quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
This will be a spectacular failure for Harley. They didn’t learn at all from the disaster Victory experienced when they rolled out their e-bike a few years ago.

All Harley had to do was build a bike capable of challenging and beating these two bikes in one race series and they would have found more success and interest from the younger crowd than their stupidly expensive e-bike will bring.

They wouldn't even need to beat the Japanese bikes. They would just need to be competitive.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Only' if the product has universal appeal, as each of your examples do. No motorcycle, electric or other, will ever have universal appeal.

I wouldn't go that far, battery tech will improve, charging stations will proliferate, one day the manufacturers may come up with a universal charging adapter, (I doubt it though since tech can't have one connector for all smart phones for charging)

But that isn't the issue making motorcycles of any type non-universally appealing. Everyone wants a cellphone. That by definition is universal appeal/acceptance. However, even if E-bikes got 500 miles on a charge, recharged in 20 minutes, and cost $10k, half of the US population would have no interest in one because they have no interest in motorcycles in general. By contrast automobiles are far more universally appealing than motorcycles are. As such they aren't likely to ever find the economies of scale cellphones have.

I have considered in pass to buy one of their's sportier bike, after they close their factory in US and move it outside the country, fuck them they can go to hell. I will keep my BMW S1000R forever.

quote:

Originally posted by skyline009:
I have considered in pass to buy one of their's sportier bike, after they close their factory in US and move it outside the country, fuck them they can go to hell. I will keep my BMW S1000R forever.

HD is building bikes in India and Asia for those respective markets. There’s no way they can build bikes in the one of their US factories and compete for those markets. Simple economics.

All Harleys sold in the US are built in the US. The overseas factories only serve overseas markets.

Me? I'm waiting for the battery upgrade for the "Libbey"

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
That by definition is universal appeal/acceptance. However, even if E-bikes got 500 miles on a charge, recharged in 20 minutes, and cost $10k, half of the US population would have no interest in one because they have no interest in motorcycles in general. By contrast automobiles are far more universally appealing than motorcycles are. As such they aren't likely to ever find the economies of scale cellphones have.

Exactly, however the universal appeal of motorcycles to cars is exactly the same as you said for gas powered motorcycles so the situation isn't any different E vs petrol. So that really isn't significant.

Electrics have a future in motorcycles, and youth are interested in electrics, HD knows this and is investing in the market, the Livewire represents the first toe in the water.

Even as a marketing program, building it, selling a few, getting people into showrooms, and finding out what the market can sustain is necessary, HD's marketing budget can afford the program.

Imagine this is the tip, there are a lot more E-bike projects coming, the LiveWire is the teaser, It does look cool


One thing for certain is we'll have a plethora of people that wouldn't be or are not in the market for any motorcycle telling us how it's going to fail. Maybe it will, however HD will learn about the market and its tech will be tested with the Livewire.

Yes it's expensive, but what HD isn't premium priced. A CVO Bagger is $42K, a standard bagger, $30K, there are less expensive but nothing cheap. So again nothing new, HD isn't looking to sell bikes to people that can't afford to pay.

Not all youth buyers are broke college debt kids, some like guns, have jobs, vote R, go to church, get married, love the constitution, and ride motorcycles.

At least they have the balls to give it a shot... I hope they have demos on them at Daytona Biketoberfest,

quote:

Yes it's expensive, but what HD isn't premium priced. A CVO Bagger is $42K, a standard bagger, $30K...

And my Honda Gold Wing sold for around $20K.
Ran on RUG, had REAL hard bag luggage, had a much better Audio system, inboard GPS, ABS brakes, heated grips and heated seat and a liquid cooled motor that with proper maintenance was good for over 100,000 miles.

The Germans, Japanese and Italians build motorcycles for the serious motorcyclist while Harley Davidson produces overpriced shiny bling for the "look at me" crowd.

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And my Honda Gold Wing sold for around $20K.

New 2020 Wing starts at $23,800 base before options

New 2020 Road Glide starts at $21,700 before options.

New RG has ABS, proportional braking, Electronic Sequential Port Fuel Injection, 111 ft pounds of Tq, gets 43 MPG, touch screen gps/radio/comm system, led headlights,

Basically if you haven't been on a 2017 and Up HD you don't know what you're talking about.

