Project Live Wire - Electric Harley Davidson merged threadfest

[Perazzimx14]

WTF is Harley thinking?

[lucian]

 the future sure looks expensive.

[fotoguzzi]

Wow, should have got a tiny URL for that.

[Rich A]

110 mile range? I'd want at least 10% in reserve, so 100 mi?

Way too limited in range to be practical. I recently bought an electric pedal-assist bicycle--I think that's the best application of the technology at this point.

Rich

[Demar]

No wonder Harley wanted Alta to fail. The Alta bike is a good e-bike at less than 1/2 the price of the  Livewire.

[Lannis]

110 mile range? I'd want at least 10% in reserve, so 100 mi?

Way too limited in range to be practical. I recently bought an electric pedal-assist bicycle--I think that's the best application of the technology at this point.

Rich

I dunno, they've been selling peanut-tank Sportsters with a 90-mile range for 50 years and people have been eating them up, so 100 mile range probably won't bother the target market.   Which probably isn't us ....

Lannis

[Rich A]

I dunno, they've been selling peanut-tank Sportsters with a 90-mile range for 50 years

Lannis

But 90 mi to a gas station is very different from getting to a charging station and then waiting hours (I'd assume)
to recharge the batteries.

Rich

[Lannis]

But 90 mi to a gas station is very different from getting to a charging station and then waiting hours (I'd assume)
to recharge the batteries.

Rich

Yes, quite.  But over the years, I've found, 90 miles IS a day for a Sportster rider.   A LONG day.   I don't know about the electric HD riders; they might put up with the range and recharge time just to be in on the bleeding edge of technology ....

Lannis

[gsp0702]

Zero claims 200 miles (city) or 100 (Highway) so if Harley are quoting highway miles then it looks ball park reasonable for current tech. Price again looks to be what you would expect and will only appeal
really to early adopters (same people who bought Tesla Roadsters) who are happy to pay a premium, would say that Guzzi owners are in all likelihood the opposite of early adopters so you are probably
not the target market. Ultimately for transport and cars/motorcycles in general  I would say that battery tech is a dead end and hydrogen fuel cell would be the way to go.   

[bad Chad]

No price is not about what you would expect.   Zero best bike has apparently much more range and the zeros msrp is $16,500!  Over $10,000 less than this turd.

[TimmyTheHog]

It is a Harley price? *shrug*

Put aside the price and brand bashing, I do wish to see more of this.

Might not like this style, BUT at least push for more competition which will have more players to make more of other style

At least that is what I am hoping lol...

[gsp0702]

Zero=Nissan Leaf, Harley=Tesla (BMW I3) so the price differential is about what you would expect, is it  a turd, don't know haven't ridden it or the Zero. 

[Aaron D.]

My favorite electric moto review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=-U8JK7lUqA8

[bpreynolds]

Dudes.  It WILL NOT get 110 miles.  Every single review of any electric I’ve seen, regardless of brand, always comes in at around 3/4 of the range listed in real world riding; however, someone willing to fork over this kind of change for this bike won’t care about the 90ish mile range.  In my estimation it is the best looking electric out there but will anyone be willing to go to the bank for this.  Good to see Harley trying different things lately, but uh, I don’t think this bike nor the turd looking adventure bike is gonna do it for them.

[John Croucher]

Price does not matter to most People, they are not buying it anyway.  It is an exclusivity club price toy.  Just lik


dark knight rises bridge
e many other high dollar toys that are very impracticable for everyday use.  I own a Buell Blast that is everything this bike is at 1/30th the price.

[Ringosdad]

No thank you!

[Toecutter]

Too pricey for me. But it will sell. And 100 mile range... or even 75 miles... is perfect for the average urban commuter, urban profiler, sunday rider.

It's coming. Might as well start embracing the idea.

It's still early in the game. The price on this stuff will drop, a lot, as they become more common, and more companies start offering the tech. Price will drop, range will increase.

The internal combustion engine as we know it will die eventually. It has to.

(alos, any chance a mod can alter that first post so this isn't 17 screens wide?)

[Tusayan]

At long last "get your motor running" will be technically accurate.  "Head out on the highway" less so, given the range issue.

