They spent a lot of money to develop a mediocre motorcycle with a premium price tag. They are not going to attract new customers that way and approximately zero existing customers are interested. And they've now established that electric bikes from HD will continue the tradition of over priced, inadequate performance.

In the meantime the rest of the product line struggles with problems that never should have been released to production.

 

Apples and oranges. Everyone is looking at this thing from a current perspective. Many of the "problems" with current production bikes owes to the increasing regulations they must comply with. MANY of those regulations can be taken in stride by a machine for which they do not apply! Emissions, fuel, sound... no longer a problem! All the assorted parts added to motorcycles in the last thirty years to address them? No longer a problem! Mediocre? Maybe by comparison to an internal combustion bike, but as e-bikes go, would anyone be more likely to embrace an H-D branded e-scooter as their entry product?

Harley's motorcycle sales are declining. New motorcycle sales across the board are declining! Harley's core customer base is declining! The MoCo's core market share is disappearing from the earth in a market that is shrinking. Why on earth if it was either or, would you spend scarce R&D capital on a known dying market and neglect what is a foreseeable next market?

I may very well be wrong. I am not however stuck in the past, or even the present. Everything we do today will become someone else's history in the future. Vintage motorcycles will always be around, but when (not if) gasoline is an obsolete difficult to find fuel, Harley-Davidson is going to have a tough time selling air-cooled, pushrod gas burning motorcycles. The folks in Milwaukee realize that even if magazine writers and nostalgic "bikers" don't.

 

I find all this to be SHOCKING!

 

Where is his article on Polaris doing an Indian electric bike. Bet he says it the best thing since sliced bread.

 

Man, somebody sure is overdosing on the new flavor koolaid.

 

Whatever the situation happens to be...for Heaven's sake, do not stand by the new Livewire at the dealer in August eating the free donuts and drinking the free coffee kicking the tires and talking about how stupid the bike is and how anyone interested in buying one is. If there is a person interested leave them alone.

Why do I bring this up? That is what the 'bikers' were doing to the Buells when they were on the floor as reported by people that were there to look at them. In fact it did not stop there. When a Buell owner pulled up to go to the dealer they reportedly were jeered.

 

Maybe Cortez will endorse it as part of the green new deal!

 

While I admire your enthusiasm for the new product, there are so many things that get glossed over by the crowd that supports the new green way of thinking. There are always 2 camps in these debates. Some believe that windmills and solar panels and electric vehicles are the only way forward, some think they are a joke and will be exposed for that any time now. Truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I will add some of my own thoughts though. I work on natural gas compressors for a living. Big gathering system, processing plant and pipeline stuff. I spent the first half of my career working on large mining machines. I have seen a lot of the energy and extraction industries. Where do people think these batteries come from? The green crowd doesn't want to even know about turning a mountain into a hole in the ground to get the stuff to make the batteries. Everyone who believes that oil will "run out" doesn't want to talk about batteries being made out of stuff that is mined and is getting harder to find new deposits of. What happens when the magic that makes the batteries go runs out? What happens when demand goes up to the point where that stuff gets REAL expensive? Why do you think they call the stuff "rare earth minerals"?

I have seen articles written by smart people calculating the load on the power grid at night when thousands of electric cars start getting plugged in. The power grid in this country is already in need of serious upgrades and the crowd that believes electric cars are the future doesn't want coal, hydro or nuclear power. I won't get into the issues with wind and solar, but they will not come anywhere close to supporting what the believers say is coming. Lets not talk about the nasty chemicals used to produce the electronics and composite materials. What about all the regulations that will cover that stuff? And I could go on.

I am not anti electric or stuck in the past, but if I was running a motorcycle company that was loosing sales and likely loosing money, I wouldn't put all my eggs in the basket that has so many unresolved issues and unknowns in marketing. Put some eggs in that basket and put some focus on enhancing what I already have that sells. This idea that Harley is doomed because the customer base is dying off and the only answer is to re-invent themselves is silly to me. Harley customers have been dying off for over a hundred years and the MOCo has managed to survive. The people running Harley today and making these decisions simply are not very smart in my opinion. And maybe I am wrong too, but I don't see any logical way to spin the Livewire as a good idea.

 

Already Done.

 

So what does that have to do with the number one rule of a successful business: Provide a good or service that people want, need or desire at a reasonable price?