Take a Look at Harley-Davidson’s Original LiveWire

By Jerry Perez - June 27, 2016

Electric this, electric that, electric things are all the rage right now, specially when it comes to means of transportation. Here’s a quick look at Harley-Davidson’s very first experiment with an electric motorcycle. The original LiveWire.

There was a bit of an engineering revolution back in the mid-to-late seventies, just like there was in the early sixties, and that meant experimenting with all kinds of power sources, including batteries. Brooks Stevens, the original designer behind Harley’s 1949 Hydra-Glide, had a bit of a personal side-project called the, ‘Transitron.’

To be precise, the LiveWire nameplate didn’t exist back then, but that’s roughly what it is. the 1978 Transitron prototype was powered by a 24-volt, 95-amp Baldor electric motor, and was linked to a four-speed automatic chain final drive transmission via a primary drive belt. Power came from four deep-cycle lead-acid batteries.

Top speed on this bad boy was a pretty astonishing 50 mph, and the batteries were said to last up to six hours. That’s pretty incredible even by today’s standards!

While it’s understandable why Harley didn’t further develop this, it certainly would be cool to see where electric motorcycle would be now if they had pioneered the idea a little further back in the day.