‘Revival’ Renderings Show Possible Future for EV Harleys
Lower, longer, and cheaper, the ‘Revival’ is the LiveWire follow-up we wish they’d build.
The Harley-Davidson LiveWire has been a hit with reviewers, but they’re slow movers on the sales floor. With an asking price of $30,000, few Millennials are able to afford it – and few who can are willing to plunk down their hard-earned cash.
Industrial designer Tanner Van De Veer and DAAPworks had the bright idea to take the LiveWire concept and, in true Harley-Davidson fashion, strip it down to the bare necessities. The result is, appropriately enough, called the Revival.
According to Auto Evolution, the concept improves on the LiveWire in several ways. It has a lower center of gravity, but a higher seating position. It’s also cheaper to produce on paper, despite utilizing the premium materials one would expect of a Harley-Davidson.
It also makes use of hot-swappable battery packs instead of rechargeable batteries. There are infrastructure concerns, of course, if the Revival concept were to make it into regular production. However, assuming all went according to plan, it’s be considerably cheaper for folks like you and I to buy one.
Power to the People
What we like best about the revival is how well an De Veer and DAAPworks nailed the Revival’s retro-futuristic look. The bike looks even more futursitic than the LiveWire to us. However, it makes us of some traditonal styling features that make it unmistakably Harley-Davidson.
One of our favorite features is the colored tires, which remind us both of the iconic Silent Grey Fellow of 1911 and the sci-fi anime Akira. The bike’s vestigial “fuel tank” also reminds us of the long, narrow tanks seen on many pre-war Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
The large LED headlight cleverly integrates a bar and shield motif, with several other logos tastefully placed throughout the bike. Overall, the bike has along, low look that evokes the birth of flat track racing.
Ideally, this is a bike we’d be able to buy for less than $20,000, but it’s simply not meant to be right now. Harley-Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz is aggressively scaling back expensive development projects and working to ensure Harley-Davidson’s continued survival.
Still, renderings like these show that there are still folks out there who care enough to make an electric Harley-Davidson for the rest of us.
Photos: DAAPworks/ Tanner Van De Veer
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