Another key point regarding the "target customer" for the Livewire: This individual knows the EV market, and has done his research.

He knows about charging times, battery capacity, range, acceleration, etc., etc..

And he knows the Livewire is at the bottom of the pack.

 

Similar arguments can be made about ANY Harley, just compare anything Harley makes to anything remotely competitive from any Japanese brand. The Japanese bike will be lighter, faster, more powerful, more reliable, many more features, have a better warranty and everything else.

If what you are concerned about is features, or the best specs, or value for the dollar, then it is hard to imagine how anyone could ever justify buying any Harley.

And yet... Harley still outsells all of them by insane multiples. They sell more big bikes (>600cc) than every Japanese, American, and European competitor COMBINED.

So the question is whether this will translate over to the electric segment or not. We shall see. I believe Harley has staked out very different turf than Zero or any other tiny company that the public has never heard of. And I honestly don't believe that anyone looking at a LiveWire is going to think that some Kickstarter-launched no-name brand is a viable alternative, no matter how impressive the specs. Even Zero, the only brand that most non-EV addicts may ever have heard of... Even Zero, the current king of electric bikes, does reportedly incredibly tiny sales. So are they truly a competitor?

If Tesla would build an electric motorcycle, Harley would be screwed six ways from Sunday. But Elon Musk has said they NEVER will.

So, again, the market will speak. It isn't available for sale yet. Once it's been out for a year or so, then we will know if it really is overpriced. Until then, everyone is speculating and nobody knows. Clearly the company THINKS they're making a good decision here, and they are the only ones in this discussion who have actual skin in the game. I am interested in seeing how it actually plays out.

 

Very true,

But, until the Livewire has been out for a year and we see how it is doing, we can continue to bitch and Monday morning quarterback the MoCo's decisions. Besides I have 6" of snow on the ground and more coming down, so my riding for the next few days is shot.

I'll tell you this, when the Livewire does come out and my dealer has Demo Rides, I will be there to test one out. I don't have $30,000 to buy one, but I do want to ride one.

 

And yet... Harley still outsells all of them by insane multiples. They sell more big bikes (>600cc) than every Japanese, American, and European competitor COMBINED.

Think your looking in the rearview mirror more than forward. I'm not bashing Harley nor do i think anyone is going to dethrone them anytime soon. That said, Harley sales continune to decline far more than the industry overall. Some manufactures are bucking the trend with increases or extremely small declines.

they are slowly winning over Harley customers by offering extremely competitive motorcycles, some might say far superior. Look how well Indian is doing right now, the new BMW K1600B Bagger is selling to Harley riders. Could go on and on.

in my humble opinion Harley should focus on who they are first, invest R&D dollars into the touring line. Build bikes that compete on quality, performance, handling, comfort and PRICE.

I'd suggest waiting on electric motorcycle R&D until battery technology advances, until charging stations are as common as todays gas stations. Until you can actually use an electric motorcycle as you use a gas powered bike today.

Harley has limited resources. Invest them where your most likely to receive your greatest return. Harley should be known for American premium quality, performance, handling, comfort and style.

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Stumbled across a Honda web site the other day. One of the posters had started a poll for '18-'19 Goldwing buyers, asking them what they traded from. At the time, which was several months ago, there were well over 100 votes, and the top responses were:

Approximately 50% had traded from an older Goldwing, 45% had traded from a Harley-Davidson, 5% from "other."

Pretty telling.

 

I've ridden Goldwings and the latest Harley touring bikes. If I was spending my money on a new touring bike hands down it would be the Goldwing. If I'm getting a geezerglide I'm getting the most comfortable, smoothest thing out there. But as long as I can still do back to back 600+ mile days on my Sportster I'm not wasting the money.

 

Duuuude. I love Sportsters. I had three. If you're doing that kind of mileage on a Sporty, my hat's off to ya! Keep at it!

 

Telling of what? When Harley owns something like 90% of the big touring bike market, what else could people be trading from?

Where is the other poll, the one where Gold Wing owners traded to Harley? And to be relevant, that poll should be conducted in a year where everything changed, like 2014 when the Gold Wing was unchanged but Harley revamped the Rushmore bikes...

Anyone can derive any trend they want by choosing small-sample polls. But the fact is that while sales for everyone are declining, Harley maintains an approximately 50% market share among >600 cc bikes. And since they don't have sport bikes at all, and the other manufacturers rely heavily on sport bike sales, what that really means is Harley's share of the heavyweight touring market is dramatically higher than 50%. That hasn't changed.

Here's another reference point for you: I was in a major Honda dealer yesterday, and every Gold Wing they had was marked down $3,000 to $4,000 off MSRP. I looked on Cycle Trader at the K1600B, found a brand new one in Austin for $14,000 and change. Sales of everything are down. But when you only sell something like 300 K1600 touring bikes a year in America like BMW, it's not all that hard to show a big % increase year over year when you introduce two new models. If they only sold 200 K1600B and Grand America models in all of 2018 (and managed to continue selling the existing 300 K1600GT and GTLs) then yeah, BMW could claim a 60% increase in their share of big touring bike sales. But it would still be nothing more than a popped pimple on the *** of Harley's sales.

When there is actually an identifiable market share shift, we will all know it, it will be front page news on every motorcycle site.

(Not knocking the gold Wing or K1600 either; if I was buying a big touring bike today it would be one of those, especially with the discounts available today!)

 

Did a 4,000 mile trip this summer. Put about 15K a year on my Sportster.

Have 3 Sportsters in the garage, but 2 belong to my kids.

 

Sweet!
My last one: