the US de minimis exemption

Effect on AliExpress and Temu purchases

Court rulings on tariffs (status as of September 2026)

4. Retail status

5. Autonomous RC for education and research

F1TENTH → RoboRacer

Donkey Car

  • The project is active. Donkeycar 5.3.0 was released March 29, 2026, and 5.2.0 on August 5, 2025 (per PyPI). [source: https://pypi.org/project/donkeycar/#history, accessed 2026-09-17]
  • GitHub also lists 5.4.0 (August 22), which moves to Gymnasium, Python 3.12/3.13, uv and Keras 3. The year is not shown, and PyPI's latest is 5.3.0, so this is likely August 22, 2026, but unverified. [source: https://github.com/autorope/donkeycar/releases, accessed 2026-09-17]

MuSHR

  • MuSHR is the University of Washington Allen School's open-source robotic racecar, from the Personal Robotics Lab and inspired by MIT RACECAR. The paper came out in 2019, and the site still hosts tutorials and forums. [source: https://mushr.io/about/, accessed 2026-09-17; https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.08031, 2019]
  • The NeoRacer paper says MuSHR's cost and availability are "barriers to classroom-scale adoption." [source: https://arxiv.org/html/2607.26855, 2026-07]
  • Whether MuSHR is actively developed in 2026: unverified.

Duckietown

NVIDIA Jetson / JetRacer

  • NVIDIA launched the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit on December 17, 2024 at $249, down from $499. It is rated at 67 TOPS (previously 40) and claims up to 1.7× generative AI performance. Existing Orin Nano kits get the boost through a JetPack 6.1 update. [source: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-jetson-orin-nano-developer-kit-gets-a-super-boost/, 2024-12-17]
  • Whether the $249 price has changed by September 2026, for example because of tariffs or memory costs: unverified.
  • The Waveshare JetRacer Professional ROS AI Kit (Jetson Nano, RP2040 co-controller, RPLIDAR A1) is listed at $259.99–$694.99 depending on configuration. [source: https://www.waveshare.com/jetracer-ros-ai-kit.htm, accessed 2026-09-17]

AWS DeepRacer

6. Speed records (battery-powered RC)

7. Market size (read with heavy skepticism)

  • Transparency Market Research: the "remote control products – hobby" market, which includes drones, planes and helicopters as well as cars, will reach US$2 billion by 2027 at a 3% CAGR (base year 2018, published April 2020, 129 pages). It says Asia Pacific is ">20%" of the market. [source: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/remote-control-products-hobby-market.html, 2020-04]
  • Market.us: the "remote control toy car" market was US$296.3M in 2024 and will reach US$1,088.9M by 2034 (13.9% CAGR). It claims electric is 60% of the market, nitro 25% and gas 15%, and North America 34.6% (US$102.51M). [source: https://market.us/report/global-remote-control-toy-car-market/, accessed 2026-09-17]
  • Cognitive Market Research: "remote control toy car" market US$0.258B in 2023, 14.30% CAGR to 2030. [source: https://www.cognitivemarketresearch.com/remote-control-toy-car-market-report, accessed 2026-09-17]
  • Why to be skeptical:
    • These are paywalled syndicated reports with no disclosed method.
    • Their definitions differ: toy versus hobby, and cars only versus all RC.
    • Their growth rates are far apart (3% versus about 14%).
    • Their totals don't fit what we know about the industry. A roughly $100M North American "RC toy car" market looks implausibly small next to a single company like Horizon (about 700 employees) or Traxxas. That comparison is my inference, not a published figure.
    • The age and type splits (for example, "gas-powered 15%") look templated.
    • No credible audited figure for the hobby-grade RC car market (sources like Circana/NPD or HMA) was found. Treat all numbers as unverified.

Conflicts / uncertain

  1. Great Planes in the Hobbico sale. The News-Gazette and RedRC (April 2018) say Horizon bought the "Great Planes and Tower Hobbies divisions." Wikipedia's Hobbico article says Horizon got most RC brands "explicitly excluding Great Planes Manufacturing." This may be the distribution division versus the manufacturing entity. Unresolved.
  2. Wallis record timing. Guinness dates the 234.71 mph record to September 19, 2025. New Atlas reported it January 15, 2026, and SWNS/Cambrian News said it was achieved "earlier in 2026," which appears to confuse the announcement date with the run date. Guinness's date is preferred.
  3. Previous record holder before Wallis. New Atlas gives 218.53 mph (351.69 km/h), but no source I found named the holder. Unverified. It is not Nic Case, whose 202 mph mark dates from 2014.
  4. F1TENTH → RoboRacer rename date and reason. Unverified. The name was in use by mid-2024.
  5. Horizon Hobby's current owner. Last confirmed as the Ambrose-led Armory Capital/Mill City Capital group (2014). PitchBook's "Acquired/Merged (August 6, 2020)" entry is ambiguous and may refer to the Pro-Line deal. Unverified.
  6. Horizon's February 2025 price increase. The date and tariff motive come only from forum posts. There is no official statement.
  7. Traxxas/Horizon/Tower halting Canada sales (March 2025). Forum hearsay only.
  8. China tariff stack. Honigman's "aggregate 37.5% Section 301" assumes the earlier 25% Section 301 lists cover the product. Whether RC models (HTS 9503) fall under those earlier China lists was not checked, so the effective tariff on RC cars is unverified.
  9. The de minimis suspension's legal basis after the IEEPA ruling is disputed. The June 2026 CBP rules use a different authority (19 U.S.C. §1321(b)), and statutory repeal comes July 1, 2027.
  10. Donkeycar 5.4.0. GitHub shows "August 22" with no year, and PyPI's latest is 5.3.0 (March 2026).
  11. DeepRacer hardware end date. The FAQ ties "no longer available for purchase" to December 15, 2025. When Amazon actually stopped stock may have been earlier. Unverified.
  12. Market sizes. The three publishers conflict by definition and by several-fold in growth rate. None is reliable.

Gaps (not found; search budget exhausted)

  • RC-specific pandemic boom and shortage reporting from major general outlets.
  • Official Traxxas tariff or price statements for 2025–2026.
  • Horizon layoffs, and any 2024–2026 acquisitions or bankruptcies among RC brands.
  • Castle Creations news for 2024–2026 and HPI's status after 2019.
  • RC-specific impact on AliExpress parts buyers.
  • The Federal Circuit's Section 122 ruling, if one has been issued.
  • Current HobbyTown store count.