[JohninVT]

 The price is three times what it should be but I think an E-bike might be a genius move for Harley.  If they put a fast charge station in every dealership, you could almost cross the country despite the 100 mile range.  There are around 700 Harley dealers in the US.  I know quite a few Harley owners who will make a dealership a destination for a Saturday ride.  IMHO, while I don’t enjoy riding them, their dealerships are great.  They’re a nice place to spend a half hour.  If an E-bike rider bought a T-shirt or related merchandise even 1 in 10 times they charge, HD would sell a ton more shirts and crap than they already do.

[Lannis]

It's coming. Might as well start embracing the idea.

It's still early in the game. The price on this stuff will drop, a lot, as they become more common, and more companies start offering the tech. Price will drop, range will increase.

The internal combustion engine as we know it will die eventually. It has to.

Wow, have I been hearing THAT for a long time.   We DON'T yet know that it's coming, we DON'T have to start embracing the idea, and the internal combustion engine as we know it will still be the main mode of motive force on the roads for our great-grandchildren .....

[Shorty]

If they found a way to make the batteries hot-swappable, and eventually universal across multiple brands of vehicles, they would be miles ahead. Of course Harley and the metric clones would then need to put baseball cards on the spokes. The Screaming Eagle models would use a bladder rubbing against the spokes with a rapidly variable compressor , to increase and decrease the air pressure to emmulate shifting, and of course kikker speakers to announce "cool" to the cagers.

[twowheeladdict]

No price is not about what you would expect.   Zero best bike has apparently much more range and the zeros msrp is $16,500!  Over $10,000 less than this turd.

Try buying a ZERO for $16,500.  Oh you want the 200 mile range?  That is an upgraded battery.  Oh you want to be able to be fully charged in 8 hours?  That is an upgraded charging system.  On and on. 

I remember when the Sony Walkman came out.  $120 in late 1970s.  You could buy an amazing Ghetto Blaster for $50.  It was a rich man's toy.  Thankfully enough rich men bought it and the prices came down. 

Hopefully enough rich men will buy electric bikes to make them more reasonable.

If one is really focused on the economics of a motorcycle purchase there would be no wildguzzi forum to come visit.  We would all be riding $3000 Hondas or Kawasakis.

[Demar]

   If they put a fast charge station in every dealership,

They could put a charge station next to every bar.

[Perazzimx14]

If they found a way to make the batteries hot-swappable, and eventually universal across multiple brands of vehicles, they would be miles ahead. Of course Harley and the metric clones would then need to put baseball cards on the spokes. The Screaming Eagle models would use a bladder rubbing against the spokes with a rapidly variable compressor , to increase and decrease the air pressure to emmulate shifting, and of course kikker speakers to announce "cool" to the cagers.

Hot swap universal batteries would be be great but would require motorcycle manufacturers to standardize and that ain't happening.

[bad Chad]

Twowheel, you need to check your facts.  The most powerfully equiped Zero has significantly more of everything you want than the HD and for FAR less money.

Equipped for maximum run time MSRP $16,890.

https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/   click SPEC at top of page

[canuck750]

I give credit to Harley for offering such a radical departure from their established brand of V-Twin cruiser style bike. This is so far removed from a typical H-D product and I suspect even further removed from what a H-D buyer is looking for. I like the idea of H-D selling an electric bike with sleek styling but I can't see how the H-D market could embrace this.

If the sales history of the Street Rod or Buel are any indication this is going to be a very tough sale.

I could see BMW selling a few, appealing to the tech side of their market base, but Harley Davidson ????

[pressureangle]

I rode them.
I'll buy one.

If, I get some assurance I can hack off the control limiter.

[oldbike54]

 Sorry , this is like the $30K Motus , which is a wonderful motorbike by all accounts , but maybe no better than a $20K Honda . They will sell a few just because , but Zero is already established and builds a brilliant if limited use motorbike for much less . Predicting this thing will languish in dealer showrooms like the V-Rod and Buells did , and they were competent motorbikes .  Time will tell , but the MoCo is grasping with this thing .

 Dusty

[bad Chad]

Bingo for Dusty!

[bad Chad]

It's ever worse than I feared for HD.  Their press release states in can travel an estimated 110 miles of URBAN road on a single charge.  For $13000 less you could buy the Zero rated at 223 URBAN miles!!!