I'm not sure what the hell they are doing or thinking, Livewire is a folly....
I'm not sure what the hell they are doing or thinking, Livewire is a folly. https://www.cycleworld.com/story/motorcycle-news/harley-makes-livewire-its-all-electric-brand/ Their new "adventure" bike looks cool, but it's $20k!!! FFS can you put out a sub-$10K competent mid-range sport bike? How the hell will you cultivate a new buyer without it? While I'm ranting, the damn 2021 Ducati Monster looks like total ass. WTF is going on???
I don't think the strategy will get them far. Ultimately, it seems like Harley would want a migration path to their bread and butter bikes. I'm not sure an ebike does that and if anything Harley's image may be contrary to helping an ebike. The adventure bike segment is hot and it looks like a decent offering that could provide a path to their bread and butter. However, that segment is wildly competitive with great offerings that are very developed. I just rode a BMW GS for a while and it's going to be really tough to better them at almost the same money. Then there's KTM, Honda and on and on all with great bikes. I'm not even a fan of the whole adventure bike thing and I think the bikes are stellar. Credit to Harley, their CPO program does make sense to me. Some companies are meant to just fade away, they all do at some point. If you like them or not BMW has damn good brand management. Retro, adventure, sport and touring. Clear paths. They were down about 5% last year but Q3 was up almost 20%. I think Harley was down 18% YoY and still down single digits even as the market improved for others. Motorcycles are waning but Harley isn't helping themselves IMO.
A harley is a Vtwin that rumbles, its not an electric bike. Thy're smart to seperate the two brands, they do not complement eachother under the same umbrella. The Aero drag inherrant in a bike at speed means an eletric road bike is always going to be severly range limited. An Electric dirt bike makes all types of sense. In reality electrics have reinvented bikes with pedal assist mountain bikes, and look at the segway bike. These things are going to be more like big bycycles than motorbikes. One needs to think outside the box. Watersports is another area electrics are reinventing. Now you can dispense with the boat and have an electric foil board and even an electric surf/wake board. The the v8 powered waterski boat is going to become supurflous. Eve Kite surfing is takign over. Point is new materils and propulsion mean one need not be stuck in old paradgms. Imo the last bastion of Ice transport will be roadbikes, its the essence of the iron horse. Not to say there wont be electric sportbikes, but the meat of the bike market are cruisers, nakeds(ducatis etc), retro bikes (like triumphs and harleys), there a reason for that, and it centers around the motor.