The $42 to $32 is for the top of the line CVO with 117 cui engine, custom paint, all the chrome, all the extras everything you could put on a HD for less than doing it yourself.

The new Wing is nice, smaller finally so it's got better power to weight, it's smooth, nothing against the wing, but you get outside of the Gold Wing and theres very little in the metric touring cruiser market that sells, anywhere near HD or Indian.

Not saying they are bad bikes, they are not
they just don't sell..

quote:

New 2020 Wing starts at $23,800 base before options

Honda dealerships are flexable with that price, especially around December.

My '06 fully loaded with heat, Premium Audio, GPS, ABS and four H4 headlights tag listed at $23.900. I paid $20K OTD

quote:

New 2020 Road Glide starts at $21,700 before options.

Try to negotiate a lower price at a HD dealer...and get back to me.

Honda dealers have to be flexible, HD dealers don't however I have negotiated discounts on my last three HD bikes. There are dealers that do and ones that don't have to, you just have to know the market.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
For an electric motorcycle, I'd put my money on a Zero SR/F $20k

https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-srf/



Or Zero SR $17k

https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/

Not bad, Really sassy.

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:

quote:

Yes it's expensive, but what HD isn't premium priced. A CVO Bagger is $42K, a standard bagger, $30K...

And my Honda Gold Wing sold for around $20K.
Ran on RUG, had REAL hard bag luggage, had a much better Audio system, inboard GPS, ABS brakes, heated grips and heated seat and a liquid cooled motor that with proper maintenance was good for over 100,000 miles.

The Germans, Japanese and Italians build motorcycles for the serious motorcyclist while Harley Davidson produces overpriced shiny bling for the "look at me" crowd.

Truth. Nothing compares to a Gold Wing. They just run and run and run and do so without any problems. There are tons of them out there with over 100,000 miles.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

Range is 146 city, 70 highway, 95 average of both

Back in my riding days I did a few 1,000 mile days, as did quite a few of my fellow BMW riders.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

Range is 146 city, 70 highway, 95 average of both

Back in my riding days I did a few 1,000 mile days, as did quite a few of my fellow BMW riders.

Same here, did over 600 on the way to NC several times in one day, however like most folks my butt and bladder give up before that, so getting off for fuel and a break is good.

27K for the bike is expensive, I guess I see it more as a marketing investment in getting out ahead in the market. No manufacturer of transportation is shying away from e-power, it's either the main propulsion or a supplemental propulsion system.

May or may not happen in some of our lifetimes but it appears to have traction, if they can get the charger access and time down it will go along way.

Still think the e-power systems have unintended consequences, battery disposal, cost of replacement packs, damage and fire in accidents or defective parts, then again we have all that with gas fueled vehicles.

I still want to ride one...

We even have good endorsement from real riders!




Link to original video: https://youtu.be/G4z11ZDW69I this guy will be at the office tomorrow

Well that should get the ladies in the showrooms

quote:

Originally posted by mkueffer:
We even have good endorsement from real riders!

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At 1:24 in the video. I've never been on something this fast... it kind of blew my mind.

Ouch! Jason still may be cool but kind of disappointed Jason would say that after getting off a bike with a top speed of 95 MPH. There are bikes out there these days that will do that in 2nd gear.

At 70 miles of highway range I just don't see how the livewire would work out well for so many riders. Many of us riders spend a lot of time on the highway in good weather.

Myself I just don't think the battery technology is good enough yet for these kind of green projects, and it may not be right for a decade or two for an all electric motorcycles. Harley really should have pursued hybrid technology if they wanted to go green.

And Harley has announced stopping production and delivery of the Livewire: Harley Davidson announcement

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
And Harley has announced stopping production and delivery of the Livewire: Harley Davidson announcement

To be clear it's stopped due to a technical issue discovered with the charging system, nothing mechanical or detrimental to the use of the Bike...

Harley-Davidson has halted production and deliveries of its new LiveWire electric motorcycle after reportedly discovering a problem with its charging mechanism.


"We recently discovered a non-standard condition during a final quality check; stopped production and deliveries; and began additional testing and analysis, which is progressing well," the company said in an emailed statement to CNBC on Monday. "We are in close contact with our LiveWire dealers and customers and have assured them they can continue to ride LiveWire motorcycles. As usual, we're keeping high quality as our top priority."