I think it is all wishful thinking. For Harley to break into the electric dirt bike market I think it would be something like Harley breaking into the adventure bike market with the Pan Am. There are already established players, Harley would be a late comer and would no doubt be trying to figure it all out on the fly. And I would bet some serious money that if Harley did try it they would be priced above the competition. Like Livewire, it would just be another money loosing flop.

There are no shortage of opinions about what Harley should do to right the ship, but my opinion is these ideas that are far from their traditional products are not good risks to take right now. Dabbling in this kind of stuff when times are good would make more sense to me.

Again, my opinion, Harley should make some basic changes to stuff they already make and try to generate some interest in what they have on hand. I like the idea of bringing back the air cooled Sportster as a more entry priced bike. Redesign the water cooled Sportsters so they are not hideous to look at. Bring out a 650 cc version of the Pan Am at an more entry price point. Offer a Road Glide faring and standard hard saddle bags on a Softail bike, call it a Road Glide Deluxe or something normal sounding and price it as an entry into the touring line.

I largely agree with what you have put in your other posts. Livewire is a giant parasitical tick. If that stuff H Partners put out was accurate, Livewire is loosing something like $150K per motorcycle sold. They need to pull the plug on the electric stuff at least until they are finically healthy, which will be a long time from now, if ever.

 

Let us also be honest. Harley has more lawyers than engineers and sucks at designing stuff. The buyers of these products will not tolerate being the R&D staff like we do.

 

Electric dirt bikes have incredible torque and are a blast to ride. I can see them as a viable EV because you typically don't need long range capacity. I rode a buddy's bike and it is wicked fast . While going up a hill I had to twist the throttle near crest to get over the top and power came on so fast it flipped me off the back. Keep in mind that while your sliding off the back you're also twisting the throttle. Think of trials bike gearing with instant torque. Anyway if you ever get the chance to ride an EV dirtbike, don't miss it.

 

Can you imagine how shitty the suspension would be if Harley ever tried to make a bike with 10"-12" of travel...

 

Harley needs to find new markets. The market for cruisers and baggers is tapped out. The numbers show it.
The Livewire is probably the best electric motorcycle on the market. The problem being, it is well suited for commuting. That is about it.
The electric dirt bike market makes sense. They have the tech. The R&D costs to put it in that chassis would be less than a design from scratch.

Electric is the future of vehicles. Harley has a big head start.
Component prices are falling. The manufacturing is cheaper. The operational cost to the consumer is substantially lower.

As for the Pan America, it sells well in markets that move a lot of adventure touring motorcycles. They made an excellent v1 product. It outsold the BMW GS in North America for a few key quarters when it launched. The problem, Harley let it stagnate. BMW, KTM, Honda and Triumph launched substantially improved models since then.

Stagnating designs is something that HD has gotten away with in their base markets. Their core customers demand it, they don't want the change. If HD wants to expand its customer base, it needs to embrace this idea of evolving product more rapidly.

 

Save...remain an "on going company"?
In the short term, 10 yrs, my vote no.
In the long term, 30 years, perhaps.

Some of our co-members make good points... entry level, youth market, accessory modification.

To me, Harley has a "low & slow"market and the famous exhaust and vibration.
An electric bagger, I don't predict will have that same aura; that bagger I would cross-shop with a Honda.
Now, here in the short term, I wouldn't cross-shop.

So will the Livewire division save HD?
The research is invaluable for the long term.
But, the traditional Harley may just go away when cross-shopped.

I do not know what I would do as HD CEO.

Lastly, my current rant, a 2025 Breakout, with tax in Calif is $30K.
Nice bike, but not at that price, nor a CVO at $50K.
I'd cross-shop a Suzuki Hayabusa at $20K, also a nice bike.
So HD CEO, you may wish to consider luxary vs. want pricing to save Harley.

 

Everything Buell touches turns into bankruptcy.

Also HD dealers is treating Livewire exactly like Buell.

 

If electric was the way to go then why are most of the players going under? Truth is the government is funding most all of this and as those funds dry up, they cannot stay a float. The dirt bike market is a pretty good fit for what the current battery technology does support, but for an open road type bike it's no where near what it needs to be. HD as a company has ruined several of the electric bike companies as it sucked them dry then walked out the door with there tech. Now that there is no one that wants to touch HD and Livewire from the electric industry they are on there own and the only thing keeping them alive has been HD funding and that's now dried up as they can no longer afford to keep pouring money down the drain. Let's be real here, 33 total sales for the first quarter world wide is nothing short of a very bad joke. Now let's not even bring up them being GREEN as that another bad joke. If you own and ride a dirt bike and go out for a weekend how do you recharge the bike? You fire up a generator and that generator runs either diesel or gasoline. Investors are dumping anything and everything that has to do with the electric car and bike industry as the government pulls out all the funding for it, and customers are now learning the cold hard truth of it all. Take a look at your electric bill over the past 5 years and if its anything like mine, it has well over doubled if not tripled in cost for the same amount of energy. Near every company that has setup charging stations in the USA has either gone broke or has filed bankruptcy, that just why, when people go to them, halve or more of the charging points are out of service. Tesla is the only ones that are currently being kept up and even they have broken down stations.

I think there maybe a place for this down the road, its just not currently anything other than a fade that is dying out.

 

Yes, Buell's electric bike company (Fuell) is already bankrupt.

 

To quote Rocket, "This is true."
This is also true.
And this is true. So that's why they should quit trying! Throwing good money after bad is a stupid short term strategy and a disastrous long-term strategy.

What I found interesting in the article was that HD has the parts, they have the technology, and it could make inroads in several of HD's ongoing problems:
1) They're torching money at LiveWire, losing $176,000 for every motorcycle sold. But the dirt bike should be profitable from day one.
2) They have no entry level path into Harley. At least this would be one way.
3) Their customer base is dying off. But this gives them an opportunity to get kids into the brand early.

Properly executed, it seems like it could be a big win. Improperly executed it'll be just another disaster to add to Zeitz's pile.

It's more than that, it's a catastrophic calamity. It has to stop. They make great bikes, but nobody wants them at the current prices, and they're already losing $176,000 on each one sold. They must get out of the street electric motorcycle market now. Either that, or increase their market share drastically by giving the damn things away for free. It's not that implausible; they're already losing $176,000 on every one sold, so why not just make it $191,000 on each one given away? Close the dealerships, go to a Tesla model of buying over the internet, and let people "buy" them by paying the shipping cost. Seriously. They've been given a $100m line of credit that they're going to burn through in less than a year -- might as well go down swinging and make a massive brand expansion program on your way out the door...

But the better course is to just plain abandon everything about the existing LiveWires. Forget the street bike, forget the dealership, forget the high prices, none of that is working and for the foreseeable future none of that ever will work.

Now, kids' dirt bikes... or even grownups dirt bikes... that's a whole different world. LiveWire should sell those damn things through Amazon, and ditch the whole ridiculous "dealer network" model.

Nobody cares about whether it's green or not. People love the electric dirt bikes because there's no noise, no oil, no gas, no smell, no fumes, no spark plug, no maintenance at all really, and they haul ***. Plug it in at night, go riding in the day. Like it or not, it's an infinitely superior technology for a kids bike, and I dare say the number of people who bought them because they're "green" probably amounts to 4 worldwide.